The last time we were here Loudoun was about to take on another formidable Eastern Conference foe before heading back North to stop in central Virginia for some Open Cup action. The results from both were less than ideal; a 3-1 loss to Tampa Bay, and Wednesday night a second-half stoppage goal from the Richmond Kickers helped show Loudoun the door in the Open Cup. So now the winless ponies come back to Segra to play on Saturday. What have we learned from the last week?

On the meaning of words. I’m not sure when the phrase ‘Cupset’ entered the lexicon, but cards on the table; I’m fine with it. Heck, I was at one when D.C. United’s 18-man roster of players out the door from the League or soccer in general went to Utah and beat an Real Salt Lake side that was in position to win a treble of American soccer trophies that year to that point. Cupsets are good!

But we’ve gotten a little too in love with the term, and should keep our powder dry when it comes to defining what a Cupset is, OK? Wednesday’s loss to Richmond was the fifth game in 18 days Loudoun’s had to start the season (by comparison, Richmond’s played the same amount of games in 25 days), and they’ve dressed 18, 17 and 18 in their USL Championship games (Saturday’s loss to Tampa saw them dress three goalkeepers), and they dressed 16 for their first Open Cup game and 17 for Wednesday night’s, which saw the winning goal bounce off a couple of Loudoun players right to the feet of the Kickers’ Lucca Dourado:

Make no mistake; I don’t think Loudoun lost this game, because they certainly didn’t win it, the Kickers did, and that’s reality. And I hope the Kickers go as far as humanly possible in the tournament.

But I’m firmly in the camp of the performance being a reflection on the schedule and the paper thin depth presently.

More mitigation. Even when Loudoun played decently, bangers ruled the roost, like Saturday at Tampa Bay. Here’s Tampa’s first goal:

And here’s goal 2:

Adam Beaudry isn’t stopping those, and not many keepers will for that matter. And sure, Thor Ulfarsson had one of his own:

I’ll note for the record a couple of things about this game though: Ulfarsson had a breakaway moments after the 2nd Tampa goal which could have very well leveled things up again, but hit the post. Rowdies got the brace with about 10 minutes to go, and things returned to normal. Past eye test moments the Rowdies did have control of the game, though I’ll land on ‘yeah but still’ for the time being.

On the dangers of incumbency? Here is Tampa’s third goal:

Bolu Akinyode was late to that one, and has been notable on a couple of occasions this year already. He’s worked with Axel Essengue pretty well so far and there’s some promise on the latter, but to belabor the point, if Jacob Erlandson, or Sal Mazzaferro, or Aidan O’Connor are back and ready, this looks a little different potentially, starting with Akinyode potentially playing a little further up closer to James Murphy and Sean Young.

This isn’t to necessarily pick on Bolu, Wednesday night saw Quimi Ordonez return to the lineup after missing the Tampa game to play for Guatemala, and Wednesday he touched the ball the fewest times among any of Loudoun’s players who played 90 minutes with 43. This was the second time Ordonez played 90 for Loudoun this year, the first game was the opener against Pittsburgh when he had 34.

It looks like Ordonez’ usage is a little different to last year, where he’s coming back to get to the ball and challenge players some more, and has led to him being dispossessed more often in the early season. A work in progress, with the emphasis on ‘work,’ but if you’re a attacker and you have more yellow cards (2) than shots (0), that’s going to need to change.

Random Stat of the Day: -1.7 (expected vs. actual goals allowed for Adam Beaudry, 4th best in the League per ASA, Ethan Bandre is 9th in the metric).

So, where do we go from here? Loudoun hosts Birmingham, another game at Segra were Loudoun play a team on full rest (the first was Miami FC a couple weeks ago), and one where the two teams with the worst xGD square off; praise be to overperforming defenses and goalkeepers! For Loudoun though, the path becomes tougher; the team hosts Louisville (and Hugo Fauroux) next Friday, then at Hartford and then back home with Charleston to round out April, then Oakland and Ryan Martin come to town on May 2. Two unbeaten teams, and another top half of the table one in the Roots.

Seems like a good time for Loudoun to get some confidence with a win with this new regime.