The Boys in Blue defeated UPSL side UMA FC 4-0 and put in a cohesive and strong performance against the UPSL side to maintain a perfect record in preseason. winning three matches and conceding zero goals.
Chattanooga Football Club won its third consecutive match of preseason with a convincing 4-0 victory over UPSL club UMA FC at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In a match that was exclusively open to 2024 season ticket holders, the Boys in Blue entertained the crowd throughout the 90 minutes.
A headed goal scored by a trialist set the tempo and after a quarter of an hour it was 2-0 thanks to a deflected goal scored by Luis Garcia Sosa.
Another trialist tripled CFC's lead late in the first half with an assured finish that crashed off the crossbar before nestling into the top corner.
A third trialist made it four late in the match with a beautifully curled effort to put the icing on the cake.
Underwood made wholesale changes just over midway through the second half, with CFC Academy products Gavin Castle and Darwin Ortiz among the substitutions.
Chattanooga FC will now look forward to an intriguing tie against USL Championship club Birmingham Legion on Saturday, March 2 at Finley Stadium.
Rod Underwood's post-match press conference
Head Coach and Sporting Director Rod Underwood took time out to give his reflections and main takeaways from the match. Here's every word from his post-match press conference.
On his takeaways and reaction to the win:
"We got four goals, so that's really important. We saw some things that were positive and some things that we need to continue to work on. We're building and working on getting some guys some more minutes. We're trying to methodically build to get the guys ready for the first game of the season."
On if he learned anything new about his team after today's match:
"We just need to continue what we're doing to harp on it. We've been doing a lot of the same things over the last couple of years, and we had a significant amount of continuity, but now we have some new faces that will be impactful players, so it's about meshing all that together and that's the challenge when you try and build teams."
On how he plans on navigating transitioning from playing a UPSL side to a USL Championship side next weekend in Birmingham Legion:
"We'll continue to do the things that will be our basic core values and principles. But we earmark games and Birmingham's one of those games that we've talked about. We know it's a big test for us, and we need it to be a big test for us. We need it to be very, very challenging, so we can get a real, true marker. With Tormenta last weekend, both of us were trying to feel each other out. Birmingham's probably a week ahead of us in preseason, so their season starts a week before ours, so it will probably be their last tune-up. You'd imagine that they will be clicking pretty well."
On the value the test against UMA FC had on the tactical side:
"From a tactical point of view, it allowed us to see things with a little more time than maybe you would have at a higher level. Next week it needs to be instant, and we're not instant yet, so hopefully a good week of training will lead to instant. Obviously seeing some players a little bit longer helped, and it was also about building fitness."
