Two teams with opposite starts to the USL season come head to head this week in Louisville, Kentucky as the Dead Whales of NCFC face the hometown boys in purple. The home team will be benefitting from a scheduling quirk that sees them in their friendly confines for the first three weeks of the year, while the visitors saw their only home game in the month of March end up in an unfortunate result against league favorites Tampa Bay.

At least the support was strong:

Deciphering trends to expect this early in the season is difficult. For example, NCFC has replaced all but eight players from last season and will take time to learn to play together and fuse an identity. And Louisville, coming off a USL championship in 2017 should expect a successful 2018. But this is lower-division soccer and anything can happen.

Nevertheless, there are a few trends to have an eye out for this weekend:

Look for NCFC to control possession

Louisville City had just under half of the possession against Nashville SC in their opener last weekend, while NCFC controlled the ball against one of the best sides in the league. The strength of this NCFC game early looks to be their technically gifted midfield, and I expect the Triangle outfit to own the majority of the ball.

Look for Louisville to control the air

Louisville City FC won 54% of their aerial duels against Nashville, while NCFC won less than half of theirs against Tampa Bay. Six foot two inch forward Luke Spencer scored his goal off of a won aerial battle and many of LCFC’s best chances game from similar attempts. Defending in the air is going to be crucial to an NCFC clean sheet.

NCFC Strikers

In our review of their last game, we talked extensively about NCFC’s strikers. Their positioning on the field barely even looked like attacking players and they only had three touches in the box all night. Neither Rios nor Lomis has grabbed that starting job yet, and until one of them does, there will be question marks about goal production for this Dead Whale side. You can read a more in depth discussion of the issue in last week’s recap.

Recent Form

North Carolina FC: L

Louisville City FC: W

Prediction

It’s still early enough in the season that we can be optimistic about winning any game that we show up for, but realistically, a point on the road given how reigning champs LCFC looked in their first game wouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s a long season, no need to get in a hurry. 1–1 is a result I’d take.

Game info

North Carolina FC vs. Louisville City FC: 3 p.m. Saturday, March 24, Louisville Slugger Stadium.