Three Things: Las Vegas Lights 1 - 3 San Antonio + Real Monarchs Preview

Well that wasn't exactly what we were looking for.

In USL's featured "game of the week" on Friday, the Lights fell on their face to concede three goals at home in a 1-3 loss to San Antonio. Here are the three things I took from it:

1. The counter-attackers got counter-attacked.

The Lights are, in essence, a defend-and-counter team. We don't like to possess the ball and stroke it around - instead we look to move it forward quickly and with purpose.

So with that in mind, you'd think the team would be aware of the danger of counter attacks - but on Friday they just weren't. The first San Antonio goal, in the 17th minute, was a classic example of a poorly managed counter attack. The Lights had committed players forward, and had only left two defenders back to deal with any possible counter-attack.

That's fine, sometimes you have to commit numbers forward - but when you do that, you have to (a) make sure that the play ends either in a goal, goal kick, corner, or something, or (b) have players switched on enough to sprint back on defense in case you lose the ball. The Lights did neither - they lost possession, and noone got back quick enough. San Antonio moved the ball upfield into a 3 on 2, and it was a fairly simple tap-in in the end.

After that, the Lights had to press high in search of an equalizer, and that played right into San Antonio's hands. While the Lights managed to out-possess and out-shoot San Antonio, it just wasn't effective, because that just is not who the Lights are. While we managed to eventually get a goal back (through Carlos Alvarez, one of our stand-out players, and a former San Antonio man himself) San Antonio was able to just ride out the limited pressure and continue to play on the break, which eventually killed us.

2. Couldn't find our shooting boots

That isn't to say that the Lights didn't have chances. After the first goal and early in the second, Lights forward Ochoa had some decent looks that could have, on a better night, brought the Lights back into the game.

Overall, they had 23 shots, 15 of which were inside the box. Inside the box shots are usually much higher percentage shots that outside of the box, but out of all of those attempts, the Lights only managed to keep a paltry six on target (compare that to San Antonio, who only managed 13 shots all game, but 10 of those were inside the box, and 5 were on target).

As I've mentioned in some of my past posts, the Lights have been converting their shots at a probably-unsustainably-high rate. This game just might have been the first sign of a reversion to the mean, where the Lights' finishing just wasn't as clinical as it has been in the past.

3. Look ahead at Real Monarchs

So far the Lights have had a really friendly opening schedule, with a lot of breaks and a lot of home games. In the next few weeks, however, the Lights are going to be on the road a lot more often, and are going to have a much more packed schedule - so don't be too surprised if they struggle in a few matches as fatigue (both in terms of minutes and travel) start to take their toll.

It all starts for the Lights tonight as they play the Real Monarchs up in Salt Lake City. Actually, the Lights get the dubious honor of opening the Monarchs' brand new USL-specific stadium.

Let's not beat around the bush here, this is going to be a tough game. The Monarchs were the regular season champions last season, they have a lot of talent, and they are gong to be motivated to get their new stadium off to a winning start.

BUT, I still hold out a tiny bit of hope that the Lights can get a result up in Utah, and here's why. The Monarchs are not going to do what San Antonio did - give up possession to play on the break, and force the Lights to try to possess the ball. No, the Monarchs are going to try to monopolize the ball and take the game to the Lights. Which means that Lights get to do what they like to do - defend, then counter.

Here's to a quick bounce back against the Monarchs this evening.

-VSB