NEW POD! Plus, Chattanooga preview & Omaha suspension
New podcast: A loss, a draw and vibes with David Magness and Tom Franklin
Dr David Magness, better known as FlorMingos, joins the show to (briefly) touch on the loss to NoCo and then dig into the fantastic finish in the 2-2 draw at Omaha, where he was among a handful of away fans. Then, Tom Franklin (Soccer Zombie on YouTube) joins to talk about his tour of USL matches, the two Madison matches he's attended this year, how he ranks the experiences, soccer in St. Loius, MLS vs USL and lots more. Here's his review of the June 15 match in Madison and here's his review of the August 3 match in Omaha. Available now on your favorite podcast app!
The owls come home to roost
As we mentioned in the podcast, there are a coupla Omaha players who just … don’t have the best sportsmanship. One of them, midfielder and prolific scorer Pedro Dolabella, will miss the Owls’ next two matches due to suspesion for throwing an elbow into John Murphy’s throat in the 51st minute of the match Saturday.
Here’s the video cropped so you can get a better look. Clearly the referees didn’t see it, because it would have been a red card in the moment. Which would have amounted to a game and a half suspension, basically, so the two games seems warranted. He’s also been fined an undisclosed amount.
Will Chattanooga empty the bench?
Chattanooga comes to town Saturday night in the penultimate round of the Jagermeister Cup, and their lineup will have an interesting look, I think.
This will be their third match in eight days, after league losses to Central Valley (I know, right?) on Saturday and Spokane on Wednesday. They’ve also been eliminated from any possibility of making it to the Jager semi-finals by winning the group. So, the only way they’d have any chance of advancing in the last round on August 29 would be to score something in the neighborhood of four or five goals against Madison this weekend (while hoping Omaha, who currently has 12 goals in the cup, doesn’t add to their total).
So, either they’ll throw in the towel on the cup and bring a squad made up of bench guys and training guys; or they’ll run out a very tired crew intent on losing 6-5.
Leo Folla, Chevon Marsh, Stefan Lukic, Mayele Malango and Lucas Coutinho are all scoring threats who came on as subs on Wednesday, so won’t be entirely gassed. They’ve also got Ropapa Mensah, but he put in a full 90 twice already this week. Even with all those guys relatively fresh, I don’t think they five goals in them. If I’m Scott MacKenzie, I’m taking this game as an opportunity to give some squad guys some minutes and saving the starters to focus on the league, where the Red Wolves are on the playoff bubble.
Given all that, I don’t think we’ll see Mitch Osmond this weekend. He was day-to-day as of Tuesday, and this isn’t a match the Matt would push to get him back for if he’s not 100 percent. That will likely mean Stephen Payne again playing deep as a fourth defender, with Timmy Mehl and Michael Chilaka in the middle and Jacob Crull on the right, in a fairly straightforward 4-4-2.
Who will the two up top be? With top-of-table Charlotte coming to town Wednesday, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Matt save Chaney, bringing him in from the bench again, but also wouldn’t be surprised to see him start Saturday and get Wednesday off. Garrett McGlaughlin is growing into his role — hasn’t opened his account yet but he was involved in a lot of very promising chances last weekend, including the Galindrez goal.
All of this is speculation, of course, so feel free to tell me how wrong I was Saturday night!