Look, this wasn’t about the result. It just wasn’t.
Detroit City Football Club continued its shaking-out cruise for 2018 Saturday night in Keyworth Stadium, this time welcoming Harpos FC, a regional men’s-league team whose reputation rests on a few stirring runs into the later stages of the U.S. Open Cup. That the visitors brought only 13 players for the match may give you some indication of the level of menace expected, especially when you consider that two (2) of them were goalkeepers; against them was arrayed a powerful Le Rouge roster already deep and still filling.
Football’s a funny game. Harpos FC, playing almost exclusively from a deep block and countering, snatched a goal against the run of play, then held on through a late-game City battering, to survive with a 1-1 draw.
Not that anyone minded all that much. 20 minutes after the final whistle, a U10 girls soccer team was asking the dumbfounded Harpos players for autographs, while the faithful of Northern Guard lingered in the stands, cleaning and chatting, cognizant that the next time they’re here, it’s for-real.
“It’s preseason, we’ve had three games, and we haven’t had great performances any of the games. So it’s a work in progress.”
City looked sharp and poised in the early going, playing a confident, fluid possession style that emphasized keeping the ball while maintaining defensive structure. The Coloradons struggled to keep the ball against the swarming pressure, while Le Rouge seemed to fall into a funk as the half went on. Their possessions would spiral on, longer and longer, skeins of passes and little movements to keep the ball, but so cautiously, the vigor draining from the game like water from a soaking sponge.
The game cried out for a breakthrough, but as is common in early-season football, none came until the 58th minute, against the run of play. Harpos FC forward Shane Wheeler pounced on a loose touch in deep midfield and made the game wondrously uncomplicated, crushing a clear finish past a stunned Nate Steinwascher in the Detroit City goal. 0-1, Harpos FC.
Seeming incensed by falling behind in a game they’d largely dominated, Le Rouge turned the screw, stepping up both their defensive pressure and the tempo of their fluid passing game. Their control of the match was compromised by the oddity of the early-season lineups – but it was that oddity that produced the leveller. Jeff Adkins, as attacking a winger as exists at this level, took a wide ball while bursting forward from his late-game assignment as a right wingback, slicing infield with the ball on his unfavored left foot, all the while measuring, measuring, ending the sequence with a low curler that nestled just inside the visitors’ back post. 1-1, with 11 minutes remaining.
“It’s the 80th minute or whatever, and we’re down 1-nil so we’re pushing for a goal,” Adkins said. “Me playing right back is just part of that. … My mission was to get into the attack.”
Try as City might throughout a wild final five minutes, the breakthrough wasn’t to come. The closest brush with victory came a minute into stoppage time, when Rafa Mentzingen’s sharp cross from the left narrowly avoided Brogan Shrimpton’s head.
Detroit City returns to the U.S. Open Cup Wednesday, when they host their arch-rival Michigan Bucks in a first-round contest. Kickoff is slated for 7:30 p.m. at Keyworth Stadium; tickets for the match are available at http://tickets.https://www.detcityfc.com.
DETROIT CITY FC 1, HARPOS FC 1
Detroit City FC 0 1 – 1
Harpos FC 0 1 – 1
Goals: DCFC – Adkins 80 (unassisted), HFC – Wheeler 58’ (unassisted)
Shots: DCFC 6, HFC 3
Shots on goal: DCFC 4, HFC 2
Corners: DCFC 6, HFC 2
Fouls: DCFC 7, HFC 11
Discipline: Cautions – DCFC (Carroll 52), HFC (Bell 79)
DCFC lineup: Steinwascher (Skinner 82); Bentley (Williams 45), S. Harris (Moorman 45, Adkins 72), Carroll (S.Harris 65), Sinclair (Bentley 65); Williams (O.Harris 28, Chomakov 72), Akeel (Chomakov 38, Bartel 45), Saydee; Deakin (Adkins 24, Mentzingen 45), Lawson (Green 72), Green (Shrimpton 45)
