Chattanooga Football Club's Sias Reyneke and Atlanta Silverbacks' Ferrety Sousa chase the ball Wednesday at Finley Stadium.Thursday turned into a therapy day for the Chattanooga Football Club.
Beaten down and tired from three grueling rounds of the U.S. Open Cup -- which included more than 360 minutes of soccer and two wins, one of the penalty-kick variety -- the team has had little time to rest since Wednesday's 2-1 overtime loss to the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League.
Now, being victims of their own success, as CFC coach Bill Elliott calls his players, has come back to bite them again -- if that's a bad thing.
CFC hosts the Maryland Bays at 7:30 tonight in the semifinals of the Steinbrecher Cup, and the top four amateur teams in America will play at Finley Stadium today. In the first semifinal, the Michigan Bucks will battle the NY Greek Americans at 5 p.m. The tournament finishes with two matches Saturday at Finley.
"We're playing one of the top amateur sides in the country. We know that," Elliott said after Wednesday's match. "They'll have a handful of ex-pros on their side. We're going to circle the wagons tomorrow and see who can walk."
Tonight's match is the fourth in nine days for CFC, which had two overtime matches and a tough battle against National Premier Soccer League foe New Orleans in addition to Wednesday's loss to Atlanta. The club will be without defender Jordan Dunstan, who suffered a knee injury late in Wednesday's match. Preliminary reports were that he had torn his ACL.
"I really hope he didn't tear it," midfielder Luis Trude said of Dunstan, who will be a senior at Bryan College this year. "Obviously we'll compete this summer, but he also competes in school. It's a big miss on the defensive line; hopefully he'll be fine. He's a strong guy, and hopefully he can come back and help us."
CFC general manager Sean McDaniel said late Thursday night that the club would replace Dunstan with forward John Davidson on its 18-man roster for the tournament. It was initially thought the club could make no changes to the roster after submitting it before Wednesday's competition with the Silverbacks, a situation that would have made the injury to Dunstan even more crippling to CFC.
Though CFC players may be victims of their own success, that's not a bad thing. Playing high-profile matches creates exposure, and three matches in the Open Cup plus hosting a prestigious tournament can only enhance the club's visibility.
"We would have been better off letting Atlanta win and go quietly into the night, but that's not how we're built," Elliott said Wednesday night. "We wanted to put ourselves in a position to win, and if we did, we were going for it."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.