Another week in the USL Championship and Phil is back to tell you the four players, managers or events that stood out to him the most from the week that was.

The Wilmer Cabrera Era Era Era Era

If you say the above enough you can sound like you’re an old school MC on a turntable. And if you say it enough in El Paso you’ll probably get a smile or two. Wilmer Cabrera got off to a winning start in Charleston of all places and his approach was not groundbreaking but it was novel in that it put this Locomotive squad in the areas of the pitch where they would be most naturally confident. While they were markedly better than they have been to start the season, and you have to put an asterisk that it was against 10 men, the best version of this team for my money revealed itself when Bolu Akinyode came in. I have been crying out for a Akinyode, Liam Rose and Eric Calvillo midfield all season and that combination is why the opener was possible. Calvillo plays a ball forward into the box and Liam Rose runs onto it. Why is Liam in the box? What makes that possible? Bolu. He was covering a load of ground and kept Calvillo and Rose from having to worry quite so much about their defensive duties. This allowed a far wider degree of freedom for both Eric and Liam to get involved going forward and vary the areas where they focused the attack.

In my opinion, Rose and Calvillo are both better in #8 positions and Akinyode giving them the ability to play in that position immediately lifts the team to a different level. If Wilmer Cabrera is to get the best out of this Locomotive side, I think he is going to do it with that structure in midfield.

The story of the match for Locomotive was not all pretty. A commitment to playing out from the back was refreshing to see but Tony Alfaro in particular struggled to break Charleston’s unrelenting press. Justin Dhillon and Joaquin Rivas were marginalized for large portions of the match and it wasn’t until they switched to the 4-3-3 that the system really seemed to take hold and create genuine chances up top. Perhaps over the coming games we’ll see that trident in attack which allows Dhillon to drop off a bit and link play rather than purely playing as a #9 and we could see further improvement. All that said, the confidence of each player in their own abilities was apparent from kickoff and it should lead to further improvement under Cabrera.

Morten Karlsen’s Midfield Regression

On a very different note, losing matches will do funny things to managers. When they lose a couple in a row it can lead to them trying something bold to try to arrest the slide. Morten Karlsen of Orange County SC is a bit guilty of cooking a little too hard against Loudoun United. Just a couple of weeks ago I would have told you that midfield was the biggest strength for OCSC and that if anything it was more of an issue in finishing and defending. Karlsen decided to try to force an improvement in those areas by basically removing the midfield. Sofiane Djeffal started from the bench and Kyle Scott was essentially the only midfielder by trade in the side. Bryce Jamison, Brian Iloski, Cameron Dunbar and Christian Sorto all started together behind Thomas Amang and it ended up being a tactical gift to Ryan Martin and Loudoun United.

Drew Skundrich and Tommy McCabe dictated much of the match in midfield and because Kyle Scott was on his own behind that platoon of attackers he couldn’t wrangle the midfield despite playing quite well. He won 9 duels on the day and that was barely good enough for 50% which shows you just how much work he was being asked to do. None of the players in front of him in the OCSC team won better than 50% of their duels and the workload for Scott was far too great to keep the pressure off. You would think that playing such an aggressively attacking team would lead to more chances but OCSC failed to register a big chance and only managed seven shots across the 90 minutes.

This was a big opportunity for OCSC to get back to winning ways in front of a home crowd and they were poor which will only heap the confusion on their fans who are wondering where the team that started so well but has lost their way.

Greg Hurst - Confidence Man

Greg Hurst was supposed to burst on the USL Championship scene for Phoenix a couple seasons ago. That failed to happen, and then his attempt to kick start things by going to New Mexico United also seemed to be underwhelming. What a difference a year makes.

Hurst scored the winner against San Antonio and was rudely robbed of an assist by a deflection on Nanan Houssou’s equalizer and both situations showed what a problem of a player Hurst can be when he’s feeling himself. We should have been concerned when he turned up with that haircut because no one wearing that stark of a contrast between his natural hair and a bleach blonde lacks confidence.

Greg Hurst did the hard work, but Nanan Houssou finishes it off to pull @NewMexicoUTD level! ⚫️🟡 pic.twitter.com/NUow3s4og0
— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) May 26, 2024

The run to set up Houssou is probably the more impressive of the two moments but it is awfully close. He sized up Kendall Burks on the left side of the penalty area before knocking the ball toward the endline, faking a cross with his left to get Burks to commit before a bit of an elastico to bring the ball from his right back to his left in the tiniest space and knocking it back into the danger area. Houssou gambled to be in the right place at the right time but SAFC’s defense is out of shape strictly because of that Hurst run.

His strike that would prove to be the winner was undeniably sweet as well. To hit the ball that sweetly on the volley, first time is just further highlighting the degree of confidence he is playing with. Five goals on the year now and him continuing to fire will be a big reason why New Mexico are hitting the heights they are so far this season.

Jack Blake - Mr Indianapolis

On a weekend where most of the attention on Indianapolis was on the Motor Speedway rather than the Eleven, Jack Blake made sure that the Eleven left the weekend with a points finish. This was particularly impressive given Phoenix have been considerably better and because they went behind so early.

Blake buys the penalty for Indy and when I say he bought it, he paid full price. He was barely touched but convinced the referee it was enough to point to the spot and then went ahead and converted it as well. He was the creative force all night as well and was dangerously close to a couple of assists and had a couple of potential bangers fly just wide before he became decisive.

A couple minutes after Rocco Rios Novo made like a Hobbit and went on an adventure (before decidedly saving a shot with his hands outside the area and somehow only getting a yellow?) Blake had a chance from the free kick. He is so good at testing the keeper from these but he gets a bit of luck in that the wall splits and he found the bottom corner.

This Indy team has way too many good players for so many of these games to end up being “Jack Blake and In-Shallah” but he is more often than not making the difference as he has pushed Indy up to 3rd in the East.

- Phil Baki