It’s a showdown in the Sun City on Saturday evening as the Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC take on El Paso Locomotive FC at Southwest University Park in Far West Texas. The match will kick off at 7:30pm MT, with live coverage by the voice of the Switchbacks, Ryan Kaufman, beginning at 7pm on XTRA Sports1300 AM.
El Paso Locomotive are 8-6-6 in the USL Championship this season, and have drawn their last two matches. On July 2nd, the Locomotive tied 2-2 with Atlanta United 2 at Fifth Third Bank Stadium in Kennesaw, Georgia. The Switchbacks fell 3-2 to San Diego Loyal SC on Monday at Weidner Field in downtown Colorado Springs.
What the Switchbacks Say:
Centerback Jimmy Ockford: “[We need to] analyze what we could have done better during the match [against San Diego] and the only thing we can do is try to forget about it. There’s not much else we can do – we just forget about it and move on to the next [game]. There’s plenty of games left and lots of minutes to be played, so we just take it one game at a time. We’ve been [to El Paso] before and played in the heat and humidity and whatever it may be, so it’s just important to come out and play our game and get back to our style. [El Paso] have some experience and some size, but I’m not worried about their side – I think we can only focus on ourselves right now. Obviously [El Paso] are a good team but I think we’re ready for it and [ready] to compete.”
Switchbacks Head Coach and General Manager Brendan Burke: “The guys know that the game against San Diego probably shouldn’t have been played on the schedule that it was played on, so we just have to wash it away. Our guys couldn’t even walk. I think to play this weekend will help – to play on Saturday and then prepare for next Friday. We should at least have our legs back this weekend. We’re naturally a very fit team because of the altitude here and the way we trained for the first half of the season. But now we can back off the training a little bit and concentrate on having the right amount of energy for each match. This weekend we may be able to fill out an 18 – which is progress [on the injury front].”
El Paso Locomotive Scouting Report: “You have to keep Dylan Mares and Richie Ryan off the ball because they can unlock all of El Paso’s forwards,” said Brendan Burke. “[El Paso] have added pace out wide to the group that they had last year and that’s why they score so freely. They don’t have the same targets [as last year] but I think the quality [of the team] and the quality of the service is still there.”
Vargish’s View: Heat and hostility await the Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC this weekend. Temperatures are forecast to be in the mid-90s at the start of Saturday’s match in El Paso, and the Locomotive are a powerful team that have shown they can score goals with the best the Western Conference has to offer.
The Switchbacks’ match against San Diego Loyal cannot be looked at as any type of harbinger of future performance. Monday’s loss was the Switchbacks’ fourth game in 11 days. That’s not typical in soccer, let alone in the middle of an American summer and across three time zones. Saturday night we’ll see a Switchbacks team that’s been able to have a legitimate amount of time to prepare, and will be looking to get back to the form that’s already seen them win 12 games this season.
