Tampa Bay United 3–1 The Villages SC
Santos scored with the final touch of the match, and it was the least this performance deserved.
We played this one on the football field at Jesuit High School, on a pitch noticeably narrower than we are used to — the yellow line rather than the black one marking the touch, and not a lot of room outside it. Tampa Bay know that ground. We were finding out about it.
They took the lead in the first half, and doubled it on 53 minutes through a substitute who had been on the field about a minute. Their third came from the first shot of the second half, Fryer curling one past Jackson Lee that nobody could have done anything about.
What the scoreline does not show is how much of this we created.
Austin Lukasic whipped ball after ball into the area all night. Lucas Mauro was inches from one of them. Daniel Oliveira — who had scored an excellent goal the previous week, his first of the season — curled one in that was headed off the line. Tatu went close and was just wide. One effort missed the top right corner by about a foot.
Our commentators said it out loud during the second half: Tampa Bay had very few chances all evening and put away almost every one of them. We had a great deal more and could not find the finish.
Then, in the last seconds, Lopez to Fall, Fall to Santos — and Santos hit it. His second of the season, with the final kick.
3–1.
Man of the Match: Austin Lukasik. It was the game that no one gave up. The man of the Match, Austin Lukasik, played as if the time and the score didn't matter.
Our substitutes changed the shape of the second half — enough that our own broadcast wondered aloud whether some of them had just played their way into the next starting eleven.
We are at FC Miami City on Wednesday, and this squad has too much in it to stay in front of goal for long.
Come and watch it turn.
