DCFC takes down No. 1 Tampa Bay Rowdies 1-0 on Motor City Night
· Yahoo Sports
Hamtramck — Earning three points with a 1-0 victory over the first place Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday night, Aug. 22, was the perfect way for Detroit City FC to celebrate its Motor City Night.
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Detroit native and Indy NXT driver Nolan Allaer was the honorary captain of DCFC for the night's theme, and Le Rouge's record when scoring the first goal improved to 9-1-0.
“It's a massive win — we've spoken about it, we've dreamt about it, and then we've done it,” DCFC head coach Danny Dichio said. “We saw some really good football tonight against a very good team in Tampa — we haven't scored in two games at home, so it was important getting that goal as well.”
Before the game started, the crowd added to the competitive atmosphere chanting “Come and get it,” and followed that with their infamous smoke bombs.
The bombs were reactivated at the 36th minute after DCFC forward Alasanne Ates Diouf scored the first goal of the match with defender Aedan Stanley assisting to put it ahead before halftime.
Diouf received a yellow card 11 minutes later, the second of the night following his teammate defender Haruki Yamazaki’s yellow card at 20 minutes.
“It's great for Ates, but we've never put pressure on him,” Dichio said. “He gets into the right spots, he causes havoc to the defenders that he plays against, and it was something that he never spoke about — I thought he had a really good game.”
Coming out of halftime, back-to-back yellow cards were given to both teams, first DCFC midfielder Kobe Hernandez-Foster at 56 minutes, then Rowdies defender Charlie Ostrem two minutes later.
Earlier this week, DCFC signed Kian Williams for the remainder of the season as a loan from Indy Eleven, and he made his debut with the team subbing in at the 78th minute.
The clock was ticking and the Rowdies knew it. They attempted a goal in the 83rd minute, but DCFC goalkeeper Carlos Herrera saved the ball from crossing the line to maintain the lead.
Two more crucial saves came from Herrera right before the referees called the match and DCFC was victorious.
DCFC forward Darren Smith was back on the field Saturday as a starter.
There were still missing pieces on Detroit’s side with forwards Connor Rutz, Preston Tabort Etaka, and midfielder Rafa Mentzingen out — but Mentzingen’s son still wanted his dad in the game and attempted to run on the field.
DCFC came out on the field applying pressure from the start to finish with 44% ball possession, 19 touches in the opposition’s box, and won 79% of the tackles with 14.
Diouf was the club’s “Man of the Match” and finished with one goal and two shots.
The team is hitting the road on Aug. 29 to face Louisville City FC at 8 p.m. at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky.
“We're a pretty intense team when we train throughout the week — we argue with each other, we put demands on each other, but we love each other as well, and you see that when we go out on the field,” Dichio said. “We wanted to be aggressive. You know, that's one of our principles here at Keyworth — not naive, but aggressive-and put the opponents under pressure, and I thought we did a really good job with that tonight.”
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: DCFC takes down No. 1 Tampa Bay Rowdies 1-0 on Motor City Night