The matches keep piling up for the Chattanooga Football Club.
A slight break is around the corner, but one contest remains this evening.
Chattanooga FC, 5-2 overall with a 3-0 record and nine points in Southeast Conference play of the National Premier Soccer League, finishes a stretch of five matches in 12 days against the Knoxville Force at 7:30 p.m. at Finley Stadium.
The team looked weary at times Saturday night against Memphis City FC but scored two first-half goals and held off the visitors, 2-1, to remain spotless in league play.
CFC coach Bill Elliott noted that the lineup had seven changes from Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup match against the Harrisburg City Islanders to the Saturday match.
“It’s likely we’ll be doing something like that by Tuesday,” Elliott said after the win over Memphis City. “Sooner or later, hopefully we settle and have a little bit more of an idea what our roles are, but right now we’re trying to keep them from getting injured, keep them fresh.”
The stretch of matches started with the Hank Steinbrecher Cup and a 6-2 win over Quinto Elemento of Kansas and a 2-1 loss to the Chicago Fire in the final. Then came the match against the Islanders, a professional club. Chattanooga FC played without a number of key players for various reasons in that match, and some of those were back by Saturday.
A positive is the amount of depth the organization has acquired. Some of the players are primarily used for practice but are capable of stepping in and playing if needed.
“I think we’ve shown the quality of depth we have,” defender Jon Finlay said Saturday night. “We can change seven players, come out and play so well today, especially in the first half. I thought that was phenomenal: The first half was the best we played all year.
“We have 30 boys in training every single day, and all 30 boys can play. All 30 boys are quality and deserve to be here, so there will be some more changes, but we’ll come back stronger again and will be ready to play on Tuesday.”
Chattanooga FC plays Saturday night at New Orleans and June 16 at Nashville before hosting the Birmingham Hammers on June 18.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepresscom. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.