Nashville won’t have to go to the Great White North in order to play Toronto FC II on the road. This one goes only as far as Rochester, N.Y., and NSC should be able to easily dispatch the worst team in USL (by an incredibly large margin).
The essentials
Opponent: Toronto FC II (0-15-3 USL). 18 GF, 46 GA so far in 2018, 16th in USL East, 16th in USL East Power Ratings and 33rd in combined-table Pure Power.
Recent form: TOR (L-L-L-D-L) NSH (W-L-L-D-W)
The Line: No line
Time, Location: 7:00 p.m. CDT (8:00 local) • Marina Auto Stadium, Rochester, N.Y.
Event: USL Regular season
Weather: 71ºF, 7% chance of rain, 71% humidity, 8 MPH Westerly winds
Watch: Locally on MyTV30, stream with a subscription to ESPN+. See the list of soccer bars in Nashville if you want to watch remotely. Assembly at Tailgate Demonbreun, Roadies at Pastime or Party Fowl Murfreesboro
Listen: Locally on 94.9 Game2 in English, 96.7 El Jefe FM en Español.
Follow: @NashvilleSC, @ClubCountryUSA, USL gametracker page, #TORvNSH
Etc.: Story from the mittwoch.
Toronto FC II
This is not only the worst team in the USL, but the worst team in USL history, and probably by a pretty large margin. At least in terms of this season’s quality, the second-worst team in the USL (Richmond Kickers) is as close to No. 26 Las Vegas Lights as they are to the team that is directly below them. Working from the top, the best team in USL (Orange County SC) is as close to the eighth-best team in the league (Reno 1868) as Toronto is to any other team in the league. This is profound, historic ineptitude.
With an MLS2 side, it’s easy to say “their job isn’t to win games, it’s to develop players for the next level,” but given how brutal Toronto FC proper has been this year, the excuse doesn’t hold much water: there’s a reason this team is moving down to USL D3 next year, and it’s because they can’t do a whole lot right as it is.
In fairness to TFCII, they are slightly better at home: all three of their draws, for 0.375 points per game, compared to a goose egg in 10 tries on the road. They even earned a draw against FC Cincinnati. However, all three of those games took place in Toronto (a shocking 3-3 outcome against FCC in Lamport Stadium, and they played both North Carolina FC and New York Red Bulls II to scoreless draws at BMO field), whereas this one is across the border in Rochester, New York, where they’ll sacrifice four games to keep the Rochester Rhinos from defaulting on the terms of their lease.
TFCII is led in scoring by Ayo Akinola, who’s signed to an MLS contract but has only 14 minutes for the parent club this season. His four goals are nice, and when you consider he’s still 18 years old, he should be a great piece in the future. Obviously not talented enough to carry this team right now (nor to make the MLS roster on any regular basis).
Jordan Hamilton, Shaan Hundal, Aidan Daniels, and Luca Uccello all have a pair of goals apiece, with Daniels and Uccello also tied for the team lead with two assists (miniature Argentine midfielder Mariano Miño joins them there).
Defensively… 46 goals against speaks for itself, I guess. There’s something to be said for the fact that the parent club has had epic injury problems, and the B-team is so bad that Michael Bradley is playing centerback instead of pulling anyone up from TFCII on a regular basis. 18-year old Julian Dunn-Johnson has 105 total minutes for the senior team and that’s it. There just aren’t the horses here to have any sort of USL success.
Hendersonville native (though he grew up in Australia, he runs camps in his hometown) Caleb Patterson-Sewell has been one of the primary keeper for this team, but it should come as no surprise that all the keepers have pretty poor numbers: the defense in front of them is unconscionably bad.
The Boys in Gold
So. It should be obvious from the above that I think MBA’s varsity team could probably beat TFCII (and I’m only half-kidding), so it’s not worth the risk for Nashville SC to trot out its best players, especially given that some of them are pretty banged-up. Time for a second-straight game of a backup-heavy back seven, and against a team that can’t suddenly call up a bunch of players from MLS’s best team (indeed, the Toronto A-team is one of the worst, though that’s more an injury situation than the reserve side’s problem of “just bad at soccer”).
Don’t look for Matt Pickens, Michael Reed, Lebo Moloto, who all have minor injuries (though Moloto’s is no longer enough to list him on the injury report, nor was it enough to keep him off the field Wednesday), and of course Bradley Bourgeois, whose hamstring problem unfortunately seems like a longer-term deal.
Give me plenty of backups, maybe some guys who have hardly played at all this year, definitely some lineup experimentation, and put the big guns (at least those who aren’t resting injuries) in the 18 in case things go poorly with a softer starting group.
Projected lineups
The joke is that TFCII isn’t good enough to actually include their players’ names, you see. This certainly will not come back to bite me karmically.
Fairly similar to Wednesday’s game, with London Woodberry available after his red card suspension. I like the concept of testing Alan Winn at the 10 a little bit (as we saw some of Wednesday), with the ability to switch back to a more conservative/traditional 4-4-2 if necessary. Could easily see Brandon Allen, the better finisher, start ahead of him, allowing Winn to try to create for him, whereas Ropapa Mensah, the better creator for himself, is a better fit with other second strikers (for example LaGrassa).
It’s also some Canadians in the starting lineup, with former Rochester Riverhound Ryan James crossing off multiple “fun connection” boxes.
Predictions
Don’t need too much depth here:
- Allen and Mensah both play. Liam Doyle, Kosuke Kimura, even Moloto – the usual suspects – available if Nashville can’t hang with this semi-depleted lineup.
- NSC scores early and often.
- Toronto gets one back against an inexperienced side.
Nashville wins, 4-1. Don’t think they can score that many? Basically anyone can if they try hard enough to do so. I think a Nashville team looking for some offensive confidence should push for that.
Club and Country 