Episode 21 - LUFC v. CHS: Nate bagging a goal with his head and Nick doing Nick things

[00:00:00] Welcome to Cannon Crue, a weekly podcast discussing the Charleston battery. Your host granite will be joined by other defenders of the fleet from the Black and Yellow supporters section, and together they will help fortify and conquer the other Cannon Crue.

[00:00:35] Welcome to the Cannon Crue podcast, I'm granite and I'm joined by Patrick. How you doing Patrick? I'm well. What's going on everyone? Hey we're just having a good time. It's a good Friday night. Getting ready for tomorrow. Ryan! He's also joining us. What's up Ryan?

[00:00:52] Hey granite doing good. How are you guys? Doing well. We just discussed that how well we're doing but since you're now joining us we'll discuss it with you also. So we're here to discuss a couple things. First off the last match on Wednesday morning 11 o'clock.

[00:01:08] Too bad the little kids running around got to see their team thrashed about by the battery and ended up in a 2-1 thrashing against Loudon. If anybody is on this podcast from

[00:01:23] Loudon please speak up or forever hold your peace. Ryan? Ryan? I mean yeah it was a good game. I like to claim Charleston as my team to support as hometown but it was good seeing you know them play back up in Virginia and play against a side that's

[00:01:49] still relatively new in the league. Virginia is still new to USL and they got a good turnaround. Yeah totally money generator it really sucked I don't think it's very respectful of all the rest of us that had to work and sit in

[00:02:03] meetings and trying to hide our phones watching the match texting people it was obvious that maybe some of us were a little distracted in very important meetings. I mean overall the game was a game or midweek game more than anything

[00:02:17] just kind of distracting I guess since you're going from a Friday night game to a Wednesday night game on the road and then follow that up with another Saturday night game after on the road before adding that to Patriots Point

[00:02:33] so a lot of travel for a one week span. Let's slip into something relevant right now Ryan because I want you to speak to this. Coach Whaley we interviewed him a while back. What's going on with him and his team? Yeah so currently the Lions

[00:02:50] Bridge United they won their conference in the Eastern was it the Eastern Conference in USO League 2 so right now they're actually playing in the Eastern Conference I think it's the Eastern Conference finals in the

[00:03:09] playoffs so it is the final of 16 in the nation for USO League 2. If you'd like a live score update let's do it currently 4-2 C coast United is leading Lions Bridge FC on the 60 minute mark. Not a strong look right now but

[00:03:35] Lions Bridge look like they're going all out. C coast are playing in a very strong formation with three in the back five in the middle. Interesting so see how that turns out. Watch part of the Edmunds Oasis Brewing Company during

[00:03:50] this last match on Wednesday I couldn't make it because I was in meetings and the rest of us were working except for one notable person that doesn't work. Just kidding Ryan. I got a text from Tanner. Tanner said hey you coming to

[00:04:04] watch a match? I said no I gotta work I'm in a meeting. I said is there a lot of people he says there's 23rd of people that are watching the match which I thought was outstanding. People taking in the middle of the day get some

[00:04:14] pints support the battery and have a good time. Thank you very much for all you went out there representing the battery watching them play Saturday night hopefully we'll quadruple that number watch the match. And I kind of like

[00:04:31] their idea of you know hosting a week-long camp and then making a game time available so all the kids are there making a big park and everything so it's cool concept and you know it's a good I think it's a good way

[00:04:46] to generate a lot of money for the club as well. It really is now I'll go with you Ryan I'll go with this pretty cool kids get to go out there do the camp

[00:04:56] like all these teams do to make a little money and also it spread soccer cheer around and then kind of in the middle of it I guess they get to watch a match. Yeah I mean yeah and you know winter lose you know it's still fun for the

[00:05:11] kids to watch and you know they get to see it's a chance for them and opportunity for them to get to see players play at a higher level than what they're used to normally seeing so it's just another chance to expand on the

[00:05:24] game and expand each individual soccer IQ. Yeah I think we all agree that the more you watch just when you're on your off time you're not practicing or playing more you watch higher levels play the more you understand the game

[00:05:42] the better you be. Yeah it's pretty cool for the kids because whatever they're working on as well coaches can immediately relate that back to them in camp and training and they see what they did on that play or when they swore

[00:05:55] that goal that's what we're gonna work on here though may a great example of that is our that peace corner good goal and those Samtos attacking the ball at the front post and getting behind it and getting it in 10 minutes

[00:06:09] Yeah let's talk about that. Beautiful. Let's talk about Nate screaming across there real shitty defending Glance is the right setting goal. Griming his head off for the ball. And Faroq had no, there's nothing he could do

[00:06:25] at that point it was such point blank really shit defending on a loudspark but Nate really weeds his way through there and they didn't keep up with him and he just that's the second goal and what three matches for him so

[00:06:38] he's killing right now and I don't know if he has too many goals on the professional level anyways but to get two of them in there one on the set piece hey good job Nate he's my boy he's killing it. Yeah not even the best

[00:06:51] cross either like you would think it'd be a little more I guess six yardish but it was definitely outside the post the goal post and he just attacked the hell out of it and redirected it in because most defenders who aren't

[00:07:05] used to making that play probably going to put it wide every time for 99 out of 100 he definitely he crushed that one for sure. I don't know if it was planned to be coming in short like that with the in-swinger it worked very well

[00:07:22] it looked good it looked like Nate was going for for that near post and get at that angle is fantastic good job Nate. Well at least we scored but then 15 minutes of a game again we didn't have to wait 49 minutes like we

[00:07:38] grown accustomed to over the past few games and then we didn't have to wait long for the second one so it's another 14 minutes after that. But then we got into the dreaded 2-0 deficit which is the problem for me

[00:07:52] mentally that's the problem. Yeah did you see like a shift in the players because I felt we finished off the first half strong and like a few key moments to open the second half of that felt like we hit the woodwork and we just

[00:08:07] became a little complacent like we didn't really attack the ball you could kind of see the midfield not lazy a bit. Yeah not play dumb balls but play balls that they probably shouldn't like a risky ball that has a

[00:08:19] higher chance of getting intercepted like I don't know it is kind of frustrating watching that and then just not the lack of like ambition to get back and like recover the ball if you had lost it which we kind of saw from

[00:08:35] guys who are bread and butter the team or center mids and everyone just kind of turning it over and not rushing to get it back. Yeah you don't want to you don't want to call it laziness because we've

[00:08:46] seen what these guys are totally capable but it is being careless they did treat that second half with total carelessness and you know it almost came back and bit them. You know they loudened got the foul got the

[00:09:01] free kick at top of the box. We'll talk about that here shortly but you know luckily it was only that and it wasn't much more but that leads to frustration in our defense and it's unwarranted stress that we don't need.

[00:09:17] And I was called complacency. We went up by two goals and we're like hey we just chill now and we've done that in the past and you know and we've taken advantage of teams that have done that but that too to nil that's

[00:09:28] when we just got to go hell bent for leather to start putting goals in the back at the net or defend you. I don't care it's a park in the box do something just don't get complacent.

[00:09:40] Yeah and I'm not sure if it's a lack of trying to keep the legs fresh because of the run we are currently in from last Friday to this upcoming Saturday but I mean Peerman was serving guys often before

[00:09:55] the 70th minute mark and that's not something we're used to seeing unless we're up by four or five goals. I just thought that was a little odd and maybe that played into the lackluster of the team and just maybe they're looking ahead to Tampa.

[00:10:09] Maybe so it was kind of strange that second half and it cost us. Let's talk about that free kick. Top of the box very dangerous position we saw when that Aaron put in earlier in the season from about the same position

[00:10:28] and then we lined up I don't know if our guys just didn't jump high enough or like you said that maybe it's just a worldly and it was just well placed and well struck. Yeah I'd take your hats off to him on this one to

[00:10:42] back Ryan. I mean that was just a ridiculous strike. I don't think as great as Grenny is. I think this is a nine out of ten times he's not saving this wall. Yeah I mean he played the perfect ball to where he was able to get it just

[00:10:57] right up and over that wall and to get it to drop right back down because as it was going across the goal line through Grenny the ball is continuing to still drop more so it's hard to track as a keeper especially

[00:11:13] with that pace on it as well. Well that's why you have the wall there right? Yeah it was a well placed shot. I mean it was over the our taller defenders in the wall too so

[00:11:24] it's not like we had Ecazze standing there and kind of having a better look at it. It was just really great strike but again this is the danger of being too knell up and kind of

[00:11:36] loud and just getting that momentum swing get one back and then they were just full press from that moment on. So let's back up let's talk about Nick's 19th goal. I mean he's a good poacher when an air

[00:11:51] dribble the ball around putting it back in the net. It was a 19. Ryan do you remember what the golden boot where last season had? Ryan he needs six more of the golden boot winner from last year. Yeah. 22? It was something like 22-23 so he's in a hunt right?

[00:12:09] 25 is the league record. So now he's got 20 for regular season but he's got the record for the battery and regular season and I think he's well on the hunt for the golden boot this season along with Greeny looking at the playing sheets.

[00:12:24] He needs six more goals and he ties the regular season record for most goals in his season. And I think that's the league record. That's the league record. He's already set the battery

[00:12:35] record as a team. And I think he's got the ability to do it. Now one of the down things on that happened is yellow cards. So I guess he's not playing on Saturday. Emilio got his fifth yellow card in season suspended.

[00:12:56] And then we've got a couple more sitting on four yellows. Aaron got his fourth on something that he shouldn't even been messing around with. He should have been smarter than that and I think Torres is right behind him on third maybe

[00:13:09] fourth. So gentlemen need to either they need to pace out their fifth yellow card or they just need to be more careful the rest of it. Yeah we gotta be careful especially coming up too.

[00:13:19] I wouldn't be surprised if you see a few of the boys maybe one of them get a yellow in this Tampa game strategically speaking and then the rest go during the end game because following

[00:13:32] the end game it lightens up for a game or two but then it picks right back up and we have Sacramento, Louisville to play again and then and then we're playing against Tampa again

[00:13:42] to finish out the season. So I wouldn't be surprised if these boys get the yellow card in the next two weeks. So who do you think Aaron needs to?

[00:13:51] I mean I think Aaron gets his yellow during Indy. Oh he needs two yellows? Oh yeah he gets on the he's on his fourth. He's on his fourth. He gets it in the Indy 11 game.

[00:14:02] Why not do it Saturday night? Because he wants to play his home game in the month. I mean it's surprising that how many guys are in trouble three or four because yeah I'm looking at Sabres. The bad guys in trouble two? I just released.

[00:14:20] Sabres is on four. It's showing Aaron. Aaron's only on three but that's where I was looking at stats the other day or the match was happening and he was on three then and picked up his fourth during the match. I think Sabres gets his yellow this game.

[00:14:35] While saying most of the league has to be in trouble then because the battery are in the bottom four in the league in yellow cards with 40. Yeah one David Torres on four Nate's on three. They're Tampa Bay. The Tampa Bay is just ahead of us with 39 so like

[00:14:54] if we have a couple guys they must have a couple guys and I bet they're probably in the same boat exhaust at this point in time. Yeah well another scary yellow card stat is Grini he's on one. So that's where we're careful. What is the time wasting?

[00:15:13] That's what your keepers do best right? I can't stop shots so we're going to get some wasting time. On and off the field. For any young keeper out there just gonna let you know the moment

[00:15:26] the ball goes out for a goal kick the first time in a game and you jog to the ball that's your pace you set the first time you go for the ball that is the pace you set for the rest of the

[00:15:37] game so that pace that you go and do to go and get the ball the referee counts that pace out so you know take a little second get yourself make sure everything's in order make sure your

[00:15:48] team's in the right position and then go up and take the kick. Hey coach will you tell my son that? Will you tell my son that because he will get a yellow card every time just tell him to

[00:15:57] Well anyway Ryan first yellow card he's got a yellow. Ryan have you ever had the ball go out and you just look to the opposite side of the goal and like ask for a ball even though you know one's not

[00:16:09] coming so it can't be on you? Oh yeah I'll have to say that's that for a league on the ground. I did in Summerville too when we were in the Summerville league I was looking at the guys in

[00:16:21] the south in the softball dugout asking them to throw me a ball that wasn't there. That's a little better than messy getting fouled off the field and rolling back on so. Back to the Golden Boot I think last season

[00:16:37] Dickwell won the Golden Boot with 20 goals. There's someone that was shot. 20. 20 yeah. What's the second place guy right now currently? You got Nick at 19. And you got the guy from Louisville? Yes. The guy from Detroit. He's Harris. You have Harris and you have that Maximum dude.

[00:17:00] Max. And Harris has a couple goals behind them. Is it Jenning second? Oh Jenning for Tampa. And then they have Artego in fourth with Ten who's also from Tampa Bay so it could be a possible shoot out with everyone.

[00:17:18] It's not like just Nick is the only one scoring goals because the doctor's got several goals under his belt too so it's kind of we're spread out a little bit and I haven't looked at the other teams how that they have evenly distributed

[00:17:31] goal scoring amongst the forward wingers but we've got two people who are scoring goals. It's scoring a lot of goals. Yeah I mean the doc has nine but I feel like he's been

[00:17:42] out of office for a little while. Well he's stopped that right now. You stopped that talk. That's not a bad. He's on sabbatical. Maybe he's not in the E.R. maybe he's just back there.

[00:17:55] He's doing the grunt work right now. Doing paperwork. He's trying to get himself bounced right back. I actually do see him playing a very, very pivotal role in the Tampa game as a false sign acting as a big holder in this game because his presence being up front,

[00:18:15] being able to get the ball, trap it down to his feet and hold it while we can get up the field and get underneath of him is going to be a big factor in this game against Tampa coming out.

[00:18:26] And I hope he does because I think he's capable of it and he needs to do that hold-up play a little bit but he needs better execution. I mean he needed to get back to the Carolina form

[00:18:37] where he had what three goals on four shots. Oh how beautiful. I mean he's it. And he needs take shots. He needs take shots. He only has he's got nine shots in the last four games with no goals so

[00:18:51] let's hope Tampa Bay he goes back to four shots, three goals, one assist. Other thing to look at is the golden glove. Grinny with what 11 clean sheets. I think he's in second and that's not

[00:19:03] bad compared you know considering he was out in three or four matches. So let's look forward Saturday night the no quarter derby a great eastern conference matchup that has always just been

[00:19:21] just a fantastic match down in Tampa Bay. Right now our away form is five wins one lost six draws their home form is six wins one lost two draws so it's almost an even matchup.

[00:19:37] Yeah I mean we're pretty much even on as many steps as you can throw out there on the board shots goals saves clean sheet obviously Nick is way ahead on goal that's about the only one but

[00:19:51] I can see the battery going down and keeping the clean sheet and pushing Grinny ahead of far and so he will be far from the clean sheet leader at this point when we went

[00:20:05] three to one in ten or sorry three no in Tampa. Oh he's going three to hell. Yeah Ryan throw throw something out there can we send numbers. All right so looking at recent form with

[00:20:20] how we've done head to head with the against the Rowdy's lately in our last five the battery have won three tied one and lost one with the last loss coming October 7th of 2021. I'm going with a two

[00:20:36] to one rowdy win with a frustrating battery loss but we bounce back against Andy next week. Do you have the view of players like the blue cheering. That's good enough way and every week can't pick them the one every week. I don't want the ESPN

[00:20:55] I'm one of the ESPN experts on this one. Those are the same ones that recommend betting styles and who to bet on and they're never correct. Did Ryan just really say we're taking a loss? Yeah and who's getting the goal then I assume

[00:21:12] you're going to say Andy Myers is going to score. No probably Nick Marcana off of the head. Grini's going to score from Hatfield. They're going to sub in the Cous the Cous is going to come in

[00:21:28] final minutes and head one in. Grini's going to go up top of the mass. I love it when we have so much confidence in our team that we predict the other teams are going to win. You don't think

[00:21:38] Pyramid's going to chew their asses out after that lackluster second half performance and get them ready to go. This is the top three matchup. Yeah but it's also another but it's an immediate

[00:21:51] road game you got to think after that chum show the second half. You had to drive eight hours get on a bus go back eight hours and then now two days later you're back in Tampa.

[00:22:02] They ain't driving. Turn on breeze airway. I don't know. I don't know from Charleston to Loudoun County to Leesburg Virginia. I'm pretty sure they're taking a little bus trip there. Okay Charleston a ranked second goals per match 1.9 while Tampa Bay checks in at third

[00:22:22] and goals per match with 1.7 goes against your prediction there Ryan. Additionally the leagues number one goal contribution duo Nick and MD 33 will do it out against the number two goal contribution duo of Jennings and our Dega at 25. So we're going

[00:22:44] we're rolling. Yeah we'll just our prediction to two tie we'll just call this the battle of the league. You have to because they're both tied right now. Yeah yeah so Adam and their keeper far

[00:22:57] currently are tied for second most shutouts and I don't know and I say shutouts that's not my word it's somebody else's word. I don't know how many matches far his play for the green so I don't

[00:23:09] know how that matches more way more just say like 30 more 30 more 30 more 30 more wait wait I'm gonna I'm gonna say it's a 2-0 we're gonna get in the dread 2-0 thing but this

[00:23:26] time they're gonna go you know what we're gonna show out second half. Who do you got who do you got sworn? I got I got Prince and Torres. No more Woodward. He might get three or four of them

[00:23:40] in there but one of them is gonna finally go away. Do you think anybody any yellow card shoutouts? Oh yeah this interesting conversation. Are we gonna see any yellow card suspensions

[00:23:53] coming out of this game? I definitely see like for me I definitely see Mark Segebers coming out of this game with the yellow card and missing out on Indie at home next week just because of how

[00:24:05] aggressive Tampa is going to be. No he went in trouble. Lehmann? Yeah because you got one in this last game. Our captain? He should be on two but he missed a lot of games though.

[00:24:19] Yeah he should be in trouble. He got one like the second or third game of the season and then he got one last week. He's on up. When I'm looking at the stats from the battery

[00:24:34] he's on one yellow card. One oh perfect it's just last weekend. Well I think maybe in Maloy I would say just because he I'm saying Aaron yeah he tends to be everywhere anyways so

[00:24:49] I mean we've seen games where it depends on the ref if he's gonna be a ref that is blowing the whistle a lot and he's a little card happy early on with a random

[00:25:00] easy 50-50 tackle then I could be Maloy getting one just for a interesting challenge I'll say. So the next match who sits in for Maloy? How do we switch it? Well I think you just switch out Icaza because Icaza is sitting out this game so whoever's replacing Icaza

[00:25:20] this upcoming game would just stay in. Yeah that'd be Rodriguez right? Rodriguez. I was about to back I don't know. Anyways interesting thing interesting thoughts. Could be Prince. Good Prince. Good Prince now. Good Prince now. Yeah exactly right.

[00:25:42] I was gonna say at the same time too you see Mark Segber as if he gets his yellow card and he sits out boom you put Jostrak and then you got those Santos and Draken for a game getting

[00:25:50] him some minutes. Honestly I would just sit Segber's in this one the way he I mean you guys watched the end of this blogging game. I wouldn't. He literally just watched two players run by him

[00:26:02] in the box and take chances on goal like give him a rest it's not like we don't have faith in Draken to Santos to cover but like he's got to be gassed if that's the performance he was

[00:26:15] putting in at the end. Rest him a little bit on it. That's what I'm saying like go ahead and just get him that yellow and he's basically gets a two week vacation almost because Segber's is one

[00:26:27] of our players who I believe he is the current battery player he's played the most minutes. I'm not mistaken. Yeah I think you're right yeah. I believe he's the only one who has played every game this season. Aaron he's played 22 games started 21. Aaron was 22 played 22 started.

[00:26:49] We've had 21 season and interesting Graham Smith's 23 23. The US Open Cup games maybe that's what they're counting in there. Yeah this this could be a difficult game for Archer and Smith back there.

[00:27:09] I don't want us to change our entire style but I hope we actually leave our center mid a little deeper than what we normally play and just commit our wing backs up.

[00:27:19] I mean Tavir Bay's attack is so dangerous you're gonna need more than what we've been seeing of Leelan and Smith on a fucking island with these guys just coming right down their

[00:27:29] throats and hope they do well. Yeah it's going to be a bad day to be an Edmondso's beer but a good day to be a battery supporter. Absolutely ESPN plus Watch Party Edmondso's

[00:27:42] Brewing Company will be there. I'm fired up haven't been there a while it's time to get a couple fights in kickoff 730 that's a lot of fun when it's packed in there with black and yellow and get to see all

[00:27:53] the new jerseys and stuff up on no wall and I am going throughout there I'm gonna buy somebody beer I don't know who it's gonna be. I'm gonna say it's I'm gonna buy two beers for people

[00:28:05] so first beer is gonna be for somebody that is the most poorer gear on second one is gonna be the person that's the loudest son of a bitch in the place if it happens to be me I'm gonna buy

[00:28:22] myself a beer but anyways I'm gonna throw two out there maybe three for Bobby but anyways hey I think I'm ready to go watch a match on Saturday what do you guys think?

[00:28:33] I did hear I think Ryan said if he was gonna be there just to shoot soccer balls at him they could get a little practice in feels like he's getting a little rusty. Oh hell yeah I'm sorry

[00:28:47] oh yes please oh yeah it'd be good opportunity to test the kids out test which kids out the 35 year old kids whoops any kiddy ones that come up with your gloves Ryan bring your gloves he will be the one

[00:29:05] and you're the one. As long as you bring the net. When you have a net Ryan. Yeah nice. Yeah I'll bring the net you play keeper and we're gonna shoot some balls at you starting it I think was a kickoff at 6 or 7 30

[00:29:23] 7 o'clock you're in the net all right there we go okay and then half time and then if we lose after the match PK's. Was it dark? Was it kick ups? Yeah no it was PK. Okay guys that's all I got.

[00:29:45] Yeah all Saturday. All right catch all later. Peace.