Louisville City FC Notes: Additions, Subtractions and Changes

LCFC News and Notes for the Week of 12/19:

• The biggest news of the week is undoubtedly the front office change up. Djorn Buchholz is out as President, Amanda Duffy is in as GM, and the club is only seven months old. It certainly is a bit troubling that this change occurred so suddenly and so early in the club's history. Per Steve Peake, the club's communication director, ownership wanted to have more of a leadership role, which might explain Duffy becoming "general manager" and not "president." Could this simply have been a matter of the front office disagreeing with ownership, or should we expect ownership to be more involved with the day-to-day operations of the club? We shall see. Either way, we know now that ownership is not afraid to act swiftly and suddenly. Jonathan Lintner of the the Louisville Courier-Journal sat down with the new GM and has an interesting Q&A you can read here.
• The other big news of the week was the addition of two new assistant coaches to the staff, Daniel Byrd and Thebane Sutu. Byrd comes to LCFC from Orlando City's youth academy, and he has experience coaching on the college level as well. Of Byrd, Head Coach James O'Connor said, "We are thrilled to have Daniel join our coaching staff, he is very professional and an excellent coach. His experience and leadership will prove to be beneficial to all of us involved at Louisville City FC. He has spent many years of his life here at different stages and has tremendous pride in what the city has to offer, this again is a real positive for us all."
• I initially tweeted out that Thebane Sutu was a former Arsenal player, which in and of itself is not necessarily false. Sutu did play for Arsenal Football Club, just not that Arsenal Football Club. Apparently there is an Arsenal FC in Lesotho, the tiny African kingdom which is completely encompassed by South Africa. Sutu was a goalkeeper for the African gunners, and he also played in the Egyptian and Arab leagues, where he was on few title winning sides. He has been a coach with the Louisville youth outfit United 1996 since 2001. "It is great to have Thabane join our coaching staff," O'Connor said. "He has tremendous experience that will only help take our goalkeepers to the next level. Additionally, Thabane has been living here locally for many years and has been an active member of the youth soccer community throughout that time, which will play a key role in developing our relationships with local youth clubs in the years to come."
• I've written here before about Louisville City's league, USL PRO, and with the league expanding to 24 teams this season, reports have surfaced out of last year's league meetings that the league will split into two conferences. Louisville City will be on the eastern side of the division. Per Reckless Challenge, the league will play a 28-game schedule in 2015, with teams playing a set of 22 home-and-away games with their in-conference rivals, with the final six games coming in home-and-away series with teams "from a close region," regardless of conference affiliation. Hopefully this means more games in the potential Louisville-St. Louis rivalry.