Deep in the heart of Texas the Hounds go, as a first-ever meeting with San Antonio FC closes out the team’s non-divisional matches for the regular season.
Despite having never met before, the Hounds and San Antonio have some similarities at the moment with both on three-match winning streaks and both firmly engaged in a close battle to secure at least one home playoff game this season.
The 8:30 p.m. match will be the highlight of Saturday’s USL Championship slate, as one of two inter-conference matches and as the game with the most points combined held by the teams involved.
So what are the 3 Things to look for in the Lone Star State?
1.) Keep it simple
Prior to the Hounds’ match Wednesday against New York, coach Bob Lilley admitted something as he discussed the weeks ahead.
“I don’t know anything about San Antonio,” Lilley said.
Granted, that statement was early in the week, and with a coach as meticulous in his preparation as Lilley, you can bet he knows a lot more about the Texan side than he did four days ago. But his willingness to say that underlines how unusual it is to face a team for the first time this late in a season.
Just as with the team’s game against Atlanta United 2 on Aug. 22 — a team Lilley at least had seen earlier on film scouting common Eastern Conference opponents — there is less time and less familiarity to formulate a complex game plan. That means the Hounds will need to stick to what they do and be sound while doing it, as this game will be much more about the players on the field rather than the tactics of the managers.
2.) Heavy legs
Lilley did another thing out of character this week. In the 77th minute against New York, with the team nursing a 1-0 lead, he pulled captain Kenardo Forbes from the match and let Anthony Velarde close out the match in the an attacking — or, at that point, hold-on-to-possession — midfield role.
It’s safe to say Forbes wouldn’t have been coming out of the game unless he was completely spent, considering the only minutes he’s missed since the start of July were at the end the 4-1 win over Atlanta, when he and hat-trick scorer Russell Cicerone got an 83rd-minute curtain call.
If that is the case, it will be interesting to see if Forbes is due for a Labor Day weekend off day Saturday. Or if not the captain, possibly Cicerone, who was barely getting up and down the field after 90 minutes of work when he scored the winner Aug. 28 at Hartford.
The schedule ends with eight consecutive division games, so an out-of-conference tilt might be the team’s last, best chance to grant some well-deserved time off.
3.) Split decisions
One of the things that makes San Antonio so dangerous is their variety of effective attacking options.
Even with a dangerous player in Santiago Patiño on the shelf through injury, Brazilian goal scorer Nathan leads San Antonio with seven strikes, while fellow forwards Marcus Epps (four goals) and Jose Gallegos (three goals, three assists) provide a multi-faceted attack with Justin Dhillon (four goals) also a danger, usually off the bench.
The good news for the Hounds, is they regularly see opponents with a multi-pronged attack rather than a single lead striker.
Tampa Bay’s trio of Guenzatti, Dos Santos and Adebayo-Smith, and Miami’s grouping of Martínez, Walker and François each put the Hounds to the test this season, and to mixed results. San Antonio’s talented group should provide a similar test, but it will be a test of the sort the Hounds have shown they are capable of passing.
