‘Not satisfied’

Sep 14, 2026 By Jonathan Guth 8 min read

Pittsburgh earned a 1-0 triumph over Loudoun United FC on Saturday in USL Championship action at F.N.B. Stadium.

The Riverhounds scored eight minutes into the match on a Sam Bassett blast, and the Pittsburgh defense, which included keeper Nico Campuzano, held on for the remaining 82 minutes plus stoppage time, and improved to 11-9-5.

The Hounds are in third place in the Eastern Conference standings with 38 points. Pittsburgh wasn’t sure how long it would remain in the three spot, as No. 4 Detroit City FC (10-6-7) trailed the defending USL Championship title holder by one point with a late match on Saturday at Sacramento.

Detroit suffered a 1-0 setback, which upped the enthusiasm for its home match with the Hounds on Sept. 19 at 7 p.m.

Pittsburgh, who would host Louisville City FC (9-9-6, 33 points) in the playoffs if the regular season ended today, is two points behind Charleston Battery (12-8-4) for second place in the conference standings.

Tampa Bay (14-4-6) tops the Eastern Conference with 48 points, and is five points clear of El Paso Locomotive FC (13-7-4) for the USL Players’ Shield and home field advantage in the playoffs.

The Riverhounds welcomed back head coach Rob Vincent to the pitch Saturday evening, as the Liverpool, England, native had been suspended for one match after he was served a straight red card during Pittsburgh’s match against Tampa Bay on Aug. 29.

Vincent has a reputation as an optimistic, and most followers of the club would have expected the second-year head coach to laud his team following a victory in the driving rain before a sellout crowd of 5,150, which was the squad’s fourth in a row.

“I don’t feel too satisfied right now,” said Vincent when asked how pleased he was following the win at his postmatch press conference. “I think we got a little bit lucky tonight. I don’t want us to be lucky this time of the year. I want us to, hopefully, be playing better. We have big games and big aspirations to finish the season on a high note.”

Vincent wasn’t interested in discussing how the conditions affected his team’s play.

“It was probably our first match where we played in conditions like this, but I am not going to use that as an excuse,” Vincent said. “We will take these three points and move forward.”

Campuzano only needed to make one save for his 10th clean sheet of the season and ninth in league play this year.

Campuzano’s stop came in the 15th minute when he snatched Bolu Akinyode’s header from the center of the box before it could reach the back of the net to keep his team ahead by one.

The Hounds’ keeper echoed his coach’s statement in reference to the weather and not playing a complete match.

“The first half was probably my worst first half all year,” Campuzano said. “I was super disappointed with how it went. Sometimes, it happens, and you see it happen at every level, every week, but when it happens to you, it sucks.

“The field conditions were very bad in the first half, but it’s bad for everyone, so I am not going to make excuses about that. I changed my socks and cleats at halftime, and then reset for the second half. You can’t really change how you play.”

Pittsburgh has owned the series with Loudoun United (3-9-11) the last 20 minutes in winning 16. The Hounds defeated Loudoun three times this season.

The sequence leading up to Bassett’s game winner began with Perrin Barnes poking the ball away and to the feet of Charles Ahl after the Hounds’ pressure won the ball in the attacking half.

Ahl looked inside from the left, where Bassett blasted a shot from 25 yards into the right side of the net for his sixth goal of the year and third in the past five matches.

“It is kind of the range I know I can shoot from,” Bassett said. “There are not many times in games where I get to shoot, so I am going to do my best to take advantage of every opportunity I can when I am allowed to shoot. I am just glad it went in.”

Trevor Amann thought he doubled the advantage in the 19th minute when he raced to the front of goal to meet a low cross from Bassett and put it into the back of the net, but the offside flag came up to disallow the tally.

Loudoun’s Eddy Davis III struck the left post before Pittsburgh’s Victor Souza played a header to clear the zone of any danger in the 35th minute.

Loudoun had a 14-10 edge in shots, but the visitors only put one on target. The Hounds had two shots on target. Loudon earned eight corner kicks to Pittsburgh’s three, and 59.1-40.9 edge in percentage of possession. Vincent wasn’t overly concerned with the percentage of possession, as the focus was on where the visitors had the ball.

“Possession numbers are not super important to us,” Vincent said. “It’s where they have it. They had a ton of the ball around their net, but they really did break us down. When we are in our set defensive shape, I don’t think many teams can really trouble us, but if we turn the ball over just get ready to attack and lose it, then that is troubling. We tried to put an emphasis during training this week on control of the ball, and we never really had that tonight, and that’s where the frustration lies.”

The Riverhounds worked to add an insurance tally early in the second half, as Eliot Goldthorp’s header in the box bounced wide to the left three minutes into the second 45 minutes plus stoppage time.

Loudoun United substitute Giorgi Lomtadze had his curling shot from the right side not bend enough to record a shot on target.

Play picked up in the final half-hour of the match, as the torrential rain stopped, and Lomtadze took advantage of the better conditions when he corralled a low cross from the left side that slipped between the Pittsburgh backline and Campuzano, but the shot went over the net.

Albert Dikwa entered the match in the 67th minute and had to race to the back post to meet a cross from Ahl on the right side. Dikwa put the shot on goal, but Loudoun keeper Jordan Farr pushed the ball over the net.

Campuzano pushed a shot by Abdellatif Aboukoura around the post in stoppage time to preserve the shutout. Campuzano credited his teammates for helping him earn the clean sheet.

“The whole backline, and even the two sixes (defensive midfielders) coming down, is what helped me out when it mattered most tonight,” Campuzano said. “You see Robbie (Mertz) at the very end. It’s a dangerous cross, super driven ball that I can’t do anything about, I’m just waiting, and he comes in, sticks his leg out, and gets it out for a corner kick.

“Victor (Souza) had a block and one shot hit the post. I was a sitting duck, and I almost gave an assist to their right winger in the first half, and that was stupid. It is probably going to happen once a season to a goalkeeper, but as long as it’s just once. I only had to make one save. I was way sharper in the second half.”

Bassett was selected as the “Modelo Man of the Match” after he contributed two chances created and six total crosses, while adding six recoveries and two defensive tackles won. The 23-year-old midfielder followed the narrative of the match that Campuzano and Vincent shared at the podium during the postmatch press conference.

“We are happy to get a win, but we are not happy with our performance,” Bassett said. “We’ve kind of let some points slip away the past few games. We had control of the game a little bit at El Paso, and even a tie would have been fine for a midweek game, but we lost that one. We had a lead in Miami up until the late minute and had those three points slip away. We also can’t make the mistakes we made tonight against a team like Detroit because they will make you pay for those.”