Louisville City’s final game of the regular season kicks off Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET in Memphis’ AutoZone Park vs. Memphis 901 FC.
“This is a business trip for us,” Louisville City coach John Hackworth said. “This is a chance for us to get better and a chance for us to move up in the table.”
Hackworth, whose team has been one of the hottest in the Eastern Conference over the last two months, believes Louisville City still has room to get better. The back-to-back USL Championship Title winners are the team no one wants in their bracket.
As it stands Saturday morning, Louisville City is the 6-seed and would be slated to play at No. 3 Indy Eleven. But all that could change Saturday night as Louisville City is tied in points with 5th-seeded New York Red Bulls II and is just one point behind 4th-seeded Tampa Bay Rowdies.
Hartford Athletic hosts Tampa Bay at 7 p.m. ET Saturday night (GameCenter LINK) and then Loudoun United hosts the Red Bulls (GameCenter LINK) starting at 7:30 p.m. p.m. ET.
“Obviously we’ll be watching other scores around the league pretty close,” Hackworth said. “Our staff will definitely be trying to keep tabs on all the other games we can while understanding that we are on the sideline and can’t really be actually watching those other scores. And really, it comes down to our performance first.”
If LouCity wins, they have a chance to jump both Tampa and New York and move into the 4th spot. The top four spots are key because those teams are will host their first playoff game Saturday, Oct. 26. That would mean Louisville City would get at least one more game at Slugger Field, their home since 2015.
“We want to continue to improve as we head into the playoffs and hopefully we get some help from other teams as we hope to move up the table,” Hackworth said. “Credit to our guys, we don’t view Saturday as the end of the season. We think of our season running into November.”
As of Saturday morning, Louisville City could either be 4th, 5th or 6th in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The bottom four teams in the Eastern Conference Playoffs will play each other Wednesday night with the winners advancing to face the top six teams next weekend.
