Preview and Scouting Report: Down but not out San Antonio FC provide next challenge for Riverhounds SC

Photo courtesy San Antonio FC

The many challenges the Riverhounds SC have faced this season have demonstrated how difficult it is for a professional soccer club to stay at the top of the standings year-after-year.

Another club which has experienced an overall drop off to this point of the 2024 campaign has been San Antonio FC, who come into their match at Highmark Stadium on Saturday (7 p.m. kickoff) having a down season by the club’s recent lofty standards.

In fact, Saturday night’s match features the past two USL Championship Players Shield winning clubs, who are each sitting on the wrong side of the playoff line.

The Hounds are currently 10th in the Eastern Conference while San Antonio, the 2022 USL Cup winners, are sitting in 11th (out of 12) teams in the Western Conference.

Clearly, the key storyline in this match is that this will be two desperate teams looking to stay alive in their respective bids to return to the postseason.

As far as Pittsburgh is concerned, they’ve been digging themselves out of a hole for over a month. Earning a post season spot won’t be easy though, as the Hounds have 11 matches remaining in the season, and they currently trail Rhode Island by three points and Detroit City by four in the standings.  ** In this week’s Riverhounds Notebook, we took an in-depth look at what it will take for Pittsburgh to earn their seventh straight postseason berth **

Since losing a heartbreaker at home to Monterey Bay FC that extended unprecedented winless and goal-less streaks, the Hounds have turned things around and are without a loss in the last five matches (3-0-2), with the most recent result coming on Wednesday night, as Pittsburgh played Conference rival Detroit City FC to a scoreless stalemate in Michigan.

San Antonio will have the benefit of being more rested, as they didn’t have to play a midweek contest.

The Hounds played Saturday, then Wednesday, and now head into this match on just a few days rest.  The good news for Pittsburgh is that besides some knocks here and there, they don’t have any players listed on the injury report, and it appears Head Coach Bob Lilley and his staff have a full roster to choose their 18 to put on the card and the subsequent starting 11.

San Antonio FC: A Closer Look

Awarded as USL Championship franchise in 2016, SAFC experienced some ups and downs in their initial years, but under the direction of Head Coach Alen Marcina, the club has been a perennial contender pretty much since his arrival in 2019.  In an interesting note, Marcina played for Lilley, as a member of the Vancouver Whitecaps, for a brief time in 2007.

The club’s success culminated in 2022, when they completed an impressive Players Shield winning regular season campaign, then backed it up by taking the USL Cup, defeating Louisville City FC in the final.

There’s little way to sugarcoat things — this is a team that heads into the matchup with the Riverhounds in fairly poor form.

Since beating Phoenix Rising, 2-1, on July 6, San Antonio has proceeded to lose three straight matches to fellow Western Conference foes.

SAFC find themselves 10th in the West, only above Tulsa and El Paso and not yet able to be within striking distance of eighth placed Orange County for the final playoff spot. They’ve lost eight of their last nine matches, and yet despite the poor run of form, San Antonio is hanging around, sitting seven points out of the playoff place.

They can thank their offensive output, or lack thereof, for this position, as they’ve only notched 19 goals.  Though they take a similar tactical approach under Marcina as they have when they won the USL Cup two years ago, playing direct and winning many of those battles in the attacking third, they’re not creating consistent pressure and generating scoring chances at the rate they did in 2022 and 2023.  While the Hounds get more touches in the box, San Antonio will work in a lot of balls in from crosses (2nd in league in crossing accuracy) and corners (fourth in total corners taken).

Those 19 goals are the fourth worst in the West, which is unfortunate because the defense ranks in the upper half.  Unlike the Hounds, who couldn’t score goals for a lot of the first half of the season despite being near top of league in touches in box and big chances, San Antonio has not created a lot of big chances (fifth worst in league with 34) in the middle of the pack in touches in the opposing box (445).

San Antonio, meanwhile, has seven goals from top scorer Juan Agudelo, now a 31 year-old veteran, who from 2013-2021, was once a mainstay in MLS (mostly with New England) and part of USMNT player pool. In recent years, he was among a crowded group of attackers in Birmingham, scoring 12 goals in two seasons. SAFC has struggled to find the net with only one goal in a current three-match losing streak; that came last Saturday as Argentine and another USLC/MLS vet, 33 year-old Luis Solignac, scored the opener, but FC Tulsa rallied to win 3-1 in San Antonio.

The playmaker and probably the most dynamic player to watch for SAFC is 23 year-old Jorge Hernandez, who spent most of his professional career with LA Galaxy II, scoring his first USLC goal back when he was 17 years of age. Hernandez also had brief stints in Ukraine and Belgium.  This season, Hernandez has registered assists (league leading 8) on nearly half of SAFC’s 19 goals this season, in addition to his one goal.

Leading the defensive corps, is team captain, Mitchell Taintor, who was USL Championship’s Defensive Player of the Year and former Chicago Fire product Kendall Burks who had a brief spell with English club Nottingham Forest in 2021-22.  Taintor is now a veteran, who previously played with Sacramento Republic and was drafted out of college (Rutgers) in MLS SuperDraft by Toronto FC.  Another fun fact — Taintor was part of the Ocean City Nor’easters squad that upset the Riverhounds in the 2013 US Open Cup. Burks, who has been in the middle of a three-man center back grouping, is the only San Antonio player to appear in every match this season.

San Antonio splits the goalkeeping duties with a Mexican and American veteran combo, as Kendall McIntosh and Pablo Sisniega.

In their last outing, SAFC looked strong at the start of the contest, but fell off poorly in the second half, losing to FC Tulsa, 3-1.  were playing fast, physical and even created some moments of attacking through the middle of the field

Here’s how San Antonio lined up against Tulsa last Saturday.

Hounds Projected Starting XI and Match-Ups To Watch

Could this be a trap game for the Hounds?

With San Antonio having some rest and a short turnaround the Hounds — that could a legitimate concern, but Bob Lilley and his players will be prepared.  Pittsburgh has gone with some extra squad rotation and used all possible substitutions in their last two matches.

Tactically, Pittsburgh will need to be prepared for SAFC’s constant direct play and the midfielders and backline will look to neutralize the league’s top assist man (Hernandez).  The Hounds back line has been mostly disciplined this year, but have had a few lapses on long balls. When things aren’t going well for San Antonio, they tend to rely heavily on Hernandez to find passes through the gaps and connect with the big name scorers, especially Argudelo and Solignac.

In past match-ups with San Antonio, Lilley has favored using big, athletic center backs.  This year, any combination of Sean Suber, Luke Biasi, Illal Osumanu and Pat Hogan have held their own against some of the bigger, stronger strikers in the league.

Another interesting thing to watch, in past few matches, Pittsburgh has pushed its roaming/central attacking midfielder higher, primarily Robbie Mertz, though Kenardo Forbes started at Detroit in this spot — sometimes even looking very much like a 3-4-3, which is something we haven’t seen much of in the Bob Lilley era at Highmark Stadium.

Yep — it was Mertz the past few matches creeping up higher than the forwards and now Forbes tonight was way up there too…

Hard to believe Bob going with 3-4-3 but lo and behold it's been a thing of late. pic.twitter.com/ucVfgBeqYA

— John Krysinsky (@JohnKrysinsky) August 8, 2024

Here’s a look at the last two starting lineups the Hounds threw out there, as it appears that the bulk of last Saturday’s starters in Sacramento would likely be back in the lineup.  It’s no surprise that Danny Griffin, Junior Etou, Edward Kizza, Luke Biasi, Sean Suber and goalkeeper Eric Dick made multiple starts, and will likely be in the lineup again.  Forward Emmanual Johnson has also emerged as the go-to starter along side Kizza on the top line.

Aug. 3: @Sacramento Republic FC (W, 1-0)

• Eric Dick
• Junior Etou (Pat Hogan 84’)
• Luke Biasi
• Sean Suber
• Illal Osumanu
• Langston Blackstock (Pierre Cayet 80’)
• Jackson Walti
• Danny Griffin
• Robbie Mertz (Kenardo Forbes 77’)
• Edward Kizza (Babacar Diene 77’)
• Emmanuel Johnson (Kazaiah Sterling 45’, Dani Rovira 90+5’ [o] )

Aug. 7: @Detroit City FC (D, 0-0)

• Eric Dick
• Junior Etou (Babacar Diene 89’)
• Luke Biasi
• Sean Suber
• Pat Hogan
• Dani Rovira (Langston Blackstock 64’)
• Bradley Sample (Jackson Walti 80’)
• Danny Griffin
• Kenardo Forbes
• Edward Kizza (Robbie Mertz 80’)
• Emmanuel Johnson (Kazaiah Sterling 65’)

John K’s Projected Riverhounds Lineup vs San Antonio

• GK – Eric Dick
• Winger/OB (L) – Junior Etou
• CB – Luke Biasi
• CB – Sean Suber
• CB – Pat Hogan
• Winger/OB (R) – Langston Blackstock
• CMF –  Jackson Walti
• CMF – Danny Griffin
• AMF – Robbie Mertz
• F – Edward Kizza
• F – Emmanuel Johnson

Bench options:

• GK – Gabe Perrotta, Jacob Randolph
• D – Illal Osumanu, Jake Kent-Loop, Pierre Cayet, Dani Rovira
• MF – Kenardo Forbes, Aiden O’Toole, Bradley Sample, Nate Dragasich
• F – Babacar Diene, Enoch Mushagalusa, Kazaiah Sterling

 

Match info

Riverhounds (6-9-8) vs. San Antonio FC (5-11-5)
Date: Saturday, Aug. 10
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Highmark Stadium
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Odds: Hounds -210 / Draw +290 / San Antonio +550 (FanDuel)
TV: KDKA+
Streaming: CBS Sports Golazo
Live statistics: USL Championship Match Center
Live updates: @RiverhoundsSC on Twitter
Match hashtags: #PITvSA and #HOUNDTAHN