Phil Baki tries to make sense of the USL Championship weekend that was. Let’s get our bearings and clean ourselves up, this is the Championship Hangover.

Eleven matches and not a single goalless draw among them. When Monterey Bay taking down Phoenix is one of the least eventful matches of the weekend you know you’ve seen something special. So what did each of the matches tell us about the teams involved and where will the sides go from here?

El Paso Locomotive 0-1 Louisville City

There likely is not a team in the USL Championship who is more groggy this week than El Paso Locomotive FC. A tough opening loss to Hartford was followed by a heartbreaking draw to Monterey Bay who could and should have come away with the win. On Saturday, Locomotive’s players were definitely losing steam. There was not anything extraordinary about Louisville’s approach but their energy in the press unsettled Locomotive early. Unable to effectively escape the pressure, they resorted to going long to their forwards. The issue with the approach is that Tumi Moshobane and Amando Moreno are not the type of forwards who thrive on that type of service. You want them receiving the ball facing the goal, not backing down a defender, but Locomotive were not able to effectively pass through Louisville’s midfield to get their forwards more involved. Eric Calvillo, playing ostensibly a box to box midfield role, only touched the ball 37 times the entire 81 minutes he was on the field. Lucas Stauffer continues to stand out on the left side of attack but his involvement high up the field makes opposition breaks dangerous. Miles Lyons, his counterpart on the right side, was targeted on numerous occasions and struggled to cope. Locomotive lost Brandan Craig who was the center back on that side to what looked like a pretty bad ankle injury and will likely have to cope without him for a while. If Locomotive can’t find a way to balance this more than it will be a long season.

Lou City can take a lot of heart from their display in their opening match. Yes the opposition was leggy but the press was extremely effective. They couldn’t keep it up for 90 minutes but 1) no one can and 2) going from Louisville to the high desert is not an easy task in terms of adapting to conditions. They were not particularly productive with their chances but the key is that when the big one came, they took it, with Wilson Harris grabbing the decisive goal. Damian Las was solid in goal but it is fair to say that apart from an Amando Moreno chance early in the second half, he was not asked to anything particularly spectacular as many of Locomotive’s efforts on goal were quite tame. Arturo Ordonez, making his debut after a stellar campaign at the heart of Pittsburgh’s defense, looked every bit of the Defender of the Year he was last year. He won every single one of his aerial duels, which is so key to success in this League. He also made 9 passes into the final third, meaning he is progressing play for Louisville from those deeper positions, playing a bit of quarterback from center back. Louisville’s press, if it can maintain the sort of intensity that Locomotive struggled with in the first half hour, will be an issue for teams up and down the Championship.

Loudoun United 3-1 North Carolina

Loudoun United made a statement on the opening night in San Antonio that they aren’t the soft touch they were last year. They doubled down on that statement on Saturday at home to North Carolina. I would go so far as to say that Loudoun looked better in possession than any team in the League. The ability to drive the ball forward through midfield from the likes of Florian Valot, Robby Dambrot and Kwame Awuah is changing things for Loudoun. This puts Kalil ElMedkhar and Zach Ryan in great positions at the top end of the field and this is the most assured group of finishers not named Trevor Amann. The first goal is a lovely ball in from Awuah to find a diving ElMedkhar at the back post. The second goal though is why I’m being so bold. Skundrich plays a first time ball out to Awuah who finds ElMedkhar in a pocket of space in midfield. He turns and eats up the yards before playing a brilliant through ball to Zach Ryan who had made a run between NCFC’s center backs before showing the utmost composure in slotting home. Loudoun’s attack is serious and it is built on a foundation that will allow it to thrive in a lot of matches this season.

For North Carolina, it is not all doom and gloom. Loudoun will slice a lot of teams apart this year and the optimism for NC is in their chance creation. On another day, this is a 4-3 thrilling victory for NCFC. They missed three of the four Opta defined “big chances” they created in the match. A little more ruthlessness in front of goal and this is a very different day. Evan Conway in particular will look back on his two big chances and think about what might have been. He is a good finisher though and he will have much better days in North Carolina. Set pieces will be fruitful for this side and they were able to capitalize on one with Mikey Maldonado capitalizing to equalize late in the first half. Oalex Anderson started this match from the bench and was an absolute menace running at the Loudoun defense and he was a thick coat of paint on the post away from equalizing a second time for NCFC. In addition to Conway having an off day, it also wasn’t a banner day for Paco Craig or young defender Adrian Pelayo and I expect this to be a blip rather than the norm for NCFC. There is no rest for a team trying to quickly get up to Championship speed though as they welcome Tampa Bay to town next week and will face another extremely potent attack.

Memphis 901 1-2 Indy Eleven

Sometimes you make a gameplan and it just comes together perfectly. I can’t say whether Sean McAuley sent Indy Eleven out to target Oscar Jimenez specifically but that is exactly what Indy Eleven did in the first half in Memphis. Oscar will be wondering what he did to make McAuley mad at him but the former Lou City stalwart had one of his worst halves ever in the USL Championship. He struggled to deal with a ball over the top to Jack Blake which left Tulu exposed and led to the concession of a penalty and then as the half wound down he dragged back Cam Lindley for his second yellow and an early shower. The bad part for Memphis is that the scoreline is a bit flattering, no one was really at the races in this one. Carson Vom Steeg is probably the only player that could say they were above average but the pressure of being down a man was too much for Memphis who could not find a route back despite a fantastic late goal from Abdoulaye Cissoko. They had a ton of shots (12 from inside the box alone) but they failed to generate more than one big chance the entire match when Indy were more than happy to let them have the ball. More questions than answers for Memphis out of this performance as they weren’t able to build on that opening day win over Vegas.

Indy will take a lot of heart from this. Their ability to overload one side of the pitch and consistently have a numbers advantage on either side of the pitch made all the difference. There always seemed to be a spare man and Memphis’ struggles defending in wide areas made it easy for Indy to get into good positions. There is a lot of luck about the second goal but they could have been out of sight without a strong intervention from Tyler Deric on Augi Williams in the 2nd half. This was an extremely direct and no-nonsense performance from Indy. That being said, if they play with this approach against other teams, I don’t know that they’ll be able to withstand surrendering this volume of chances. There are teams who will be happy to take the invitation and could find Indy out a bit. I’m interested to see if the approach changes at home at all. Is this just the style we see from McAuley on the road or will Indy be playing on the break all year?

Rhode Island 1-1 New Mexico United

A much anticipated matchup, one that Rhode Islanders have been waiting four years for, did not disappoint. In front of a sold out Beirne Stadium, RIFC grabbed the late equalizer that they so craved and the reaction was suitably wild from the team and the crowd. The expectations are understandably high for this RIFC squad given the outlay and the names on the teamsheet. In general, the team was very good. Clay Holstad was brilliant in midfield and was unfortunate to strike the frame of the goal on two separate occasions. Noah Fuson delivered the ball in that resulted in the first ever goal and the spine of this RIFC team is exactly as strong as advertised. They suffered a bit of a “First Game in USL Championship”-itis with the goal they conceded. A set piece delivery is allowed to bounce, Koke Vegas is unable to punch away said bounce and Talen Maples was allowed to poke home. Otherwise they did fantastically well. They created a quite stunning 16 shots inside the area and were very unlucky to not have any hit the back of the net. Alex Tambakis made 9 saves to top it off. The bottom line, this RIFC team is every bit as dangerous as advertised and if they continue to create chances with this regularity they are going to win a lot of games.

New Mexico will be wiping their brow and thanking whatever higher powers they might believe in that they escaped RI with a point. The dynamism of week one was cast aside for a bit more pragmatism and they did enough defensively to keep RI out. But to ask your keeper and the crossbar to deal with 11 of the chances you concede is unsustainable. Tambakis was wonderful but the team in front struggled to deal with stopping RIFC on the way. They were overpowered in midfield throughout the match and they struggled to create at the other end. They end the match with just nine shots. Now credit is due because they put six of those nine shots on target but Jacobo Reyes and Greg Hurst just weren’t able to combine in the way that they did in the first match. Avionne Flanagan came in and it did seem like he struggled in the role that was assigned to Mukwelle Akale against Pittsburgh. I think much of what we saw could be put down to going on the road to a very good opponent but Eric Quill is going to have to find an approach that is a bit more proactive in defense to limit opponents on the road. Having seen just how impotent Pittsburgh is, we will need to see how NMU cope further with an offense that is firing.

The Miami 0-1 Sacramento Republic

Sacramento went into Miami knowing that Antonio Nocerino’s side was going to defend deep and rather than pick the lock they sent in a battering ram by the name of Trevor Amann. Two players that will feature heavily in possession for Sac Republic were involved in the goal which proved decisive. Nick Ross was the point guard so to speak in midfield, distributing passes either through the lines or out wide. In this case he chose the latter and found Jack Gurr, who was nearly the player of the year last year and he proved why he is so highly thought of when he whipped in an absolutely inch-perfect cross for Amann to attack. From there, it’s elementary. Amann is so good in the air and he is not going to miss a straightforward chance like this. Amann will actually rue a couple of chances where he might have had a hat trick. Don’t let the scoreline fool you, this was an absolutely fantastic performance and as their finishing sharpens this team will prove to be every bit as dangerous as advertised. They are the most complete team in USLC and that will show over the course of the season.

For Miami, Antonio Nocerino is under no delusions. This is a Miami team that is going to have to defend for their lives throughout this season. They aren’t going to have a ton of the ball and they’ll need to take their chances when they do. They were presented with 2 sequences where they should have converted and weren’t able to. Aside from that they barely threatened and Andrew Booth appears to be the player who is most contributing to Miami being competitive. His lovely pass in behind for Gagliardi led to 3 gilt edged chances for Miami which they could not convert and they simply will have to be perfect in these moments if they want to remain competitive. Credit goes to these Miami players for giving their all and hanging in there but that unfortunately is the most I can say for a Miami team that will struggle with the quality on display across the rest of the League.

Pittsburgh Riverhounds 0-2 Orange County

This game might be giving people in Pittsburgh an itch to hit the panic button. Back to back shutouts to open the season is something the Riverhounds and Bob Lilley typically do to other teams but they are on the receiving end this time. That said, I don’t think this performance is one for Hounds fans to worry about too much. They had loads of the ball and while they only created one “big chance,” they were a couple insane Colin Shutler saves away from at least a draw. They looked like they lacked any edge in New Mexico on Opening Day but that was not the case here. Where there can be genuine concern is with Edward Kizza. We are two matches into the season and he has managed only one shot which was off target. This match he failed to register a single attempt. It was always going to be difficult to replicate the insane output of Albert Dikwa but so far Kizza and Babacar Diene are struggling to generate attempts of any sort. Most of the chance fell the way of Robbie Mertz and Kenardo Forbes, which is not in itself bad but when the chances aren’t going the way of your strikers, it does suggest some level of dysfunction in the tactical approach.

They were a bit unlucky in that Orange County managed two shots the entire match. Yes, they only attempted to put the ball in the back of the net two times in 90 minutes plus stoppage time. The catch is that both of them did go in. Both goals were so good in their own way and the service from wide was really the difference. Ryan Doghman’s driving run followed by a ridiculous ball in for Brian Iloski to finish followed by Christian Sorto’s obscene cross which Cameron took the first of his nine total touches to control and the second to slot past Eric Dick were the summation of OCSC’s chances on the night. Sometimes that is enough but clearly they won’t be able to sustain 2 shot wins on the road. Apart from chance creation, I absolutely love Sofiane Djeffal in this midfield. He is strong on the dribble, has a great range of passing, is very press-resistant (dispossessed 0 times against one of the best midfields in League history,) and won all but one of the eight duels he was involved in. Him, Seth Casiple and Kevin Partida should be up there among the best midfield trios in the League. Shutler put in a top notch performance but much like New Mexico they will need to up their game to reliably get results like this on the road.

Tampa Bay Rowdies 2-2 San Antonio

Sometimes a highly anticipated matchup lives up to its billing and this one in Al Lang did not disappoint. I’m going to get the controversy out of the way. How this stayed 11v11 for 90+ minutes, I’ll never know. How Jorge Hernandez remained on the pitch after a clearly deliberate elbow on Aaron Guillen was completely baffling and there could have been about 3 or 4 second yellow cards. Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system…

Tampa Bay, despite the dropped points in the dying moments, were very, very good. Blake Bodily got them off to a flyer by popping a corner delivery directly onto Cal Jennings’ head. He still had a bit to do from there with the glancing header flying into the side netting. Tampa was well on top for basically all but the last 10ish minutes. Pacifique Niyongabire was a handful all night for SAFC and it was him getting down the right to the byline to square for Manuel Arteaga’s first goal in green and gold. The story was well set up for Jordan Farr to get a clean sheet against his former team but he was beaten at his near post for SAFC’s first and Carter Manley was able to fire home from a failed clearance in stoppage time. Tampa will rue the mistakes that led to the points slipping away but there is a question of whether they have enough in midfield and defense to be more resilient in these moments. Bodily and Niyongabire will be getting forward, Jennings and Arteaga will always get goals, but will Danny Crisostomo and Lewis Hilton’s double pivot be enough to see them grab more control of matches? Questions will be asked of their trio in defense as well with Forrest Lasso marshaling the backline but the three of them combining to win just eight of the 19 ground duels they entered across the match. Guillen was the best of the three but it was not enough to keep SAFC out. They are clearly going to be very direct as well. They completed just 62% of their passes and only completed 158 across the whole 90 minutes. Being out-possessed at home to San Antonio of all teams will also feel a bit weird for Rowdies supporters but overall they have an exciting team that might be involved in their share of thrillers this season.

San Antonio were on the other end of a 2-2 draw at home to Loudoun and this time played spoiler for the Rowdies. Like I said, seeing a Marcina team win the possession battle was a bit jarring but the end result was about as good as they would have dared hope. Mohammed Abu and Kevon Lambert look very serious in the center of midfield and often squeezed Hilton and Crisostomo out. Hernandez was great on the ball once again, even if he was a bit overeager without it. The questions will certainly come from the generation of just 7 shots in 90 minutes despite the amount of possession. They were willing participants in the back and forth battle that Rowdies were trying to play, being only slightly less direct as you would expect from SAFC. They managed 10 less touches in TB’s box than their opponents did in theirs and generated half the shots. The build up rarely landed at Juan Agudelo’s feet as he finished with 0 chances created or shots and just one touch in the TB penalty area. There is a coherence issue in my opinion as the build up just hasn’t clarified for SAFC and how they want to play. The good news is this is a very valuable point to grab in Tampa and they will be able to lean on the #MentalityMonsters mantra for a bit longer.

Colorado Springs Switchbacks 1-2 Detroit City

In an even match, you would often expect Switchbacks to capitalize on their mountainous home field advantage but Detroit City were tough enough to get a win in the first match of the Danny Dichio era. For Detroit, the positives of the approach Dichio is taking are apparent on the first goal. Alastair Coote and Maxi Rodriguez link up down the left hand side and Rodriguez’s cut back is an easy tap-in for new signing and former Switchback Elvis Amoh. The freedom afforded Maxi by James Murphy and Abdoulaye Diop is a gamechanger for a Detroit team that relied on Rodriguez to kind of do it all last season. Coote, Amoh and sub Connor Rutz provided enough in the attacking third to make both of their big chances count. Detroit outshooting and outpossessing a solid opponent on the road is no mean feat and I think we may see a slightly different DCFC to the one that limped into the playoffs last season. They have a coherent system which is defense-first but with enough talent up top to do damage. DCFC fans will be wary of a false dawn though as a big win in El Paso of a similar type last year did not signal the uptick in form they had hoped for.

Colorado Springs just have not got going in any sense of the word under James Chambers this season. They had a couple chances and were Nate Steinwascher away from taking the lead at one point but set pieces feel like their most reliable route to goal. The goal they did score was a lovely set piece routine that worked just how they drew it up, 4 different players touching the ball exactly once en route to goal. Outside of that, they managed just one more shot on target and Ronaldo Damus, Maalique Foster and Jonas Fjeldberg were kept relatively quiet yet again. Damus is creating more chances than are being created for him, with him creating two yet taking zero shots on Saturday night. Fjeldberg only got 45 minutes but he struggled. He touched the ball just 22 times, all three of his attempted shots were blocked, he only attempted six passes and only completed two of them and he did not complete either of the dribbles he attempted. Koa Santos won’t want to see this one back either, with his second yellow coming on a challenge in the 60th minute that he simply doesn’t have to make. I’ve yet to see what the identity of this CS Switchbacks side is going to be but they have some way to go in proving that they can develop one.

Las Vegas Lights 1-3 FC Tulsa

This was just what the doctor ordered for Tulsa. They pressed extremely well as a team, Arthur Rogers logs his first assist, Stefan Stojanovic, Phillip Goodrum and Milo Yosef get on the scoresheet (and boy did Goodrum get on the scoresheet,) and Blaine Ferri grabbed two assists. For a team that weathered so much this offseason with Blair Gavin and a host of players leaving the side, they took care of business in Vegas. Now looking at the stats is a little deceiving as on the night Lights actually vastly outpossessed and outshot Tulsa. The possession was by design for Mario Sanchez and Co. The shots came from the 56th minute on where Tulsa had a 3-0 lead and dropped off considerably as the job was basically done. That said they did ride the lightning and were a bit at risk of letting one slip away as Vegas created 3 big chances in the second half. Like I said, this Tulsa team is going to press like crazy and go direct, all three goals are the result either directly or indirectly from their press. Stojanovic did well to get his goal and looks solid as a partner for Goodrum. As for the Goodrum goal, all I could muster was a Alan Partridge classic, “S***! Did you see that?” It is certainly the goal of the week and indicative of what a gamechanger it is that Tulsa held onto him through the tumultuous winter. Many, including yours truly, were down on Tulsa due to the amount of changes so close to a new season but they could not have drawn up a more perfect start in terms of this side building confidence and identity early in the year.

For Vegas, unfortunately a 3-1 loss and some nods to a couple performances is about all we’ll be able to expect this year as they dig out from under the least serious organization in the USL by a fair margin. Starting off the field, and I promise I’m not being patronizing, the improvements to Cashman Field are significant improvements on what it looked like last year. They’ve also moved to a camera well on the stadium side which will do away with the bizarre wind-blown scissor lift that would give me motion sickness every time I watched. On field, there were bright spots. Edison Azcona was fantastic in the 10 and created their only goal. JC Ngando in defensive midfield was also super good and looks the finished article. Riki Alba also made his debut for the club and grabbed his goal and will surely be a big presence in Lights’ attack. I still don’t think we’ve seen Lights’ best XI either, as Charlie Adams was an unused sub in this one with Coleman Gannon not quite getting up to speed in his absence. So it is not doom and gloom for Lights but this is a season of getting serious rather than being serious.

Monterey Bay 1-0 Phoenix Rising

The shock of the season for me so far is how good Monterey Bay has been. They played El Paso off the park in many respects and were unlucky not to win last Wednesday. They followed that up with a very impressive home win against Phoenix, riding a Rafael Baca goal in the 22nd minute to a 1-0 win. There might have been something to Frank Yallop declining to make more significant changes to a team that looked off the pace last year. The goal was the result of putting Rocco Rios Novo and Jose Hernandez, typically two unflappable presences, under pressure. A loose pass from Hernandez was collected by Adrian Rebollar who just laid it off to Baca who made no mistake. Luther Archimede, Alex Dixon and Jesus Enriquez didn’t have their most explosive nights but it ended up not mattering due to how this MBFC side limited Phoenix across all phases. Phoenix ended the night with just eight shots and no big chances. MB was on top in basically every statistical category and probably should have gotten at least one more goal but couldn’t quite muster it. That said, I don’t know that there is a team in USL whose stock has climbed higher than MB for me over the first couple matches.

Phoenix will likely chalk this match up as “one of them.” It was uncharacteristically poor in the first half and not quite sharp enough in the second to turn the result around. Armenakas was predictably lively and Fede Varela always seemed right on the cusp of making something happen. Remi Cabral however really struggled. Just one touch in MB’s penalty area and one chance created, lost seven of his ten duels and lost possession three times. I’m convinced he will be a force in this League but he is a question mark for Phoenix as they look to replace Danny Trejo. Hernandez and Renzo Zambrano had a pretty rough day dealing with Baca, Mobi Fehr and Enriquez in midfield and they weren’t able to exploit the wings in the way they did against Birmingham. Edgardo Rito and Gabriel Torres were limited by Walmer Martinez and Morey Doner who let Rebollar and Alex Dixon do the heavy lifting going forward to stay more solid defensively. For Phoenix, the plan is pretty clear, Armenakas is that dude and Varela will have better days, but the spine was a bit off in this one so the freedom was less and they got caught by MB’s press more than once. Danny Stone will need a bit more time to get this squad functioning in the way it can but it is clear the loss of Trejo and Carlos Harvey has hit the side pretty hard.

Oakland Roots 1-1 Charleston Battery

I don’t think there is a nicer way to say this but Charleston should have won on Saturday night in Oakland. It was a big improvement in terms of chance creation for the Battery as they unleashed a 21-shot bombardment on Oakland’s defense. 13 of those shots came from inside the area as well. Paul Blanchette did his Paul Blanchette thing and made six saves but for a side that created 2.24 Expected Goals on the night, Battery will be kicking themselves to not come away with the win. The goal, as was so often the case last year, came from a delivery from wide. Arturo Rodriguez crossing for Nick Markanich to head home. Jake LaCava was rested for this one so Jackson Conway started up top and I think in general found it tough to get involved. He ended the match with just 16 touches and was hooked on the hour. To his credit, he got three touches in the opposition area and converted all three into shots so his killer instinct is there, he will just need to be a bit more clinical. As for the performance, you can’t say much more than “did enough to win…just didn’t.” Molloy looks every bit of the player they expected and Adam Grinwis was solid in goal despite only facing two shots on target. The Battery will smack a team with this sort of performance in the future but for now they’re wondering what could have been.

For Oakland, they hung around. Like I said, they made Paul Blanchette work for it but they did enough to stay in the discussion. They did have their rhythm disrupted by an early injury to Napo Matsoso but new signing Miche-Naider Chery had difficulty asserting himself despite being bright in the buildup to the goal. I have to think Lindo Mfeka is also nursing some kind of knock as he was on the bench but an unused sub. In the end it was the wingbacks that combine, which will certainly put a smile on Noah Delgado’s face. Memo Diaz collected the layoff from Chery and floated a ball to the back post. Ilya Alekseev, a product of Oakland Roots’ Academy Project 51O, scored his first ever goal for the club because he was brave and anticipated Diaz’s cross. From there Oakland hung on and a brave display in net from Blanchette was good enough for a point. Again, a performance like this is not sustainable for Roots and they’ll have to find a way to limit opponent chances to keep gaining points.

- Phil Baki