Fresno is traveling to Las Vegas on September 14th to take on the Lights. When Vegas visited the Foxes on August 3rd, they left with nothing after a 2-1 defeat. They will be looking to take something from this meet up to shore up their season and make a last-minute push for a play-offs chance. The game starts at 7:30 P.M. and will be on ESPN+.

Lights Going Out

While the Lights sit just five points adrift of the play-off line, the number of games to push them over the edge is dwindling quickly. If they cannot beat the Foxes on Saturday, they have just 15 points left to win from the end of the season. Those last five games will be challenging for them to win, given their most recent run of form, and it will be worse because of increased pressure.

Saturday’s game is a quick follow up to a rough mid-week game against Phoenix on Wednesday. The Lights lost, 1-0, on their home turf. Their legs will be tired after three straight weeks of Wednesday night games. The truth for Las Vegas is that the chickens are coming home to roost and they are on the chopping block. This game matters. If Vegas wants a shot at the playoffs, this game is a must-win.

All Parra All the Time

So far there are two stand-out players on the Lights team. Their superstar striker Irvin Parra (#11) has scored ten goals and notched up five assists for the team. Far and away, he is the most important and dangerous part of their team. On the other end of the pitch, their secondary all-star is Thomas Olsen(#1) who has nine clean sheets.

Overall Vegas has scored 35 goals and conceded 44 – not an impressive record despite the clean sheets Olsen has racked up. Like I talked about in the August post, Vegas is a hit or miss team. They lose a lot, and the last two times they’ve lost its been at home, which is their traditional stronghold. It is going to take something special from them on Saturday to pull off this upset win.

Hit Them, and Hit Them Again

We are coming off an ugly win in Reno. Probably the ugliest win I can remember from the last two seasons. We showcased our ability to score penalties in that game, a welcome improvement over previously in the season, but we need to score more and better if we are going to keep ourselves in 2nd place. At this point, 2nd place is probably the best we can hope for. Phoenix is two games ahead of us, but they are 19 wins in a row right now. So, we need to keep pushing to get the three points and ensure a great playoff game at home.

We have Jackson, Cooper, Johnson, and Casillas that can bring the ball down quickly and that means we should be able to put the ball in the net against Vegas. We need to shore-up the recent defensive frailties that have come up. Last game we conceded two goals, exactly the same down to the assist and goal-scorer, in the last ten minutes of the game. Until we block up those defensive gaps, it’s unlikely we will see out many games. Jems is going on international duty, so there is a likelihood we will see a change of the team from last time.

I don’t anticipate Smith being okay with taking the back foot in this game. I think we will come out blazing and put the pressure on Las Vegas early. We should be getting the ball to Chavez and Lawal with the hopes that they can score. The fact that we don’t have one of our CBs means that a back four might be in order. We might get to see some movement around for the connections between wings and full-backs in terms of passing lanes and attack. It remains to be seen if we can figure out the hole left in our game by the loss of Basuljevic.

Prediction

I think it will be a close game, but the Foxes I think will be able to squeeze something out of it.

1-0 to the Foxes.

#SommosZorros