Honestly, we just wanted to see someone score.
Matt Sunday and I were ruminating where to spend this Wednesday summer's night, back over at PNC Park for yet another snoozefest -- and yeah, they've become that predictable -- or a place where there might actually be some offense, some celebrating, some ... you know, fun.
Well, as fate would have it ...
Meet Mouhamed Dabo.
He's a midfielder for the Riverhounds, and he's a blast even when he's not burying 25-yard bullets for his team's lone goal in a 1-1 draw with Tampa Bay. Which is good because he doesn't do that often.
Dabo's 21, he hails from Senegal -- a wonderful, small west African nation I once visited as a child -- and he's made his way to the U.S. pro ranks, by way of his under-18 national program, by basically being a terror on the pitch. He'll tackle cleats-first, he'll take down anyone from a preseason opponent to a close relative, and he'll do it all with this ironically soft smile.
No kidding, I witnessed him carving up some poor college kid back in February the moment Bob Lilley had sent him into the match.
But just like everyone wants to score, from a football lineman scooping up a fumble to a fourth-line plugger in hockey, Dabo had endured a seven-game absence to a lower-body injury and, despite all kinds of other value brought to the roster -- not least of which is seen via 18 interceptions -- he had zero goals in his 14 matches.
Until that beauty up there.
"He can do that," Lilley was telling me afterward. "He can step into it and let it fly."
Right. Like a scorer.
Neco Brett, the Hounds' top striker by a mile, had collected the ball inside the left edge of the Tampa Bay box and, with his back to the Rowdies' net, kicked out basketball-style to Dabo, who might as well have had all of Station Square in which to build up. Which he did without hesitation, stepping into a one-timer that bent savagely behind the keeper.
His thought process?
After he scored, to the delight of the Steel Army supporters section behind that same net and to all of the 1,910 in attendance, he sprinted into a pack of teammates and did what he'd call "a mix of Senegalese and Nigerian dance," then immediately bolted to the sideline to embrace assistant coach Mark Pulisic.
Sunday captured that joyful moment:
Pulisic, the father of America's tremendous young soccer talent Christian Pulisic, had been the most vocal, the most supportive of Dabo through his injury. And for a player whose style is such that he's going to give up his body at great risk, this clearly meant more than anything.
"He took care of me, always came and asked me how I was doing," Dabo told me. "When you're hurt, you don't feel like you're part of the team. It helps so much to hear that. I wanted him to know that goal was for him."
Loved that. It's amazing how often that exact same sentiment gets expressed by professional athletes at all levels. How isolated, how abandoned they can feel from the group with which they're supposed to be bonded.
Anyway, there it is. We wanted offense. We wanted a little celebrating and a little fun, too, and we wound up with all three. We just had to cross a couple rivers to find it.
• Alas, the ending was soured with Tampa Bay scoring a semi-cheesy equalizer in the 72nd minute:
.@Flemmo_77 with the equalizer!#PGHvTBR pic.twitter.com/7wYVllM4Ji
— USL (@USL) August 23, 2018
I mean ... whatever. A goal kick that results in a score at the far end seven seconds later is rare, but one in which that goal kick was successfully headed off by the defending side, that's craziness.
Still, Joe Greenspan, who otherwise excelled defensively, probably could have timed his leap better.
"You, you know ..." Greenspan began his reply when I brought that up. "All night they were playing these long balls, and I thought we covered each other well on those. On that one, I was running back, and I guess I misjudged it, went up a little early. My mistake, and they capitalized on it."
That's fair, but Michael Kirk, the keeper, probably could have been more aggressive off his line rather than waiting for all this to develop. Dan Lynd, the injured starter, would have punched that thing into the 14th row of the bleachers.
• But whatever. Lilley's not exactly one to offer excuses -- he's ripped his players even after resounding victories -- so he's earned being trusted when he labeled this "a performance you could win with in the playoffs." Sure enough, the Hounds led in shots by an 8-5 count, in corners by 8-1, and they utterly dominated possession at 74.3 percent.
Oh, and how could I forget 28-1 in crosses?
"I thought this was a real positive," Lilley told me. "For me, and that's a brand of soccer that will win a lot of games. If we can have the ball that much, get the chances we had, limit what we give up -- and their team struggled to even connect a couple passes in the attacking end -- I'm not going to fault the guys. That's what we're asking for."
• What bugged Lilley the most on this night was the continuing inability to capitalize on crosses.
The Hounds are a decent offensive team, but they've come about their 12-3-9 record -- second in the USL's Eastern Conference -- mostly through their league-high 15 clean sheets. And to get more goals, since they aren't about to samba-dance through the middle of the field, they'll need to make more of the service they create off either flank.
For the season, the Hounds rank 26th of the league's 33 teams with an 18.4 percent success rate on crosses, meaning those that at least result in a scoring chance.
In this match, all 28 of those crosses resulted in nothing other than Ben Zemanski nearly losing his nose on one of them:
"We've got to do better on the crosses," Lilley said. "That's something we work on in every practice, a lot of different ways. We need to have more people moving in the box, to create more confusion around the keeper. We'll keep working on it. Because those are the kinds of goals we'll need to have."
• No bigger bummer on this night than seeing Kevin Kerr hobbling around on that bum calf. Might cost him another month. I don't think I've ever seen the captain stand still so long in one place.
"It's no fun," he conceded.
• It's going to be fun seeing Kerr and Lynd, once healthy, and this whole group in the playoffs. Sitting where they are, the Hounds figure to get the first match or two -- or more -- at home, and that alone will be unlike anything seen since Highmark opened in 2013, since the stadium's never hosted one.
That won't happen until October, of course, but it's clear that's the focus here, and that's a change in and of itself.
"That's the goal," Kerr told me. "Keep working hard, keep getting better, keep putting ourselves in the best position to win the biggest games."
• For all the praise Lilley fairly earns, he doesn't hear nearly enough for outdueling opponents, like this Tampa Bay side, operating with payrolls that are double, even triple what the Hounds have pulled off. That's all on the coach, in this case. He's a phenomenal negotiator, from some of the tales I've been told.
• If it's further complaining about the Pirates' offense that anyone prefers, I've got you covered via the spoken word:
• The Grind will take Friday off, but it's for a worthy cause, since it'll instead run all through the weekend from Milwaukee. And if the Pirates can't score in Miller Park, it'll probably be about time for those lads to to take up a little footy.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Riverhounds vs. Tampa Bay, Highmark Stadium, Aug. 22, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS