Following a couple of impressive shutout wins over California teams, Loudoun United returned to Segra Field Saturday to host a struggling non-California team in FC Tulsa. For a myriad of reasons, the 3-0 Loudoun win was encouraging, and that’s why we have this column here for me to bloviate!

OK smart guy, why was it encouraging? Well, the last time Loudoun United played and beat Orange County on the road on a Tuesday in mid-May, the team turned right back around and laid an egg the following Friday in a shutout loss to a then-win El Paso side. The circumstances, with an Open Cup game the next Tuesday, could see it for the trap game it was. Saturday’s game with Tulsa was the last one before a much-needed bye week to rest legs and minds, and it could have been easy to look past this and to some time off. To a degree, Loudoun did that with an early goal by Florian Valot (his second in two games), but looked a little shaky in the minutes before and after, before settling down and bossing the action, and Loudoun having a lot of bodies in the box resulted in a Tulsa turnover that Zach Ryan put away (for HIS second in two games) for Loudoun’s second just before half and some breathing room.

Then you can do things like get some guys some minutes, like Gavin Turner playing the last 15 minutes, giving Zach Ryan a half hour off after running his proverbial tail off over the last month. Then people can look forward to that time off, and the good benefits thereafter.

On the man, the myth, the legend, and the tweet: OK, let’s get the LeBron James tweet out of the way:

For those unfamiliar, Robby’s Dad Keith was LeBron’s coach in high school, and Keith recently retired to spend more time with his family and his wife Donna, who had surgery for breast cancer during Keith’s season (and Robby’s preseason). This is Robby’s second stint with Loudoun, the first being from 2019-21, but he missed 2020 due to shoulder surgery. When the League was shuttered during COVID, Ryan Martin wanted to have recurring Zoom calls with the team for sanity checks and the like, and Dambrot continued his presence in them when he easily did not have to; Martin was well aware of Dambrot’s college ball both at Akron and Pitt, his presence and leadership combined with his skills made him a no-brainer signing. During those Zoom calls, Robby looped in Dad (and I believe LeBron at one point) to talk to the team in terms of leadership and motivation, things that made Martin have no qualms in bringing Robby back last winter.

More importantly, Robby was doing some work Saturday. Here are Tulsa’s first half actions. The space in the upper left is where Robby, Jacob Erlandson and Kwame Awuah were.

Now part of this appears to be Tulsa’s choice (and well, that didn’t go well!), but it’s a credit to the trio in terms of working with and for one another when they needed to.

Then you have the goal and the reason for the shout. It looked not bad on television, but here’s a nicer angle (and one that hopefully gets him a Goal of the Week nomination):

Random Stat of the Day: 1,693 (number of days between October 13, 2019 (the last/only time Loudoun had a three-game win streak) and June 2, 2024). The record is 4, also set that year.

So, where does that leave us? Loudoun find themselves looking at teams with games in hand around them, so they can certainly catch up or pass in some cases.

However, for all of the early seaosn games with Louisville, Sacramento and Orange Countys of the world, Loudoun not only has a fixture breather but a competitive one to a degree. Between now and July 4th, they host Las Vegas (10/12 in the West), play at Miami (12/12 in the East), host Tampa (4/12 in East) and host Hartford (9/12 in the East). Three of those teams have given up the most goals in the USL so far.

Perish the thought, but Loudoun could not only match and top the single season win streak record (4), but could find themselves in unforeseen ground come Independence Day. It’s hard to not get over one’s skis with optimism, but folks may be talking about Loudoun United soon?