WHO: Birmingham Legion FC, 3W-2D-#L, 11 points, 11th place Eastern Conference

WHAT: A regular season USL Championship match

WHEN: Saturday, May 11, 2019, 8:00 p.m.

WHERE: BBVA Compass Field, Birmingham, Alabama

WATCH: I don’t know if the club is having a watch party. I checked Twitter any everything. Your best bets, if that’s your bag, are Against the Grain, Saints, Molly Malone’s, and Falls City Taproom, or anywhere else with a TV that gets WBKI-58. Usually I’ve gotten an inbox full of stuff from the club about the upcoming game, but not today. Maybe I need to check my spam filter? IDK.

Anyway, TV it on WBKI-58, stream it on ESPN+, radio it on the iHeart app or one of 790 KRD, 840 WHAS, or 1080 KJK. That hasn’t been announced yet, either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

WHO, AGAIN? A lot of bridges in Birmingham. A lot of ghosts, and lot of houses.

Sigh. Legion are a team that we should have beaten last time and didn’t. A team that we should beat this time, but who knows? Birmingham has won just once in front of their home fans. Since our shock defeat to them on SPRING BREAK they’ve lost a feisty match in St. Louis, forced a nil-nil draw at home with Swope Park (if only), beat a bad Loudon United for their first ever home win, and got shellacked in New York 5-0 to RB2 before drawing 2-2 at Memphis last Saturday. Memphians would argue 901 should have won that game. Heard it before, Memphis, heard it before.

Birmingham is up to 14 goals conceded on the season while scoring just nine. They shoot a fair bit and just under half of their shots are on target, but only 11.8% go in. That’s actually not a bad conversion rate, especially when you compare it to Louisville City’s 9.8% [bangs head onto desk].

In our first meeting, Legion took advantage of two counter attacks and a very badly defended set play to score goals. Otherwise, the game was in Louisville City’s hands. That, unfortunately, has been the story in just about every City game this season. While I have hopes that Birmingham play a bit more of an expansive game on Saturday, there’s plenty of reason to think they sit in a shell and hope that one of Prosper Kasim, Chandler Hoffman, J.J. Williams or Daniel Johnson get on the end of a long ball over the top to beat whoever happens to be playing in City’s goal. It’ll be especially important for Morados to keep a handle on Kasim, who leads Legion with two goals and 14 chances created so far this season.

From City’s perspective, there’s nothing but question marks. Does Luke Spencer start? Does George Davis, IV start? Who will play on the left wing now that Niall is suspended? Are we still going to play with Sean Totsch as a sweeper? John Hackworth said earlier in the week that Richard Ballard was close to being healthy enough to start making rosters, which would be great, but where does he fit on this team? Can anyone provide enough cover on the right side for Oscar? Who the hell is going to play in goal?

I’m not nervous about this match but I’m not positive about it, either. City, first and foremost, has got to stop giving up dumb goals. Scoring will probably begin working itself out, even in the state that the roster is in thanks to the injury virus that was released when we started digging up dirt over on Cabel Street. Someone needs to send a shaman or a warlock over there to calm the spirits that have been slicing the muscles and connective tissues in our guys’ lower extremities. But a clean sheet has to be the top priority. Go get one, and pick up some damn points while you’re at it.

VAMOS MORADOS.