After Almost Two-Month Break, Duluth FC Ready to Jump Into Conference Play

New head coach Thomas Pazo is set to lead Duluth against Joy AC on Thursday, a team that was just two points behind the BlueGreens in the standings last year.

DULUTH, Minn.- We are officially two days away from the start of another Duluth FC NPSL season.

The BlueGreens technically already played one game this year as the team took part in the U.S. Open Cup, falling to Forward Madison FC back in March.

But now their focus is on their conference foes.

New head coach Thomas Pazo is set to lead Duluth against Joy AC on Thursday, a team that was just two points behind the BlueGreens in the standings last year.

Pazo, who’s never faced Joy before, said he’s been watching a lot of film beforehand, including the last two seasons of BlueGreens games.

“Very good team, very well prepared team. They’re going to be in really good shape. They’re going to be ready. They’re going to be a handful and so are we though. We are confident. Of course, I’m not going to have a whole lot of information about them. But we can control how we do things. Right? Of course we didn’t have many days to train but we’re going to do our very best and we’re going to learn a ton from that game as well. Then we can keep on going after that,” said Pazo.

Back in a Duluth FC uniform this season is third-year player Liam Pritchard, who says he sees similar tendencies between Pazo and his old head coach Sean Morgan.

“Big thing for me is the way we’re going to play. We play the same way, we want to score as many goals as we can. We want to be attacking. We want to play enjoyable football. We don’t want to one of these teams that just kicks it long. That was a big part for me like it’s not really much of a change in the way we play,” said Pritchard.

Duluth FC is coming off a national semifinal appearance from a year ago. They’ll start their march back there on Thursday at 7 PM.