Lou City vs. Loudoun (US Open Cup) 4-15-25
As we patiently wait for Spring to arrive, enjoy these glimpses of the Boys in Purple playing in what was likely ideal weather for soccer playing, but toboggan hat weather for photographers. I provided my thoughts on the action based on my extensive* soccer experience. Final score, Lou City wins 2-1 over Loudoun.
*I used to coach 3 year olds.
As the team lines up, Tosch has some advice for Las. If the lip-reading classes that I never took are working, I think he’s telling him to “keep the ball out of our goal,” and Damian was successful at that task long enough to earn the Man of the Match fan vote. Within a minute of his win being announced, he gave up a goal. But to be fair, he had to work much harder in the second half of the match.
While Tosch was doling out advice to the young goalie, Taylor Davila practices levitating as part of his pre-game yoga routine.
Even during the pre-game warm-up, Kyle Adams looks like he’s on a modeling shoot, where he pretends to be a footballer and is a natural. More Adams appreciation shots are in the Gallery below.
Some awesome dribbling and disco dance moves by Lambert to get us all in the mood for some football.
Header by Adams, with the bonus background of the bridge and the empty stands on this cold, Tuesday night.
Who is nutmegging who here? It looks like Lambert has possession, but that may be because I’m biased or the fact that Lou City had possession for less than 30% of the time in the first 20 minutes.
The Loudoun goalie and his D-back cronies were consistently messing around with the ball and Lou City wasn’t having it. Adrian Perez kept the pressure on knowing it would pay off.
Yep. That went in. Told ya. Loudoun looks surprised.
The Boys in Purple let Loudoun have the ball for a minute, but Adams helped Las keep them out of the goal.
But then Gleadle saw how easy it was to score, and he wanted in on the fun.
My lip-reading skills again coming in handy.
Perez: “I told you that was easy, right?” Gleadle: “Like making-airplane-arms-and-running-around-the-field easy!”
Getting close to halftime and Damian Las is mad. He wants to play too. Because despite having the ball for most of the half, Loudoun hasn’t really made much of a run on the goal, and Adams is making the stops. Both teams run away in fear.
I think this image best sums up Lou City’s relationship last night with Loudoun’s goalie. (Should I look up his name? it’s right there on his jersey, I can almost read it. Nah.) They were up, down, all around the poor fella. He should wear a brighter color next time, maybe that will help him out.
Adrian Perez had way too much fun in this game. Here he’s caught dribbling and passing to himself, and Kyle Adams has to remind him where the goal is. But they’re already up 2-0, so Adrian continues running dribbling drills.
Finally, they decide to let Damian Las play, and his save is one for the books, as long as those books are not for children, because after this glorious move, he can be seen politely asking [swearing at] Kyle Adams about how his day was going [“where the f*&$ were you?”] and you didn’t have to be a fake lip-reader to witness it.
Speaking of players exchanging pleasantries, there was a little tiff of some sort and the ref (not pictured for obvious reasons) had to line up the teams and warn them that he was going to start putting people in time-out if they didn’t use their words. The yellow cards came fast and furious after this.
In an effort to play nice, Kyle Adams offers to hug a Loudoun player, but that pesky ball gets in the way.
Damian Las, seen here earning his Man of the Match status and GQ cover model for May 2025. (Someone please make this happen.)
We’ve gone way too long without a photo of Aiden McFadden, only because he’s so fast it’s hard to capture him on film. Not that I use film. He’s too fast for…digital imprints? Anyway, he had several strong attacks in the second half, as you can see here by the way his hair is blowing in the wind.
As the match winds down, Lou City wonders if it might be fun to use two balls for a few minutes. When the ref puts the kibosh on this, Serano and Adams do 3 rounds of rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets to use their ball. Serano won.
Before throwing in, Adams attempts a three-point shot before remembering that he’s playing football.
The crowd [10 people] shouted “we want three!” and the Boys in Purple decided to visit their friend Goalie a couple more times to say hi and see if they could sneak one more by him. He said nah, it’s hard enough for people to take him seriously with his mustache, so he needed to stop letting them score on him.
After the 2-1 victory, Adams visits his Racing Louisville FC fan club (left, Savannah DeMelo; right, Emma Sears). I thought he might be proposing to Sav, but I think he was just taking a rest on one of the comfy buckets behind the boards. Whew.
Thumbnail Gallery/ Kyle Adams Appreciation Shots
