The Mingos laid an egg
To say the Flamingos laid an egg in the first round of the US Open Cup would be an understatement, as they looked listless and bereft of ideas in a 2-0 loss to USL League Two side Flint City Bucks. But there are two upsides: we don’t have to worry about any more Open Cup travel, and we go again tonight!
Forward Madison at FC Naples | Paradise Coast Sports Complex | 6 PM | ESPN+
I’m approaching this match with the sunny optimism of Marge Gunderson, lifting the spirits of her husband Norm, who’s just learned that the Hauchmans are entering a painting in the competition to be featured on a US Postal Stamp:
“Aw, hon, you’re better’n em.”
“They’re real good.”
“They’re good, Norm, but you’re better’n em.”
(If you haven’t seen Fargo … please do.)
FC Naples is good. Real good. But we’re better’n em.
They’ve scored five goals in their first three matches, including two from Dominic Bachstein, who seems to have stepped into the shoes of last year’s leading scorer Karsen Henderlong after he headed back up to the Championship in the offseason. Winger Chris Garcia seems to have picked up right where he left off, creating havock whereever he goes.
Naples already has three league matches on the books. They conceded twice to Corpus Christi and settled for a draw, but kept clean sheets against Richmond and Fort Wayne.
To get a result, Madison’s defenders will have to keep Bachstein quiet the way they did Knoxville’s Denis Krioutchenkov and keep Naple’s wingers contained to the wide areas. The midfielders and strikers will have to do better breaking lines and exploiting the central channels, and will need to find more creativity in the middle of the park than they have in their first two matches.
In our preseason interview, Mark Segbergs told us that the team “goes for the throat” when they turn over on the press, but to be frank we haven’t seen that killer instinct nearly enough yet. Naples keeper Lalo Delgado is still one of the best in the league, but he’s vulnerable if we can keep him under pressure.
An update from Iceland
I’m with my whole crew are in Iceland for a spring break trip, and we did a bit of aurora chasing. As I mentioned on the pod last week, Eric from Wisconsin Soccer Central let me know there’s actually pro soccer happening here this week. The Icelandic Football Cup second round match I planned to go to Thursday got rescheduled to Sunday due to weather (a snowstorm? in Iceland? no way), so if I’m able to get there I’ll record a recap and add that to next week’s podcast.
Speaking of … we are going to try and put out an episode this week, though it’ll be a bit light. Ethan plans to record a game reaction and an interview of some sort; the biggest question is whether I’ll be able to get the edit done. Look for an episode or “oops we don’t have an episode” announcement midweek.
Listen to last week’s pod if you haven’t
After we dispensed with the justifications and silver linings from the loss to Flint City, we welcomed Ian Anderson from the Forza Naples podcast to preview the match and find out how the club’s sophomore season is going.
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