This Sunday, sports return to the Greater Pittsburgh Community, as Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (0-0-0) plays its first of 16 games in the USL Championship’s revised season.
The Hounds will face off against Louisville City FC (1-0-0) at 5 p.m. on Sunday at Lynn Family Stadium. The game, marking the first of four non-division games, will be televised on ESPN2.
Head coach Bob Lilley has high hopes for this year’s squad, despite having dealt with a modified training schedule and new protocols the past few months. This year’s team was largely scattered away from Pittsburgh during the quarantine period, training over Zoom calls and working out in their homes.
When the league got clearance to begin small group training, Lilley said he was impressed with how the guys looked physically.
“There’s not much of a leadup time,” Lilley said. “In the week and a half we’ve trained so far, game fitness is different than just being at the gym, getting runs in and doing fitness over a Zoom call. So, we pushed them hard.”
Without the luxury of a preseason to prepare for gameplay and only the past two weeks being able to practice as a full squad, players are carrying some knots, Lilley said. After the weekend, he hopes to be able to learn more about the team and help players gather momentum quickly.
“We know in our 16-game schedule we have a lot of work to do these first seven games and not dig a hole,” Lilley said. “If you hit a bad bump in the road, we got to recover quickly. This can’t be a season where we can go in a five-game slump.”
The Hounds will play in Louisville’s brand-new stadium this weekend, which will host fans in limited capacity. While having fans may not be the case for every game this season, the environment will likely have an effect on both teams.
Lilley said mentality will be an important component of playing this year, as well as challenging the opposing team defensively and finding outlets for goal scoring.
“If you’re going to do well in this league, you’ve got to play big games and you got to be able to win big games and learn from big games,” Lilley said.
The Hounds roster boasts many new and old teammates, who have been looking forward to the season start since preseason ended in March.
“It’s really nice to play against someone else for once instead of beating up on each other,” Jordan Dover said.
The defender, entering his third year with the club, said he hopes the team will take to Louisville confidence and the ability to compete. He wants to stay in the zone for Sunday’s game and use his experience to perform at the top level.
Midfielder Kenardo Forbes said despite the difficult circumstances, the team has been waiting for so long to get back to play.
“It’s definitely a good team, they beat us last year in the playoffs,” Forbes said about Louisville. “Just looking forward to going in there and putting up a good performance.”
Anthony Velarde said Lilley talked to the team this past week giving them a game plan that will allow them to be successful.
Entering his second season with the Hounds, Velarde said the team is sticking to trying to keep the ball and being “sophisticated up in the attack” to prepare for Sunday.
The Fresno Pacific University product said he is excited to see smiles from fans and get back together as a team.
“We’re excited to get back Sunday,” Velarde said, “and do what we do best and play soccer.”
