After each USL game – or sometimes after two in a row! – I provide a handy recap of all the content related to that outing so you can find everything you need to get knowledgable about what went down. As always, if I missed anything, hit the comments, or the inbox via Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail.
“That’s the biggest point that we have earned all season,” said Nashville SC head coach Gary Smith. “They put us under a ton of pressure. There was a lot of character shown by the lads considering how many games we have had recently, and I think that showed a bit in their legs.”
That pressure is explained by a few of the key charts in The Graphical:
Tampa Bay got a lot of shots off Saturday evening. 25 of them, in fact! Nashville’s goal felt like it was constantly under attack. Let’s take a closer look at shot quality, though:
Nashville’s offense on the left, Tampa’s on the right
That’s a whole lot of missed shots (nine) and blocked shots (10). When you take into account that 19 of those 25 shots had no legitimate chance to score, it looks less like Tampa Bay’s offense dominated Nashville’s than that their style of play is to launch shots over and over again, hoping that sooner or later some of them go in. I don’t intend that as an insult, either: it’s a fun style of offense to watch, and with a bit more quality in the final third, it can lead to some huge scorelines.
Matt Pickens 22.91 (99 minutes) – Community rating: 9.67
Pickens was blameless on the goal that was scored, and made a number of key saves and clearances with his fists. There’s still a moment or two per game where he’s going to misjudge a ball to his team’s major risk, but they didn’t bite the team in this one, and his distribution is a highly underrated asset.
He was good, folks. You can see the rest of the players’ ratings by clicking through above.
Club and Country 