Lexington Sporting Club came up short in a battle against One Knoxville SC in the men’s debut matchup inside the brand-new Lexington SC Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, on Friday night.
“(The stadium is) beautiful, the pitch is amazing,” Lexington forward Nico Brown said. “When the crowd yells it kind of amplifies throughout the entire stadium. I hope it continues to be a great atmosphere for us, it gave me more energy to keep running in the second half, it was amazing.”
The result saw the club debut of new signee Marcel Canadi and marked the Greens’ first defeat in their brand new Lexington SC Stadium.
As fans have come to expect from Bourbon Barrel Derby matchups, things got off to a tightly contested start.
Home fans thought they got some early relief when the Greens put one in the net in the first minute, but an offside call would mark the start of a scoreless battle for the first 45 minutes.
While no goals would come in the first half, four yellow cards and a red card to Knoxville’s Angelo Kelly-Rosales would. The red to Kelly-Rosales would ensure that the Greens would play most of the match with a 11-10 advantage.
Ultimately, despite four minutes of stoppage time, the halftime whistle delivered a 0-0 halftime score.
Coming back out for the second half, cards continued to fly until disaster struck for the Greens in the 69th minute when the visitors found the back of the net courtesy of Richard Ballard. He was assisted by Sivert Haugli on the play.
Lexington continued to find opportunities to score, but each trip into the opposing box proved unsuccessful as the Knoxville back-line held strong.
Ultimately, the full time whistle came, granting Knoxville three points in the match.
“These fans are everything to the club, this is why we built the stadium, why the owners put it together and we want to put on entertainment,” Lexington SC head coach Darren Powell said. “I think the roof would’ve come off tonight had we got a goal, especially at the end, so the disappointing thing is we feel we dropped points where we should’ve gained them. Ultimately as a coach you take that responsibility and we get back to the training ground first time tomorrow to get ready for Wednesday night.”
Lexington controlled the possession in the match, holding onto the ball 67.1% of the time while Knoxville won in expected goals with a 0.74-0.63 advantage.
Next up for the Boys in Green, they’ll return home on Wednesday, Sept. 18, to face off against CV Fuego FC in Lexington SC Stadium. That match is currently set to kickoff at 7 p.m. ET and will air live on ESPN+.
“I think for all of us it was a really nice experience (debuting the stadium), for the players and fans,” Canadi said. “Unfortunately we couldn’t come up with a win and that’s what we were working for the whole week. We were disappointed in this game. We need to concentrate quickly for the next game on Wednesday, we’ve got a couple days to reset, recover, and go for the next one.”
About Lexington Sporting Club
Lexington Sporting Club is a U.S. Soccer professional soccer club competing in USL League One (U.S. Soccer third division men’s professional soccer), and in USL Super League (women’s professional soccer launching in 2024). The two professional teams are the pinnacle of the soccer ecosystem in Lexington that features more than 1,000 players within its youth and academy systems. Lexington SC in the process of building the club’s formal stadium, performance center and training fields.