Riverhounds HC Bob Lilley on scoreless draw in Louisville: ‘It had to be a really good, collective performance, and it was’

Photo courtesy Louisville City FC / USL Championship

The Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC followed up an exciting midweek US Open Cup win over New York City FC with a hard-fought, 0-0 draw on the road at Louisville on Saturday night.

The Hounds came away with a result at one of the toughest places to play in the USL Championship.

FINAL: Riverhounds SC 0, Louisville City FC 0

Head Coach Bob Lilley came away from a challenging week pleased that his team played a complete match, considering that they played just three nights earlier, as they were on top of their game on the defensive end and coming away with a result especially following previous performances in league play when the Hounds faltered late.

“I thought our road performance was good in the first half at Loudoun, and our first half in Detroit was good, but unlike Detroit, tonight we didn’t give up a late goal. We got ourselves into the game pretty early. That’s hard to do here,” Lilley shared shortly after the scoreless result in Louisville.

“They want to press right away, but we were active and wanted to get forward and make runs behind.”

While neither side could score in the first half, which has been the case in many of the Hounds’ matches this season, they played through pressure and refused to be pinned deep most of the match.

“Second half, they made some changes and got on top of us for a little bit. I think New York did that at half (in the Open Cup), and we didn’t really have a response until very late. I was proud of the guys today, because early in the second half, they had us pinned back, but we started to find outlets,” Lilley stated.

“We wanted to be dangerous, we wanted to go forward. We never got pinned deep for too long.”

For the first time since July 2023, Louisville was shut out on their home turf.

“We did a good job defending set pieces. They have a lot of big targets, and they’re very dangerous on those. But I think you saw a lot of commuted individuals fighting for each other, playing for each other,” Lilley said.

“We had some tired legs out there. Tonight, it had to be a really good collective performance. It was, and we had chances to win it, but at least we got something out of the game. Hopefully we grow from that.”

The veteran coach, in dealing with a gauntlet of three matches in eight days, carefully planned his squad rotation accordingly and came away from this stretch of play with a number of positives from giving more players valuable minutes and steering the team to two results after a disappointing home loss last week.

“Max (Broughton) started against New York, Gui (Guillaume Vacter) started the last two games, Jorge (Garcia) hadn’t started since the opener, but he did against New York. With guys getting healthy, there’s a lot more options available to us. It was one of our more complete games, and even though Louisville didn’t get off to the quickest start, I think lot of that was our doing. It’s a good comeback after a disappointing start to the week against North Carolina last Saturday. To win in the Open Cup and then get a tough result on the road, it’s a good recovery and a good response.”

Next up for Lilley and the Hounds, they will have to prepare for more road challenges, as they stay on the road with a league match next Saturday, at Colorado Springs (9 pm kickoff), then head to Philadelphia, to face the MLS club in the Round of 16 of the US Open Cup on Wednesday, May 21.