Niall McCabe’s native Ireland had already captured the “Six Nations” rugby championship, a serendipitous St. Patrick’s Day victory, before the Louisville City FC midfielder took his own turn on the pitch.
A game-winning assist and a goal later, McCabe settled into a green interview chair — he picked it over the red alternative, of course — and declared this “the perfect day.”
LouCity extended its unbeaten streak in United Soccer League openers with credit due to McCabe. He propelled the boys in purple past a halftime stalemate, going on to defeat USL newcomer Nashville SC by a 2-0 score at Slugger Field.
“He’s really pushed himself, and he’s been able to get the reward today for it because he’s worked exceptionally hard,” said LouCity coach James O’Connor. “In the preseason games, he covered an awful lot of ground. In training, he works exceptionally hard.
“It’s always nice when you get players working as hard as that rewarded with a goal or an assist.”
On this March 17, McCabe created his own luck.
To open the 56th minute, the midfielder found himself draped by a defender but the ball at his feet. After an extra touch to create space, he launched a cross from distance along the left side and found forward Luke Spencer — the club’s leading scorer during its USL Cup-winning 2017 campaign — for the season’s opening goal.
Eight minutes later, he booted another bit of service from near the same spot. That one found defender Paco Craig’s head but flew just over the bar.
Two minutes after that, in the 66th, McCabe did the finishing as the beneficiary of a hammered Oscar Jimenez pass across the face of goal. Jimenez “really needed to smash the ball,” McCabe said. “It’s the only way it could have gotten to me.”
On the perfect day, it did.
“Two yards out, I‘d hope I wouldn’t miss,” McCabe added. “But hey, you’ve still got to put it in the back of the net. Thankfully I was able to get into the right position to help the team and put the goal away.”
McCabe rounded out the afternoon by completing 70 percent of his passes, a respectable number given he worked on the left wing, with most of his attempts moving the ball forward. Two of those passes were credited as “key” by Opta statistics.
“A goal and an assist — that’s what you’ll see in the papers if you’re reading the headlines — but he’s working really hard to press the ball and really hard to do the defensive work as well,” Spencer said of McCabe, who opened his fourth season with LouCity on Saturday.
One of five players on the roster who enjoyed another 2-0 victory, in LouCity’s inaugural opener in 2015 at Slugger Field, McCabe has continued to develop.
He rehabbed from hip surgery that ended his 2016 season to register 3 goals and 4 assists the next year. He has an infant son to take care of, Luca Emmet McCabe. And he’s a leader in the locker room for a club that has never fallen short of the Eastern Conference Final — for local hoops fans, the USL’s equivalent to the Final Four.
At age 27, McCabe’s not done, either.
“I always want to win,” he said. “Last year was great, but we all want more. I think we’re just so competitive. Every day in training, it doesn’t matter if it’s 4 v. 4, 5 v. 5 — everyone wants to win. So when you go out there on the Saturday, it’s the mentality of us all.
“We all just want to get better and improve and take the next step. It’s just showing up every day and doing the right things.”
