Offseason Notebook: Bassett in Tampa Bay, San Antonio and Spokane's moves
Two fascinating USL Championship and USL League One clubs’ roster decisions, plus the Rowdies’ new star
Welcome back to the Offseason Notebook! Need a dose of accountability from me? Hit up Backheeled, where I’m analyzing some preseason hot takes. More coming soon on big 2024 stories there.
Also: check out my weekly USL Super League breakdown! We’ve got a first-ever coaching change and fun league action to discuss as the winter break nears.
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
On Ollie Bassett
The Tampa Bay Rowdies were the first team to strike with an outside-of-the-USL acquisition this offseason, inking midfielder Ollie Bassett last week. A product of Aston Villa and Southampton, Bassett most recently spent three years with Atletico Ottawa1 in the Canadian Premier League, where he took home the Player of the year award in 2023.
Across his time in the national capital, Bassett picked up 24 goals and 12 assists. The former Northern Ireland youth international averaged 1.6 chances created per match in Ottawa. He upped his touches per game each year to a very high 71.2 by last season. Bassett doesn’t project as an especially defensive-minded player, but he did lead all CPL attacking mids with 0.96 final third takeaways per 90 minutes in 2024.
Mostly used as a between-the-lines linker, Bassett prefers his right foot but can comfortably start on either side. In 2024, that often meant the midfielder would play as a No. 8 or No. 10 type in a 3-5-2, one similar to Robbie Neilson’s shape in Tampa Bay.
Indeed, watching Bassett’s Ottawa tape makes this move even more exciting than the Player of the Year plaudits indicate. Though players like Josh Perez and Ben Bender showed flashes in the Rowdies’ midfield, they weren’t quite consistent enough in the space ahead of holding midfielder Lewis Hilton. Bassett can change that calculus.
The 26-year-old has a certain guile to his touches and cleverness as a receiver that makes him difficult to defend against. It’s the subtle moments where he drops his shoulder on the turn or lets a ball run into space that are a differentiator.
That quality is seen above. Not only does Bassett receive in a deft manner, but he follows up with a streaking run in behind. There’s an ongoing prerogative to challenge the defense structure and put stress on the opposing back line.
On the sly, the Rowdies are losing four of top eight xA providers, including Perez and Damian Rivera. Those two joined Pacifique Nyongabire as the only three Rowdies to pick up more than four expected assists.
Bassett can bend defenses to open space for others, or he can pick up that creative burden on his own. He has big shoes to fill and the ingenuity to do so successfully.
That upside is clear in the Bassett’s pass selection. The midfielder is a strong “pass before the assist” creator that’s comfortable setting the tone from the edge of the area. He’s smart about his positioning, and he completed 86% of his passes in 2024 even amidst that prodigious creation.
This play sees Bassett cut from right to left for a touch, creating a triangle with a narrow attacker and an overlapping wide runner in the process. The opposition is outnumbered, and the new Rowdies man hits a through to the overlapper. Though the half-space target intervenes and gloms onto the pass, the intention is clear.
While Bassett won’t set the world alight by the defensive metrics - he won just 2.8 duels this year on a wildly low 38% success rate - he’s a willing contributor without the ball. He showed an ability to press up like a third forward in Ottawa - something Josh Perez did a ton of in 2024 - but also flashed some spark as an initiator after defensive recoveries.
Bassett starts this sequence as the left mid, but he drops low to track a potential receiver between the lines of the defensive 5-3-2. As soon as Bassett regains thanks to that smart read, he hits a pass upfield and pushes Ottawa into attack mode. It’s direct and progressive, but it only comes thanks to that intelligent initial positioning.
Throw in right-footed in-swingers from the corner, and you’ve got a player built to make an impact across phases. Ollie Bassett has the potential to be a USL star.
As it stands at the moment, Tampa Bay could run a very appealing 3-4-3 with Bassett and Leo Fernandes anchoring the attacking midfield line. There’s ample runway for Nate Worth to fit into the midfield, especially if it’s in a “three-box-three” mode, and Worth is one to watch in general ahead of a possible European move.
No matter what the setup becomes, you like the look of that Tampa Bay attack. There was some consternation about Tampa Bay’s decision to let Cal Jennings walk, but Ollie Bassett seemingly gives the Rowdies a new lease on life. From back to front, the 2025 Rowdies are going to look different, but they may be even sharper with the ball.
San Antonio’s new era
It’s officially Marco Ferruzzi’s team in San Antonio. Even as the club has yet to announce a new manager, roster decisions have come hot and heavy. Heading into a post-Alen Marcina world, it’s clear that SAFC is headed in a new direction - one dictated by their sporting director.
San Antonio obviously underperformed expectations in 2024, and you can point to injuries and strategic hesitancy as major issues. I actually thought that Marcina did an admirable job of righting the ship given the problems with the squad, but his in-game management could be spotty, and it felt like the roster wasn’t tailored to his style.
The numbers reflect San Antonio’s stylistic troubles. By measures of pressing intensity and passing directness, Marcina’s side wasn’t up to their previous standard.
At their best, SAFC ran the most extreme system in the USL. Take their expected completion percentage, which floored out at 64%. No one else in the division was below 71% over the last three years! That’s an humongous gap, indicating just how direct and distinct Marcina-ball could be.
You can’t argue with the results. San Antonio won a title in that “Mentality Monsters” season in 2022, and they actually improved on expected goal terms heading into 2023. Yeah, star turns from MLS loanees like Tani Oluwaseyi and Rida Zouhir helped, but the Marcina game model was SAFC’s primary strength.
The aim this year was to become a more controlled and possessive, but that didn’t really bear out. San Antonio tended to play shorter out of the back when initiating, but they still resorted to long balls once they hit the first line of pressure. SAFC ended the year with a 47.5% possession average and the highest forward pass share (42.5%) in the division.
Whether the change was exclusively Marcina’s prerogative or one encouraged by Ferruzzi, things didn’t work out. San Antonio often felt like a tactical Frankenstein’s monster that couldn’t execute.
The early returns of the offseason may signal a more committed version of the possessive heel turn. Although the lack of formal exit news - it’s all retentions and ended loans so far - muddies the waters, San Antonio has already returned a skillful unit with the ability to drive through the midfield. Players like Mitchell Taintor, an underrated passer, and Juan Agudelo, best as a linking sort of striker, can ably move away from the Marcina style.
Ferruzzi himself was three-time interim coach in Dallas and has strong ideas about how the game should be played. During his time with the MLS club, he had a major influence in the North Texas SC setup and the broader Dallas academy, so he surely understands the necessity of a top-down vision.
How the Ferruzzi vision bears out in practice is the big question. San Antonio fans have high expectations for this club, and another year of middling results in a strengthening West won’t meet the standard.
Spokane’s first moves
Amidst the magic of the Spokane Velocity’s run to the USL League One title game, it was easy to miss a shift in the expansion team’s style. Not only did Spokane break an end-of-season skid, but they adapted their game to fit the needs of the postseason environment - a stark contrast to their struggles in the Jagermeister Cup, which culminated in a last-place group finish.
Now, the Velocity are the first club in League One to make their roster announcements for 2025. It’s a fool’s errand to divine anything meaningful from two or three playoff games, but Leigh Veidman’s returning core seems built to run back what worked down the stretch.
Spokane started the season in a 4-2-3-1ish shape and ended it closer to a 4-4-2, but that’s largely splitting hairs. The big difference came in terms of the club’s passing profile and defensive approach.
The Velocity were much more willing to sit in a low block in the postseason, absorbing pressure in two low banks of four. Early in the season, Spokane dictated tempo and succeeded because of slick, intricate passing moves. They still had that ability in the playoffs, but the Velocity were less doctrinaire about on-ball dominance. The amount of time where Spokane actually possessed was the key difference.
Improvement from the central defensive pair of Camron Miller and Marcelo Lage, who locked down the starting spots, was crucial. Still, their contributions were part of an overarching team-wide ability to hold firm in block and become comfortable without the ball.
The press improved to boot, marked by situational awareness and a strong ability to shift the “front six” of the 4-4-2 from side to side. Altogether, you had a team that did very well to limit opposing space. Spokane created more quick-breaking moves thanks to their defensive uptick, on top of that aforementioned low-block solidity.
As such, the Velocity returned the defensive core that took them to that final against Union Omaha. Miller and Lage, who shone as a pair once Veidman parted with his midseason back three, will anchor the defense. To either side of them, borderline all-league left back Derek Waldeck and solid rookie right back Javier Martin Gil were also retained.
Goalkeeper is a question mark. Carlos Merancio Valdez is back in net, but he ended 2024 with 6.7 goals allowed above expected across all competitions and was displaced by loanee Brooks Thompson (1.1 goals prevented) down the stretch. There’s a world where Thompson comes free whenever his parent club, Hartford Athletic, announces their roster choices, but time will tell.
In attack, Anuar Pelaez and Luis Gil are set to reprise their big-little, hold-create partnership that proved so potent down the stretch. Masango Akale, who ranked second on the team in xA per 90 minutes, ought to start on the left wing. A scoring winger should be the priority on the right. Kimarni Smith, League One’s biggest xG underperformer, won’t be back in that position; someone that can stretch defenses and make runs in behind would be a natural fit.
Pair in the terrific midfield platoon of Jack Denton, Andre Lewis, and Collin Fernandez, and this Spokane team already looks like they’re on the way to contention in 2025. If this core can keep up the level they showcased in November, it ought to be a banner sophomore season in Eastern Washington.
Final Thoughts
In other news this week…
The Switchbacks continue to persist with the “let’s announce one signing a day for, like, a week-and-a-half” method that I absolutely despise. Slowly rolling out the news is actually a great way to maintain fan interest in lieu of game action, but it’s a pain for aggregation purposes.
Speaking of: check out the 2025 edition of my USL Championship Roster Tracker! I’ve got a team-by-team roster log, a list of the latest news, and a loose free agent list all on the page.
Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, which is essentially just an anime movie set to their album Discovery is coming back to theaters for no apparent reason? What a time to be alive.
That’s all, folks. See you soon!
Cover Photo Credit: Matt Zambonin / CPL
It’s giving Rayo OKC.