Occasionally things happen in life where you’re not able to do the things you want to do and for me, it was having the summer cold pass around the house and thus only getting caught up to Loudoun United’s road draw with Pittsburgh during the week (thanks CBS OTA provider!), but thanks to the East Coast getting soaked, I got a chance to check out Loudoun’s work against a Miami FC side that had not won a game in more than three months. The results, while expected, certainly had a couple of underlying things that I wanted to hit upon.

Again with the slow start? OK let’s look at it:

Jeez, lighten up buddy, they won! You’re right, they did, and it was good! They managed to get their heads out of the fog, Wesley Leggett drew a PK for Loudoun against Miami for the second straight game, and Abdellatif Aboukoura put it away to give Loudoun a reason to hold their heads up going into halftime. Also, and I can’t stress this enough: Miami FC appear to be kind of eccentric? Frank Lopez clipped Jacob Erlandson and he got checked for a concussion and the yellow card went to…Ryan Martin? Lopez later got a yellow card for dissent for an unrelated foul, and then just before halftime, got a second for the same offense, claiming that Robby Dambrot handled a ball in the Loudoun box (looked iffy from TV). Shortly after halftime, Nicolas Cardona (the captain!), got a second yellow for coming in over Aboukoura’s head, following a first half stoppage time yellow card. Highlights of games this year have had their goalkeepers do some interesting things. So while I’m unsure of their purpose, I’d imagine Loudoun is happy to not have to deal with that anymore this year.

Getting back the good ones. Kalil ElMedkar coming back from injury and serving (for now at least) as an impact halftime sub is doing wonders for him and the team. It’s the stuff he did on his goals that was great to see. The first goal goes through a bunch of arms and legs but started with him sliding in and dispossessing Miami of the ball in a sequence where Loudoun was spending so much time in the Miami half they maybe should have paid property tax.

ElMedkhar’s 2023 Loudoun team would have pushed to get him back, maybe sooner than expected. Thankfully they haven’t had to and following his return against Charleston, he’s played in the second halves of the Pittsburgh and Miami games, had an assist and led the team in created chances in the former, then scored two goals and hit the post on another Saturday. Having as many of the guys back and healthy before October is going to be big, and this one is big.

Random Stat of the Day: 777, the number of days since the last time Loudoun United scored 4 or more goals, a 4-3 win over Phoenix Rising FC.

So, where does this leave us? Loudoun find themselves in relatively good position at the moment; the loss to Charleston is the only one they’ve had in 11 games (6-1-4), Saturday’s win pushed them into 6th in the East, two points behind Indy and Birmingham, who they have a game in hand on. They’re six points clear of the red line and things look…comfortable?

They need to be for a moment at least, as the next three include games at Oakland (3rd in West) and Tampa Bay (3rd in East) before coming back to Segra to play a Rhode Island side who is one point back and unbeaten in their last eight. They got the easy three, the harder ones follow.