El Paso Locomotive FC dominated the USL Championship through the 2021 regular season. This was especially true against Texas teams. After 12 matches against Championship teams in the Lone Star state, Locomotive earned the right lift the Copa Tejas trophy high above their heads in front the El Paso faithful.
On Wednesday night, the Copa Tejas title defense continues on the road against Rio Grande Valley FC.
So far in the 2022 iteration of the Copa Tejas competition, San Antonio FC leads having claimed victories over both the Locos and RGV. With a win against Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday night, El Paso Locomotive could close the gap with San Antonio FC, keeping its hopes of retaining the alive.
El Paso Locomotive carries all the momentum going into the midweek match up. The Locos are undefeated in its last seven games, earning four clean sheets and outscoring their opponents 12-4. On the other end of the spectrum, Rio Grande Valley is 2-2-1 in its last five games, with single goals making the difference in each of those matches. Form aside, however, history has these two sides at a dead even lock with a record of 3-3-1 after seven meetings. To even the match out further, Locomotive has historically not been successful at H-E-B Park, having lost in all three visits to South Texas.
History and form combined has put Locomotive as the underdogs in a very even matchup on paper. FiveThirtyEight – a statistical analysis website – has listed Rio Grande Valley FC as the favorites with a 39% chance of coming away the victor over Locomotive at 34%.
It was a similar tale of the tape as Locomotive travelled to Arizona to play Phoenix Rising FC. With players missing for international duty and injury, the Locos were able to come away with three points and 1-0 win. Now El Paso Locomotive will be looking to do it again against RGV with the belief that they are no underdogs.
“We’re going to go to RGV, take our game there, and hopefully turn a tide like we did in Phoenix where we picked up our first win against Phoenix,” commented John Hutchinson, Locomotive Head Coach and Technical Director. “We’ll look to do that against RGV. They’re a good team, good individuals, a tough place to go, but the boys are in good form.”
The good run of form the Locos have been in recently can be directly attributed to everyone in the club – from the technical staff to the players on the pitch – buying into a Loco brand of football. The entire team understands the expectations from them now and they know the style of football they want to play. Following the 5-0 drumming of New York Red Bulls II on Saturday night, Coach Hutchinson said that the team believes in themselves. They believe in the football they want to play, and they believe in what they are trying to do.
The level of buy-in from the team and the culture the players are creating in the locker room has led to Locomotive pulling out a lot of firsts in its 2022 season. With the mentality in the locker room, the Locos were able to beat Phoenix for the first time in franchise history. El Paso was able to win by its largest margin, twice – two 5-0 wins over Monterey Bay F.C. and New York Red Bulls II. It’s raised a level of confidence amongst the players that makes the team feel unstoppable.
“[We] go out every game and try to dominate every team,” said Midfielder Eric Calvillo. “Completely showing every team that we play in the league that we are one of the best teams in the league, no matter how we started. We are going to be one of those teams competing for a championship even if they don’t think so. We’re going to keep this mindset of dominating every team and we will take that into the next two games.”
“Once we step on the field and are competing with other teams, the energy is so high that it is very difficult for teams to deal with us,” said Midfielder Sebastian Velasquez. “Obviously, we are the type of team that will go get in a team’s face, but it doesn’t matter who we are playing, we always focus on ourselves. That’s what it’s going to come down. We’ll go to RGV, compete, and try to get those three points and with how we are playing right now, I’m sure we can go and do it.”
Wednesday night will bring another opportunity to prove the Locos deserve to be in the USL Championship title picture. With the added flavor of the Copa Tejas title defense, the El Paso boys are hungry to make Locomotive history again with its first win at H-E-B Park.
Watch the match live on Wednesday, June 29 at 6:30 p.m. MT on ESPN+.