Preview: Pittsburgh Riverhounds v. Birmingham Legion

The Steel City Derby

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: I hate the Pittsburgh Riverhounds. With a passion. That embarrassing 7-0 playoff game in 2019, the missed home playoff game in 2021, those ugly 2025 bumblebee kits. I'm sure I can think of other reasons but that's already enough.

So, once again the two longest-serving coaches in the USL Championship meet again. However, over six seasons the teams have played a total of only 10 games, 8 in the regular season and 2 in the playoffs (technically 3). In 2020 and 2021 the two did not play at all due to the COVID restructuring of the league those two years. The Legion has a pretty poor record in the series: just 1-5-2 in the regular season and 2 losses in the playoffs (although the second, in 2022 was 2-2 after extra time and 7-8 after the shootout). The only win was back in 2022. The Legion have been outscored 14-6 in the regular season and 9-2 in the playoffs (not counting the shootout). But that does include a total of 12 goals incurred in the Three Sparks' rookie season.

All of which is to say that Bob Lilley has had Tommy Soehn's number over the years. Lilley, who has been leading the Riverhounds since 2018 has an impressive coaching career, going back to 1997. Over that time he has coached six different teams in various leagues and has never had a points record below 50%. Tommy, who has been coaching since 2006, has been with 4 teams and has only dropped below the 50% mark once, in 2011 when he was the interim head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS (coincidentally, Bob Lilley was also the Whitecaps head coach, but of the now-defunct USL team). Tommy is 17 days older than Bob, by the way.

This year the Riverhounds are 1-1-1, beating Hartford Athletic last week 1-0, losing to San Antonio 0-2 and drawing with North Carolina FC 1-1. Those are some pretty low-scoring games, which is typical of Pittsburgh. Of the teams who have played three games, none have scored fewer goals and of those teams who have scored just twice only The™ Miami FC has a worse goal difference (the others are the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and FC Tulsa). The Legion at 0-1-2 has a 4-6 scoring record, exactly double the Riverhounds, but the opposition has been rather tougher. Notably, the 2 draws with the leading teams in the Eastern Conference compare favorably with the Pittsburgh loss to West leaders San Antonio. Beating Hartford (who have yet to score in 2 games) doesn't seem particularly impressive; drawing with North Carolina is about their best performance to date.

Pittsburgh used a 4-2-3-1 the first week against North Carolina but has gone with a 4-1-4-1 in the past two games, which is very similar to the tactical adjustments made by the Legion (4-3-3 in week 1, 4-1-4-1 since). Man, these two teams are beginning to look like mirror images on top of all that, it's black and gold v. black and yellow, steel town v. steel town...).

The man up top has been Augie Williams, who scored one of the two goals to date. He joined the team from Indy Eleven this year and is a long-time USL stalwart (with some brief stints in MLS). His best years were 2022-23 with the Charleston Battery, when he scored 29 goals over 63 games. He scored 10 last season with Indy; he is a very definite threat at all times but should be fairly familiar to the Legion. The other scorer is midfielder Danny Griffin, usually deployed in an attacking position but also sometimes in the pivot. He has been with Pittsburgh almost his entire pro career saince 2020 other than a brief 5-game stint with Huntsvile City in MLSNP in 2023. Again, a known quantity and generally not a high-scoring player with only 11 goals in his entire career. The only other real threat is Robbie Mertz, also a midfielder. He's been with Pittsburgh most of his career too, although he was with Atlanta United 2 for 2 years. He has 2 pro goals to his name since 2019.

As for the Legion, reinforcements are still on their way. Tyler Pasher appears to be back in full training but his game readiness is probably still in question. Newcomer Sebastian Tregarthen got his first minutes last week (and his first yellow) and looked good in the process. Phanuel Kavita remains out, as does AJ Paterson.

I spoke with Kobe Hernandez-Foster, who made the USL Championship Team of the Week. He rather downplayed that but had this to say about the Detroit game overall: "Defensively, I think first half we kind of let them dictate the game and have a lot of time on the ball and pick out any pass they wanted to…Towards the second half we came out pressing the centerbacks more, not letting them have any time on the ball." More generally he added, "I think for us the biggest thing is protect our goal. I think if we can get shutouts in many of these games, [we] would win...I think we always have good chances attacking, s..it's just about protecting our goal and being better defensively." As far as the weekend in Pittsburgh is concerned, he said, "Just stick to our identity and get the win."

I also talked with Roman Torres, asking him first about how different the professional game is than the college game. Not surprisingly, his answer was, "Oh, it's quite a bit harder. It's a lot faster, a lot more physical." Interestingly he added, "My [Creighton] head coach Johnny Torres [no relation!], he helped me a lot, though. He helped me transition really well into it...The other coaching staff I'm still really close with...they 've been a really big help for me here." On the other hand, the coaching team at his parent club Minnesota United is apparently not keeping very close tabs on him, which rather shocked me.

On the subject of set pieces I queried if he is now the designated taker: "No, we have me and Kobe, so it just depends on what side it is, but me and him it might be really good understanding...I like in-swingers, but I mean, I'm not really too picky about it."

Lastly, I also spoke with Tommy Soehn. As above, he listed Williams, Griffin and Mertz as the major threats: "Whether they tuck in or come out, we have to deal with that." As for the attack: "I think if we defend well, I mean, they get down on the corners and serve. We handle the service and turn that into chances...But that comes from us being organized. We've been a little sloppy in the back, and I know we've a rotation of guys as we get through some injuries, but, you know, we still have to defend a little bit better."

On the anticipated style of the game he said, "I think it'll be two teams that are gonna try to button up their lines, whether it's a mid-block..and turn good defending into chances." He thought it will be another game that gets tight in the midfield as in Detroit last week and that the first goal is going to be very important, which, considering the low-scoring nature of Pittsburgh's games so far, seems highly likely.

Prediction: I'm very optimistic about this one. The Legion is coming off two solid draws against tough teams and the Riverhounds have not really shown us too much so far this season. The Three Sparks come home with 3 points in the bag.

(Excerpted with minor edits from the Football Forge)