GAME RECAP: One Knoxville 1-2 Asheville City
A historic night is spoiled by the visitors, who take Round 1 of the Smoky Mountain Series in a high-intensity game with plenty of action (and some controversy).
It was a night of firsts for One Knoxville SC, as the club welcomed South Central Division rivals Asheville City to town for the first-ever Smoky Mountain derby in Knoxville’s first-ever game in USL League Two.
From the first ball, the home team pressed high, making good on head coach Mark McKeever’s promise of entertaining, attack-minded soccer.
In the sixth minute, One Knoxville fell behind to a goal by Asheville’s Kemy Amiche, who snuck into the penalty box between defenders to receive a low, driven cross from the left and score from close range.
Englishman Max McNulty evened the scoreline, scoring the first goal in One Knoxville history, in the 21st minute1. Wingback James Thomas, off a corner kick, played a short pass-and-return sequence with Moses Mensah before sending an inswinging cross into the six-yard box. McNulty rosed above his marker to head the ball past the keeper. The crowd of 2,200 inside Austin-East High School’s stadium erupted as the striker ran off to celebrate with his teammates.
Complementing the height and power of McNulty, Canadian striker Stephen Afrifa was an ever-present threat with his footwork and close control. In the 55th minute, Afrifa received a pass from Mensah, who was constantly attacking down the left, and sent in a curling shot from outside the box. Asheville goalkeeper Ryan Bilichuk dove, fully-extended, to parry away2. In the 66th minute, Bilichuck saved again from Afrifa, who had dribbled into the box past two defenders before taking hard right-footed shot right at the keeper. A minute later, it was Sebastian Andreassen, on for McNulty, who beat the offside trap on a long pass from Spanish defender Dani Fernandez. Through on goal, the Norwegian took several touches into the box before releasing from close range. Bilichuk kept the angle tight and saved well.
In the 80th minute, substitute Alex Abril (on for fellow central midfielder Marko Mitrevski), broke away from a defender and hit a pass with the outside of his foot between Asheville’s center backs toward Afrifa, who dribbled into the box then collided hard with Bilichuk as he rushed to block the shot.
The rhythm of the game remained the same throughout: One Knoxville pressed, Asheville absorbed pressure and tried to play quickly to wide players to counter. In the 85th minute, after another quick passing sequence, Afrifa seemed to be fouled outside the box after taking a touch between two defenders towards goal. The referee waved play on. The same did not happen 60 seconds later as Asheville’s Malcolm Ward, on a counterattack, took a heavy touch into the box and away from goal. Mensah, who moved to close the angle, brushed arms with Ward, who fell to the surface3. The center referee, who had received the ire of players and coaches, on both sides, for some of his decisions (each team had two players yellow-carded: for Knoxville, Afrifa in the first half and holding midfielder Seth Antwi in the second), pointed to the spot. Luka Erhardt stepped up for the visitors and sent goalkeeper Peter Swinkels the wrong direction.
One Knoxville pressed high in the final minutes. Even Swedish center back Buster Sjoberg, who was dominant in the air throughout the game and a threat on every set piece, joined his fellow Scandinavian Andreassen as a target for crosses into the box. The pressure resulted in what seemed to be a goal by Afrifa—but the referee waved it away for a foul against Andreassen in the build-up. In the dying moments, Brazilian substitute Zyan Andrade had his close-range, one-time shot miss by inches (the fans, thinking it had gone in, erupted again, before a goal kick was signaled). And, despite the hosts outshooting the visitors 16-9 (10-3 in shots on goal), the game ended 2-1 to the neighbors from the other side of the mountain.
One Knoxville will play Tri-Cities Otters, which defeated Dalton Red Wolves 3-1 on the road last night, at Knoxville Catholic’s stadium on Tuesday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m.
Patty and I will release a podcast episode Monday morning with our CAR TAKE, recorded just after the Asheville game ended, to complement this recap.4
Gaffer’s Take
On the team’s performance
“We’re made to score goals. Unfortunately, we made chances, but we couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net.”
“The team played well, energy was high. We got the ball into good areas. But we’ve got to have a wee bit better quality. We out-possessed them, outshot them. Their keeper had a worldie. We finish our chances, and we have 6, 7 goals. You’ve got to score goals to win games, and we didn’t.”
“Put the ball in the back of the net, score the chances, and they don’t touch us. Their goalkeeper had a fantastic performance. Fair play to them. Hopefully they feel they stole it.”
On team chemistry
“The machine was good, it’s just not efficient yet. And it’ll get more and more efficient as we come along. That’s their first 45 minutes as a team together. It was always gonna be scrappy. But the machine was there. We showed it in our personal battles”
“It’s one of those games. It’s soccer unfortunately. We see it time and time again at the higher level. You get a bit of possession and you get a bit of a lucky break.”
On the support from the fans in attendance
“It was a wonderful atmosphere tonight. I can’t be more thankful. I speak on behalf of the coaching staff and all the players as well. This was an atmosphere that we loved, we enjoyed. We’re very, very grateful. And we would love to recreate it again on Tuesday evening. The W’s are gonna start coming, we promise. We didn’t get the rub of the green tonight. It’ll happen. This groups too talented to not win football matches. Hopefully we can click Tuesday night and bring the first W for the club.”
James Thomas
On his reaction to the result
“Obviously it’s frustrating to lose. But it’s part of the game we’re involved in. Sometimes you need to have tough games in tough moments to see what you need to work on. And you know this is gonna be a test of our resilience now. I was hoping it wouldn’t come this early. It has. And now we deal with what’s in front of us. It’s obviously crushing to lose at home. The fans were absolutely magnificent. They were fantastic from even before minute 1 all the way through to minute 90. We need that support.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. A couple of decisions didn’t go our way. We’re not gonna blame the referees. We put the chances we had in the goal and we get away with a comfortable win. It’s football, we take it, we run with it, and we learn from it.”
On the set piece dominance and the use of aerial targets like McNulty
“We want to score goals lots of different ways. We want to hurt teams lots of different ways. We’ve got smaller guys who are technical. We’ve got bigger guys who are more physical.”
On what he says, as club captain, to his teammates now
“The talking’s already been done. They know my opinions. It’s one game of football in a season of 14 games. Let it sting tonight, But don’t let it set in. As soon as that sun comes up tomorrow we’re focused on Tuesday. That’s the message from the gaffer. That’s the message from me. That’s the message from everyone that wants to ultimately win this division, which is what we’re here to do.”
Watch the full match on YouTube
We’re doing our best to balance fandom and professionalism here. After all, we’re fighting the good fight for soccer in our city, and One Knoxville (just like the Lady Vols, Austin-East, Emerald Force, Crush—all of it—is good for our city). But I’m not gonna lie and say that my wife doesn’t have a picture of her holding my 5-month old son up in the air celebrating like Rafiki holding up Simba in The Lion King after the big Englishman went full Andy Carroll on that header.
I mean just look up, in the video, how out-stretched he was. The man must not have cut his fingernails in the morning. Or he spent it watching clips from the Chelsea-Liverpool FA Cup Final and was ready for a penalty shootout. Either way, it was a remarkable enough save that I had to remark on it even further in this footnote.
Watch it on the video for your take. Live, it looked like this: Ward’s last touch was heavy, leaving him without the option of holding the ball up or trying to cross against Mensah and have it go out for a corner. He felt a touch and took his chance. The referee had let worse go. The isolation of the incident—no one was near either player—probably didn’t help once Ward was on the ground rocking and rolling, looking like he was unsure whether he had been pushed, kicked, or blown on.
Yes, we’re sitting in one of our cars after games and talking into a recorder about what we saw and doing our best to provide you with the fullest picture of what went down that you may have missed before, after, or during the broadcast. Rusty Wallace, I drive a Civic. Grayson, Patty drives a Subaru. Sponsor us.