We grabbed an Uber and headed up to UC early again to have a couple of pre-game happy hour beers at The St. Clair. What a difference a week makes with the weather. The area was absolutely buzzing with activity in a sea of blue and orange…

After a couple of beers, we made the short walk over to Nippert Stadium…

FC Cincinnati was playing host to Louisville City FC in what has been dubbed the River Cities Cup. But a lot of the fans have started calling it The Dirty River Derby, which I really like a whole better. With Louisville being just a hop-ship-and-a-jump down I-71, it makes sense that a rivalry has already started to form.

Here we go…

GOAL FC|C! 1-0!

Louisville City was awarded what I thought was a pretty cheap penalty when the ball bounced up and brushed an FC|C defender’s hand in the box…

1-1.

And it all kind of went downhill from there pretty quickly…

Louisville City were reduced to 10 men just before the end of the half on a second bookable offense…

It was just a gorgeous night for football…

And there was such an incredible atmosphere at tonight’s match. Nippert was rocking all evening despite FC|C playing from behind for most of the match…

FC Cincinnati managed to pull a goal back in just before the 90th minute. We headed out just before the end of injury time. And the match ended 3-2 to Louisville City…

But FC Cincinnati set a new USL regular season attendance record at tonight’s match!! I think that Cincinnati is definitely embracing their new sports team!

FC Cincinnati’s next home match is against Wilmington on April 30th, which happens to be the five-year anniversary of our very first date. See you at Nippert! 🙂