*Once again, Lou City brings Lexington to their knees on their home turf.*

Have you been thinking about taking a Road Trip? Boy, do I have the trip for you. It’s a short drive east/ south from Louisville and includes fun side quests like construction, traffic for no reason, and an I-75 / I-64 collaboration that no one asked for. You guessed it, it’s Lexington, KY, home of the off-brand Churchill Downs and an airport that hosts as many as five flights a day! And only four delayed flights in the mix!

But Lexington is also home to two wonderful football teams, the Lexington Sporting Men’s and Women’s clubs. No trip to Lexington is complete without seeing a match, especially if Lou City is in town. Get ready to cheer for a win for the Away Team (which is Lou City if you’ve been paying attention), if they don’t win it’s a shame! Cause it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old, (foot)ball, game!

I’ll show myself out.

I love a good mascot walk-out (not Sting or Float, they don’t travel) especially when the kiddos bring their personalities. Lou City got the cool kids at the April 1st match. Gleadle has a new Instagram follower and Davila the Elder’s sweet mascot was planning their wedding. I am here for all of it.

*Lexington meanwhile was fit to start a daycare. I don’t think any of these gents is properly trained to watch a toddler for more than ten seconds.*

*Oops they are called “Player Pals” but our players understood the assignment. Look at sweet blondie having the best time.*

Next comes the huddle! You would think the Lads would be used to their stalker but Jake Morris was on high alert for potential harassment this evening. It’s like he knew he was going to be a target of the Lex fans and wanted to stop it before it started. No such luck. Say cheese!

*Unfortunately the hypervigilance brought to the huddle almost prevented the team from letting in their captain. He didn’t know the password and finally had to resort to the ol’ shoulder tap.*

Players circled around midfield for the first minute of the match to remind everyone that the negotiations are still underway between club owners and the Players Association. If I thought for a second that any of these players were directly impacted by the conditions being addressed in the new contract, I would not be on this page right now.

When the match gets started, Morris is in his element. The crowd picks up his desire to put a ball in the net and the boos begin early. When he drops a Lex player to the ground, they intensify. Here, the scissoring begins. (That’s a soccer move right? Like a nutmeg but more fun?)

Excited to see Gleadle bring his intensity to the pitch. (BTW very glad that 22-23 is not like 6-7 because this picture would be banned from this site and the general internet and also the worldwide web. Stop doing the hand motions! I can see you!)

*Another reason the Lex fans didn’t love Jake? Here he is seen showing off his new cleats to the scared Lex player. Now entering the chat: Jealousy and Fear.*

*The teenage ball boys are in awe of Kyle Adams. Gotta learn how to hide those emotions a bit or you’re never going to get a date for prom, friend.*

*Time to bring the ball back down the pitch. Carlos is not sure if They Ready.*

*Jake ready. Lex’s Keeper asks who ordered the Awesome Sauce and Jake acknowledges. Tha’s me.*

*Time for the first dance-off of the match!*

*Annnnnnd we have a winner! More like we have a loser. Come on, Phil! You used to be Lou City. You’re better than that.*

*It’s another face-off between Jake and this guy. Guy does not get away with an obvious tripping foul so that sets up a pretty great situation for Lou City.*

It got a little hard to follow but I think the order of operations here was Jake’s trip → Jansen’s free kick → Niang’s header → bounce off the post→ Showunmi rebound → MTV’s Dan Cortese → Niang’s goal! The Lou City players are so modest that they all share credit for this and I had to actually set up a player profile on Fotmob so that I could get 1/20th of an assist on this one. Anyway, gooooooooooooal! Lou City takes an early 1-0 lead.

Before we jump to the celebration, let’s pause to acknowledge 1) Phil Goodrum’s disappointment in the goal (far right) and 2) Lex fans’ insistence that despite having the Keeper and a player down in the goal, somehow a Lou City player (any Lou City player) was offside. Wrong.

Fans were on stand-by and ready to join in the celebration and even take nominees for the Abs Club!

*Speaking of being in the goal, Moguel is taking a turn and soaking it all up. “So this is what it’s like to be a Keeper. Easy enough if we have the ball.”*

*Wait, where IS the ball? Everyone should just jump now.*

Okay we’re going to have to one-at-a-time this. First, new applicant to the Abs Club, Babacar Niang, is pre-qualified based on his credit score and other obvious reasons. Next, let’s take a minute to soak in the hot mess that is Lexington’s Molloy. He is supposed to be their best player and oops I’m not supposed to mention them by name. Let’s call him Red. Red looks like he just finished a Spring Break in Miami that he was not invited to. Lex needs to get it together.

*You know that co-worker that transferred departments? And you run into him at an inter-department meeting? Avoid eye contact at all costs. Taylor got the memo.*

*Goodrum has somehow advanced to the semi-finals of the dance-off where he faces Taylor, where he’s known as Davila the Elder. It’s not looking good for Goodrum.*

That scene in the original Ghostbusters where there’s one ghost (hero librarian ghost) and four unconfirmed not-yet-ghostbusters (insecure, frightened), and Dan Ackroyd’s brilliant advice is “Get Her!” Yeah, those vibes.

*Lex makes another run on Lou City’s goal so that we can get another of Phil’s classic surprise faces on the books.*

*Yes, we are still accepting applications to Thigh Society but 9 other Societies have this picture in their cart so we are checking out fast. Welcome, new member, Jake Morris!*

Alright, it’s halftime, so Arturo has some words of advice for Keeper. (Yes, avoiding Lex player names but Arturo is such a cool name, I’m excited to say that I know TWO Arturo’s and I’m name dropping at this point.) Just keep Lou City from getting balls into the net. Period. Simple but not Easy.

*Ok, here we go! I can smell a second Lou City goal and it smells like Wilson’s assist and a few other players’ arm pits.*

Spoiler Alert/ Celebration Gallery - Lou City 2 - Lexington 0 and Showunmi takes the goal after some bounce arounds.

*I guess you were tired of winning all the time, Phil, so you left Lou City. Glad that’s working out for ya.*

Wilson has another shot on goal and Semmle wants to say “Wilson’s shot was saved like a draft text I was going to send my ex at 3am” but before he could, the ball was in the back of his net via Showunmi. You learned similes in grade school, so you get it. right?

*Lex Keeper has Duke Coach face. It’s not even March anymore. Go home!*

*I am going Back to the Future with the “his name must be Calvin” reference but also don’t want to ignore the application to Abs Club.*

Before we call it a night, let’s take a minute to reflect on the bromance/ frenemies thing going on between Kyle Adams and Phil Goodtraitor. Their natural line-up presented so many opportunities to capture the chemistry between K (Potassium) and Ph (Phosphorous).