So the USL plays in something called the Jagermeister Cup, which while bringing up old cringe college days, is “a World Cup-style tournament” that includes the Championship and League One teams of the USL playing against one another. Drawn into regional-ish groups, Loudoun United won their first match last month at Lexington, and played their second at home against Louisville City, the third game in 70 days between the two teams, and in the third unique competition; Louisville defeated Loudoun in March in USLC Regular Season and again in April in Open Cup play, both times in Louisville, so this one at Segra Field Saturday not only served as a calendar circling of sorts. So let’s dive into things on an eventful 2-1 win for Loudoun:

It’s not (entirely) about the Cup, right? Both teams employed a little bit of rotation Saturday; Philip Goodrum and Sam Gleadle were out of Louisville’s lineup altogether, Ray Serrano and Manny Perez were subbed off at halftime, Kevon Lambert came off just before the hour mark. Loudoun saw Yanis Leerman and Pedro Santos return to the lineup after missing the road loss at Miami two weeks ago, and Robby Dambrot made his first appearance of 2025 as a late second half sub. However, Drew Skundrich and Wesley Leggett were also out of the Loudoun lineup as was Jacob Erlandson.

This may not have answered the question, but asset usage does play a part in it, and a lot of Loudoun’s players also played the first game at Lexington too, Cole Turner worked his way back to his first 90 minute appearance of 2025 which is another welcome bonus to have. But I think if you’re Loudoun and Louisville comes to town, the good thing is there’s not a lot of getting up that you have to do for a game like that. Ryan Martin’s team knew what Saturday’s assignment was.

On the benefits of a break. On the DC News Now pregame show I’d discussed the pros and cons of a two-week break, first of which was the hope of getting players back into the squad. A couple of those were touched upon above, but to hit on Cole Turner for a second, who played 90 minutes of soccer for the first time since October 8, 2023:

Playing to the left of Yanis Leerman, Turner’s distribution numbers were similar to Kyle Adams, his positional opposite Saturday, but didn’t hesitate to drop back into the middle to reinforce things, as his 10 clearances along the six yard box above show. He also won 5 of 7 duels and 2 of 3 aerials, all of which were superior to Adams.

This isn’t to say that Cole Turner is better than Adams, it’s just to hopefully illustrate that Turner is probably feeling good now. What that means for Loudoun, in addition to Dambrot’s return, is good news for a backline that was already performing well to begin with. Turner can also play centrally next to Tommy McCabe and/or Moses Nyeman and provide some bulk in the middle if Martin wants to go that route. The underlying point being this Loudoun lineup is getting that much tougher to play against.

For a neutral this was a fun one! The home team wins, but the away team made it interesting in the last 90 seconds of the game. Go to 6:23 of the video and grit your teeth accordingly:

Random Stat of the Week: 2,134 (the number of days from Loudoun’s only other win over Louisville, a 3-0 effort at Audi Field that also included the first professional goal from current Loudoun player Moses Nyeman).

Your Moment of Zen:

So, where does this leave us? Loudoun can thankfully keep this same mindset when next week’s opponent comes to town. Charleston’s seven-game win streak makes them the hottest team in the USL Championship, having the East’s third place team (Loudoun) host its first place one (Charleston) is going to make for exceptional viewing.

Loudoun will see Louisville at Segra one more time, in a midweek match on June 25, in an attempt to even up what’s been an entertaining triad of games so far. The way things are going it seems like these two are going to see each other again one more time with any luck.