Weekend Results

Legion get crushed; Huntsville wins a close one

Birmingham Legion FC

Image credit: Birmingham Legion

Hartford Athletic rolled into town looking to continue the form that they've been in over the past few weeks. Including Saturday's 4-1 victory over Birmingham, they've won 5 out of their last 7 league games, and they got a draw in another. That's 16 out of the 22 points that they have for the season, and before that run they just had one win in league play - a win over Legion back in April. Right now, they look as good as any team in the league.

Birmingham has been trying to get on track to climb back into the playoff picture. Facing Hartford right now was probably the worst possible thing. Hartford's first goal came from a soft penalty that was given in the box, and Mamadou Dieng converted the penalty. Their second goal came almost immediately after the first as Legion's back line collapsed to give Dieng another easy goal. The rest of the match felt like an illusion. Birmingham kept pushing, and had some chances to even things up. Pasher blasted a shot off of the crossbar, and Shashoua drew a foul in the box. The ensuing PK debacle sums things up for the match. Instead of Pasher taking the PK, Shashoua took it. He did a stutter step, and shot to the keeper's left: blocked. But wait, the keeper jumped the gun, so there was a second chance. Shashoua gives another stutter step approach, fires to the keeper's right… blocked again. Birmingham made some very late substitutions in an attempt to throw the kitchen sink at Hartford. Notably, Legion went down to two center backs (from three). So, a hard push forward with the back door open. Hartford scored two more goals (90’+1 and 90’+3) before Birmingham got a consolation goal at the death. Final score, Legion lost 1-4.

The crowd was very light, and some fans headed for the exits with about five minutes left in regulation. When Hartford scored their third goal, a huge chunk of the remaining fans joined the exodus. The mood on the field among players and staff after the game was abysmal. During the post-game presser, Briggs called the performance “embarrassing”. While he said that was on him as the coach, he also said that he felt like only one player (Tregarthen) had given 100% effort for the game. I'll be blunt and say that Briggs needs to take a hard look in the mirror. He had made some questionable (on the verge of baffling) roster decisions, and as I re-watched the match there was a strong point made before Dieng struck his penalty that he has shot every penalty this season to the left of the keeper. The announcer knew it, but Legion apparently didn't. Dieng shot to MVO's left, as MVO dove to the right. That's a coaching issue. Birmingham has won just four league games this season - the lowest win total in the entire league.

Legion will have a league-mandated mental health break this week. The players, staff, and fans need it.

Lastly, Danny Trejo posted a story on Instagram a couple of hours before the game on Saturday. His feet, by a piece of luggage, and captioned with a reference to going to Cali. He could have been getting a head start on the mandated break. But there was plenty of speculation among fans that he's moving on from the club to another opportunity. That's a story to watch.

Huntsville City FC

Image credit: Carolina Core

Huntsville has been on a roll, and came into Sunday's match against Carolina Core needing to be sure they didn't fall into a trap by being overconfident. The Core have have some solid results of their own recently, and they tend to play tight matches against HCFC.

The game was as advertised. Huntsville got off to a quick start, scoring three goals in the first half, including a brace by Alan Carleton. They had 60% possession and kept pressure on Carolina, whose keeper made five saves on the night. Carolina came out in the second half and made a game of it, scoring two unanswered goals. The first of those came from Jesus Ibarra, who signed with the club last week. They made it interesting, but fell short, with Huntsville picking up three more points from a 3-2 win, moving them up to third place in the East.