Once again, Union Omaha proved to be a pitch the Richmond Kickers just couldn’t seem to handle.
A goal from Brandon Knapp and a brace from Joe Gallardo led the way as the Owls downed the Roos 3-0 in USL League One play on Saturday night. Some early miscues from the Richmond defense and a dominant first half paced the victory, while the Omaha defense held stout in the second half to give Rashid Nuhu his fourth clean sheet of the year.
Following a two-week layoff, Dom Casciato put out a mostly unchanged lineup from the XI rolled out against Central Valley Fuego. One of those put Zeiko Lewis up for his first start of the year in place of Aáron Gomez. The second was forced by Indy Eleven recalling Max Schneider from his very short loan spell. With Pedro Dolabella serving the second of his two-match suspension, Nortei Nortey got the call to shore up the midfield.
On the other side, Darren Sawatzky chose to go with a bigger lineup in hopes of matching Omaha’s physicality. Richmond made four total changes, with Guilherme França, Dakota Barnathan and Chandler O’Dwyer charged with duties on the left while Adrian Billhardt tried to make his presence felt on the right. It seemed to be a solid counter to what the Owls would attempt to do.
That is, until it wasn’t.
From the opening minute one could tell that this wasn’t going to be Ryan Shellow’s night. A simple back pass from Nil Vinyals went off the keeper’s left foot and immediately over the byline for a corner kick. Joe stepped up to take the corner and placed the ball onto the head of a rising Steevan Dos Santos. With literally the Owls’ seventh touch of the match, Shellow was called on to make an awkward save on the bouncing header to keep the score level.
But if that wasn’t a wake-up call, Omaha would provide a full alarm shortly thereafter. Under pressure just outside his own box, Justin Sukow attempted another simple back pass to Shellow. With Brandon bearing down on him, the keeper lost his footing letting the ball slip away. The 24-year-old midfielder wasn’t caught napping, reacting quickest to the loose ball, and slotting home for the first professional goal of his career.
The next 10 minutes flowed pretty much the same way between the two sides. Union Omaha found plenty of passing lanes, some good attacks down the left side, and allowed Richmond to continue to make mistakes in the back. Despite having played a match only eight days prior, the Kickers seemed to be the ones out of sync while the Owls maintained their locked in chemistry.
But even with the disjointed nature of play, Richmond still found a few moments of quality through Billhardt on the right side. One such moment saw a good sequence of passing and switching of the ball that ended up with Billhardt just outside the right side of the box against Charlie Ostrem. A quick move and deft touch opened enough space for a left-footed shot to the far post that sent Shido diving and didn’t miss the net by much.
The optimism that chance held would be quickly extinguished only a couple of minutes later. The Owls put together a great string of passing of their own, cycling the ball well up the left, back through midfield, and finally finding Dion Acoff’s feet. The winger didn’t hesitate from the right side as he was able to cut inside and start a run across the top of the 18-yard box. With a massive hole formed in the defensive line, Dion noticed Joe breaking into the space ahead of Sukow. With nothing else to do, the Richmond man switched sports to put in an excellent rugby tackle. The play was not suitable for soccer, however, and referee Wesley Costa pointed immediately for a penalty. Having won the penalty, Joe placed the kick perfectly in the left corner, just outside Shellow’s glove, to put the Owls up 2-0 inside 20 minutes.
Another misplayed back pass almost resulted in another penalty not long after. Nathan Aune found himself under immense pressure and managed to get the ball out back toward Shellow. The keeper’s touch let him down again and the ball popped up and away allowing Steevan to settle between Shellow and the ball. That could’ve ended poorly for Richmond, but the keeper managed to keep from running into Steevan and only made slight contact with his back. The striker tried to make the most of it, however, and fell over under the perceived challenge. The ref was having none of it, though, and immediately whistled the play dead to give Steevan his yellow card for simulation.
Richmond, to their credit, didn’t completely fold up following the second goal or the continued pressure that Omaha brought. Billhardt kept his runs going and proved to be the most dangerous of the Roos for most of the remainder of the first half. Nil Vinyals would get into the act as well, launching a shot just wide left of the net off of a chaotic play in the box. For the most part, the Owl midfield and defense found themselves just a step quicker on the passes and were able to cut out a lot of the trouble that found its way into their box.
For all of that improvement, Richmond can consider themselves lucky not to have had another penalty called right before halftime. Off a free kick from Joe, the ball bounced back and forth without fully being cleared by the Richmond defense. Eventually it fell to Nortei with a good bit of open space on the left side of the box. Seeing the run, Steevan moved to get in position near the edge of the six-yard box. Once again with nothing else to do about it, França appeared to pull Steevan down before he could get to Nortei’s low cross. In real time, it was surprising that the ref didn’t call it (there’s speculation that the earlier simulation tinted his view), however, on replay it appeared that Steevan was falling forward with no sign of being pulled backward. Controversial, yes, but also lucky not to have been called on the field.
With that, Richmond went into the locker room breathing a sigh of relief and wondering what they needed to do to get things right in the second half.
Based on how the restart went, Richmond almost seemed to figure it out.
A couple of tactical substitutions and a good rest energized the Kickers out of the locker room and they began to execute their game much better. The momentum in possession started to even out more with Richmond finding their passing, their runs, and cutting down on some of the mistakes that plagued them in the first half.
It almost bore fruit in the 50’ when the Kickers found themselves aggrieved by having their own penalty shouts waved away. Off a goal kick, Richmond won an aerial duel that knocked the ball back to a wide open Billhardt in the final third. A quick turn and run allowed him to place a through ball to Emiliano Terzaghi, who had split two Búho defenders into the box. While running for the ball, Terzaghi’s feet got tangled up with Marco Milanese taking the three-time USL 1 MVP down inside the box. Once again, the referee saw nothing in the contact and allowed play to continue.
It was a sign of things to come for the next 30 minutes, though.
Shido was called into action twice in close order, once off a free kick from Vinyals and again when back pass issues started to plague the Omaha defenders. Charlie’s pass inside his own box was too light and Billhardt would have made him pay had the Omaha keeper’s reactions been only a hair slower.
It was almost a complete reversal of the first half with Richmond providing the more dangerous chances and Omaha getting the occasional counter or moment of possession to provide relief. The difference being only that the Owls were able to recover from their mistakes—if only just—and never fully broke under the Roos’ attack.
As the minutes ticked down, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before a goal was scored. Fortunately, that goal would belong to Joe.
Lining up for a free kick from about 25 yards out, Joe intended to curl the ball over the wall and into the near post. He was unable to completely clear the wall, however, and the ball deflected off of França. As Shellow moved to cover the near side, he could only watch helplessly as the ball ricocheted to the far post to put the game out of reach.
Richmond would come up with another half-chance or two, but ultimately Joe’s second proved to be too much for the resilient Roos to overcome. The Búho Backline saw the game out in controlled fashion and delivered a clean sheet and three points for the supporters in attendance.
The win put the Owls back in second place, two points back of Charlotte Independence with two games in hand. For Richmond, their season continues to fall apart as they are now winless in their last five USL 1 matches and only two points off the bottom, having played two more matches than Central Valley.
The Positives
- Wow…how does one find the positives in a 3-0 home victory after being off for two weeks and down two really good midfielders—one of which is your top scorer? I suppose we should talk about the interplay, the pressing, the reactions, and the like.
And all of that actually is down to the play of the midfield. The combination of Brandon Knapp and Nortei Nortei had not played together much this season. Add in Charlie Ostrem, and you have a midfield trio that well could have found itself with some chemistry issues and gaping holes for Richmond to exploit. To their credit, you wouldn’t have known they weren’t the regular starting choices.
Nortei played with a high level of energy, intelligence, and skill that shows why the team picked him up from Northern Colorado. He hasn’t always displayed it this year, but when he’s on, he is on. He was responsible for not only 23 accurate passes (6 of those in the final third), but several times won possession back in the middle of the pitch to kill quick counters and start some of our own.
Brandon, besides scoring his first goal because of his pressing and reaction times, did even better. 32 accurate passes, 12 of those in the final third, and won possession back 6 times over the course of the match. He pressed, played smartly, and took advantage of the mistakes Richmond gave him.
Finally, Charlie had a very solid night in movement, opening spaces, but also in tracking back and keeping Billhardt at bay (as much as one can). He won four tackles, put in six crosses, and generally made himself a menace to clog up lanes or force Richmond into rethinking their attacks.
The three of them together nailed down what was probably the biggest question mark going into this match. While we should be excited to get Pedro back for Thursday’s match against Madison, we should also be excited at what we saw Saturday.
The Negatives
- Yes…there are negatives. At least two of them I want to throw out.
First I’ll talk about the silly cards. The Owls took three cards on the night—none of them for physical play or fouls.
Steevan’s card for simulation might be forgiven. He’s a striker, he feels contact in the box like he did, I don’t blame him for going down. It’s always a risk, but you also don’t often see simulation cards given. Plus, in this league, that may have been called as a penalty by some refs. Half-pass on this one.
But the card for Joe kicking the ball away was extremely petty—and this coming from a penguin that can get really petty. I get a small sense of frustration, some building pressure in the second half, but it’s one of those mental switch-offs that fortunately didn’t have any real effect on this game.
Finally, Marco’s card for dissent. Almost any cards given for dissent are silly to me. The ref isn’t changing the call, so the outburst does nothing but get you either ready to go in the book, or (as in this case) actually in the book. For the heart and anchor of the defense, any silly card risks worse—especially when you’re scrambling to fend off a fierce period of attack from a desperate team. - The second negative I have is the chaos that was the first 30-35 minutes of the second half. Richmond came out angry, firing, and with nothing to lose. It’s a credit to the defense that they kept the Kickers off the scoresheet, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
The second half saw Richmond out possess, out pass, out shoot, and pretty much outperform Omaha. And while you can say that it was representative of a team defending a 2-0 lead, it took some last ditch defending at times (see Marco’s clearance off the line off of a fumbled corner). That kind of chaos management hasn’t traditionally been our strong suit, and could prove fatal against better opponents—the kind you might find in the playoffs.
That’s not to say that overall the team didn’t play well. They killed it for the most part. But an inch slower on a couple of those second half plays and the scoreline looks a little different.
What’s Next
The Owls travel for a Thursday night match in Madison to finish off the Jägermeister Cup group stage. A win against the Mingos could not only secure the wild card slot for Omaha, but also deny Madison a slot as Group 2 winners.
After that, Union Omaha finds its way back to Spokane on Wednesday, September 4, in a return to USL League One play. That match will be featured on CBS Sports Network.
Interesting Facts
- This was the third straight victory, and fourth straight unbeaten, for Omaha over Richmond. The only other win for the Owls in the series was back in October 2021 – a 2-0 victory that clinched the Players Shield for that season.
- To keep piling on Richmond, they have failed to keep a single clean sheet in USL League One play this year. The last USL 1 clean sheet they have was on July 1, 2023 – a 2-0 victory over Chattanooga Red Wolves. In that time, they’ve been shut out 7 times in USL 1 play.
- Despite the Owls being third in the league in total Yellow Cards (45), and first in Yellows per match (3.46), only Joe Gallardo is in the top 10 for accumulated cards (T5 – 6).
- Brandon Knapp’s goal from about 3 yards out still only had a 0.55 xG. I blame Darwin Nuñez.
Key Events:
Union Omaha Goal: 4’ – Brandon Knapp (1st) (Unassisted); 1-0
Richmond Kickers Yellow Card: 11’ – Zacarías Morán (Bad Challenge)
Richmond Kickers Yellow Card: 17’ – Justin Sukow (Bad Challenge)
Union Omaha Goal: 19’ – Joe Gallardo (3rd) (Penalty); 2-0
Union Omaha Yellow Card: 23’ – Steevan Dos Santos (Simulation)
Richmond Kickers Subs: 46’ – Maxi Schenfeld ON; Justin Sukow OFF
– Ryan Sierakowski ON; Chandler O’Dwyer OFF
Union Omaha Yellow Card: 62’ – Joe Gallardo (Kicking Ball Away)
Richmond Kickers Sub: 63’ – Landon Johnson ON; Zacarías Morán OFF
Union Omaha Yellow Card: 65’ – Marco Milanese (Dissent)
Richmond Kickers Yellow Card: 67’ – Ryan Sierakowski (Tactical Foul)
Union Omaha Sub: 67’ – Aáron Gómez ON; Zeiko Lewis OFF
Richmond Kickers Sub: 71’ – João Gomiero ON; Adrian Billhardt OFF
Union Omaha Sub: 77’ – Mark Bronnik ON; Charlie Ostrem OFF
Richmond Kickers Sub: 83’ – Arthur Bosua ON; Emiliano Terzaghi OFF
Union Omaha Goal: 84’ – Joe Gallardo (4th) (Unassisted); 3-0
Union Omaha Subs: 89’ – Isaac Bawa ON; Joe Gallardo OFF
– Ryen Jiba ON; Steevan Dos Santos OFF
Who Gives A Hoot? 