Stay frosty.
It’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone who attended tonight’s Detroit City friendly against Chattanooga FC – drawn at 1 in the dying minutes by an exquisite Charlie Clarke chip for the visitors – who’d welcome this advice. Plunging temperatures and a steady, relentless crossfield wind turned a pleasant afternoon into an icy night, after all. But ‘stay frosty’ has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the price that football can extract for a moment’s wavering concentration. Le Rouge paid that price tonight and it cost them the win, surrendering the lead late after dominating a 10-man Chattanooga for most of the second half.
Fortunately, winning this game was the last thing on anyone’s mind. “The focus tonight was just on our team, trying to get some guys some minutes,” Detroit City manager Ben Pirmann said. “I just addressed the team and told them, this was what it was, but the real season starts Monday.”
Early in the second half, a City rout looked the likeliest outcome. Staked to a lead by Brad Centala’s 42nd-minute strike, Le Rouge got another huge break just after halftime when ‘Nooga defender David Perez went straight through DCFC debutant Tariq Akeel on the City left wing, drawing a straight red card. City struggled to capitalize on the extra man, controlling play for long stretches only to see promising sequences undone by the usual early-season rusty touches and lack of synchrony.
Then, the lesson. After a long City possession, the ball fell to CFC’s Clarke in acres of space on the City left. With Wilfred Williams stranded well upfield, and Seb Harris unable to provide much pressure, Clarke chipped DCFC keeper Nate Steinwascher from 40 yards, the shot pinging off the crossbar and in.
The City goal came during a fluid bit of play in the closing minutes of the first half. Danny Deakin and Cyrus Saydee were beginning to combine through the middle, and the spectre of their quick touches seemed to unnerve Chattanooga into sitting back a bit. Deakin then began to slide into the deeper spaces, trying an array of bending services from little gaps in midfield, using the space to try to find the perfect ball. In the 42nd minute, he found one, slicing a left-footed cross from deep on the right wing, setting it swinging toward the goal. Stephen Juncay couldn’t cleanly win a header in the area, but his fight was enough to allow the ball to skid off his head and fall to the feet of Centala, who’d followed the play goal-ward. Centala gamely scruffed the ball into the net, setting off pandemonium in the frigid Northern Guard.
“They started to sit off and counter-attack us, so I felt like in order to contribute I had to drop into those deeper spaces,” Deakin said. “Ideally, I play higher up the pitch but that’s where the space was today.”
As in last week’s matchup in Tennessee, Chattanooga had the better of the play during the game’s feeling-out period, and as in last week’s match, the visitors had significant difficulty converting the advantage accrued in the middle third of the pitch into chances in the final third. In another echo of the match the week before, ‘Nooga’s best chance died in the sure hands of Steinwascher.
The visitors’ best look at goal in the first half came in the game’s very earliest stages. CFC found some joy through quick combinations in the middle, trying to catch the City centerbacks pressing, wrong-foot them, and get in behind; this was enough to produce a few half-chances and corners. In the eighth minute, a back-post corner landed almost perfectly on ‘Nooga defender Sean Rutter, but his goal-bound header did little to puzzle Steinwascher, who snatched the hard-spinning ball without incident.
DETROIT CITY FC 1, CHATTANOOGA FC 1
Detroit City FC goal: Centala 42’ (Juncaj, Deakin)
Chattanooga FC goal: Clarke 79’
Shots: DCFC 12, CFC 6
Shots on goal: DCFC 5, CFC 3
Corners: DCFC 7, CFC 3
Discipline: Caution – Bocquet (CFC) 45’. Dismissal – Perez (CFC) 48’.
Attendance: 5,361
Detroit City FC lineup: Steinwascher; Bentley, S. Harris © (Fiscus 26), Miller, Stephens; Adkins (Deakin 26), O. Harris (Adzeel 39), Williams (Centala 26), Green (Juncaj 37); Saydee; Lawson (Moorman 33).
