Following Loudoun’s not horrible result when Detroit came to town, I thought that it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to see them snag something out of their next game before heading into a couple of USL Cup games with League One sides. And, well, how silly that thought was! Loudoun found themselves down early and eventually gave up 4 to Monterey Bay FC, the most Loudoun has given up since an August 24 loss at Charleston last year. So can one take things away from something like that? Well, it’s possible!

On a little more nostalgia and a new coach bump. It’s only been a month since Alex Covelo took over for MoBay, and he’s gotten good performances from his team so far, with a win over Birmingham the prior week and a tightly contested 2-1 loss to Tulsa so far. With Chris Nadje, Paul Gindiri and former MLS an USMNT player Sebastian Lleget turning in solid performances so far, along with a trio of former Loudouners; Omari Glasgow was loaned to MoBay this season and leads the team in assists (2), while Riley Bidois and Wesley Leggett are tied with the team goal lead at 3 each. There was a nice reunion of sorts when Oakland came to Leesburg a couple of months back and to see a lot of nice players and people get together and see some friends is always a good thing.

On…whatever that was. Bidois had a brace on the day, started by this quick break early that caught Luca Piras in a not great spot, then Axel Essengue then tried to get to Lleget and thus put the rest of Loudoun’s defense in an ultimately lethal position on the first goal, and tried to get to Gindiri on a long ball that resulted in the second, which Leggett scored.

Following a couple of games where he played well next to Sal Mazzaferro, seeing March Essengue is a little discouraging, particularly as lineup footsteps approach, which brings us to…

The benefits of fresh legs. Loudoun’s second half subs were easily the thing to take comfort in; Quimi Ordonez and Jack Panayotou came on at halftime for Piras and James Murphy; the former scored Loudoun’s goal in the 47th minute, one of his four shots in the second half, and he didn’t miss any passes either, finding teammates for the most part in an outing that was easily his most impressive of 2026:

Christian Torres was the next one, coming in for Pedro Santos but serving as more of the Piras role for his first appearance of 2026:

Speaking of first appearances for 2026, Jacob Erlandson came on for Essengue, but instead of seeing him anchor the back three, he played on the right side, normally occupied by Noah Adnan, but also served to support Torres going forward. He didn’t look great on the last goal, but for a kid coming back for just his second game in more than a year, it’ll take a minute.

Then you have Abdellatif Aboukoura, also getting his first 2026 minutes after an offseason injury, the 2025 USL Championship player of the year contributed almost immediately; witness his shot at 6:20 of the highlight reel, which came moments after coming on, followed by a low volley that hit the post from the corner that he helped create. Heat map wise, the left half of attack appeared to be the thing:

All of this said, what impressed me about Loudoun’s second half was the general chemistry the attack had. When Aboukoura came on, Richie Aman (and his four chances created on the day) moved over to the right ahead of Torres and Erlandson; Aboukoura, Ordonez and Kwame Awuah was a little bit of the band getting back together, and everyone worked in and around Thor Ulfarsson fairly well all things considered.

The point of all this is that Anthony Limbrick may have had his first choice backline together for the first time this season, and has gotten the closest he’s had to his first choice Loudoun attack on the field together, for 20 minutes on May 30. Those 20 minutes will not likely be emblematic of the next four months, but if I can see what they did together, they certainly can.

Random Stat of the Day: 0.13, the goals added (per ASA) for Aboukoura, which puts him tied for third among Loudoun players.

So, where do we go from here? Ordonez gets to miss out on this week’s fun, a USL Cup game with Richmond that Loudoun folks are labeling a derby, and then they had to South Carolina to play Greenville SC. From a boxcar numbers perspective Richmond and Greenville are third from last and last in goals scored, and in the top third in goals conceded. Limbrick may want to mete out some retribution for the Kickers’ bouncing of Loudoun from the Open Cup, but with a couple of competitive games that don’t count to the main competition, it gets guys like Erlandson, Torres and Aboukoura a chance to get in better shape before Loudoun hosts Rhode Island on June 13.

It may have been harder to see light at the end of the tunnel before, but with the darkness of the MoBay loss, a little promise may have presented itself.