After a brilliant start to 2025, Detroit City has hit an early season patch of the doldrums. While Le Rouge remains unbeaten in their last five league games, the most recent three have been disappointing draws against teams in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference. The latest setback, which also included dropping points from a winning position again, came last Sunday in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Birmingham Legion have struggled for traction this year and find themselves outside the playoff spots. They don’t score a lot of goals and give up quite a few. That makes DCFC’s inability to generate much offense at Protective Stadium that much more disappointing. Coach Danny Dichio reverted to his original starting pair of Ben Morris and Darrin Smith, but neither could find any joy against a massed defense.
A goalless first half petered out with only a curling shot from Devon Amoo-Mensah that went wide threatening the Birmingham goal. Dichio must have tried to rally the team at halftime. They came out positively with defender Shane Wiedt, playing in place of captain Stephen Carroll, launching a lovely long ball to Alex Villanueva. The left wing-back’s first touch took him inside his defender and a clumsy-looking shot with his weaker right foot eluded goalkeeper Matt Van Oekel to give DCFC a lead just a minute into the second half.
Le Rouge tried to hold the lead, slowing the game down at every opportunity, but eventually conceded an equalizer ten minutes from time after a corner kick. Carlos Herrera went low to make a superb save on Santiago Suarez’s header but could only poke the ball into the feet of Phanuel Kavita, who made no mistake with the rebound.
There was no final charge from City to try and reclaim all three points. The second half simply ran down until the final whistle with neither side offering much. Like the previous two draws against Indy XI and Hartford, these will be points the team will miss later this year. Six points dropped against three of the four teams currently below the playoff line is not a good return. The club now goes into a very important game this weekend without a win since April 19.
On Saturday afternoon, the hottest team in the USL Championship will be at Keyworth Stadium. The Charleston Battery seized the top spot in the Eastern Conference with a comfortable 4-0 win over San Antonio. They will arrive in the midst of a six match winning streak, having beaten up on the lesser teams where DCFC struggled. Striker Cal Jennings will be a serious threat. He leads the league with nine goals after bagging a brace against San Antonio. Matt Myers has an additional five goals, giving the Battery a solid secondary scoring option. Midfielder Juan Torres is second in the league with 20 chances created. The team added Guatemalan international, and former US youth international, Rubio Rubin recently, giving them excellent depth in reserve. The Battery are a high-powered team with plenty of attacking options. DCFC will have to lift its game to earn a result. This match will be DCFC’s first nationally televised game of the season (Univision and channel 50 WKBD at 4:00 pm).
