Offseason Notebook: Gavilanes in Miami and Loudoun's balance
Offseason Notebook: Gavilanes in Miami and Loudoun's balance
How Miami FC can integrate a League One star, plus a look at Loudoun's winter
“Trust the process” was the well-known slogan for the Philadelphia 76ers when they dumped a core that couldn’t really compete, tanked for draft picks, and rebuilt themselves on the back of young stars. The USL doesn’t have a draft apparatus to super-charge those sorts of resets, but Miami FC’s youth-centric teardown heading into 2024 represents the closest thing to a soccer “process.”
With new manager Antonio Nocerino in and 17 players from 2023 out, Miami have a fresh face on the sideline and just 11% of their minutes played back for another campaign. I wrote about Nocerino four months ago (the offseason is a black hole in which I lose all sense of time) and posited that Miami was about to start a youth movement given his developmental experience, and that’s played out to a degree no one could’ve imagined.
The club’s average age right now is a tick over 23 years old; only Loudoun would’ve been younger last season. Among the 18 new additions to the squad, many are Italian teenagers assumedly preferred by Nocerino. There are a handful of USL Championship imports, but only Alejandro Mitrano played more than 1,100 minutes amongst that set. It’s a very green group.
If there’s a beacon of hope, it come in attack, where prodigious Greenville Triumph attacker Allen Gavilanes has more than earned a step up the pyramid. Miami has seven players with USL League One experience on the roster, including three players making the jump in 2024. Gavilanes, a 24-year-old New Jersey native, is the belle of the ball.
Per USL League One Review, the Greenville winger ranked in the 83rd percentile or better for progressive passes and in the top third of League One for second assists (i.e., hockey assists) in each of the last two seasons. Gavilanes racked up four goals and four assists in 2022 with a 97th percentile Goals Above Replacement (GAR) rating; he added a goal and eight assists in a more end-to-end role in 2023 in a 90th percentile GAR campaign.
Gavilanes’ either-side creation and complete attacking skillset are the most promising source of offense on the Miami roster, so let’s explore what makes him special.
A smooth operator in the attacking zone as a passer, Gavilanes’ distributive gifts are seen above. The former Triumph star isn’t an elite dribbler, but he’s slick enough to avoid turnovers and wriggle into open spaces to get passes off. He successfully dribbled past opponents 1.63 times per match in 2023, wedged between ex-Miami man Christian Sorto (1.21) and an elite carrier like Danny Trejo (2.04) in Phoenix.
You see the variety on display from Gavilanes above. He has a slight preference for his left, but he’s able to play sharp passes at a variety of angles. In the final third, Greenville often used the attacker as a true winger on the left side, where he was able to hug the sideline and whip in crosses.
Inverted on the right, Gavilanes retained flexibility, often cutting inside but retaining that threat of playing a progressive pass on his right foot. You’d like to see a bit more of that two-footedness emerge depending on his deployment under Nocerino, and there’s a worry that his risk-taking won’t play as well against Championship competition; the 24-year-old was in the 37th percentile or worse for pass completion in each of the last two season.
Still, that unflinching progressivity is key in the new Miami man’s game. Gavilanes is quite comfortable in a wing back-adjacent role, so his tendency to keep his head up and spark play after deep-seated recoveries is especially useful.
Some of Gavilanes’ defensive highlights are shown, evidencing a strong work rate. He’s been a top-half intervenor amongst League One wingers two years running, and he won 24 of his 35 tackle attempts last season. The clips you see above come from matches where the Triumph used Gavilanes as an out-and-out wing back in a 3-5-2, though his side varies between left and right.
While not a perfectly disciplined presence in his own box, Gavilanes has a very strong work rate. You see him doggedly recover to a long ball and rotate behind a beaten man for a tackle in the 18-yard area to that end in the clip. Still, there’s a patience when the attacking star is called upon to defend. Gavilanes won’t rush clearances and prefers to pick out more useful and progressive passes. He isn’t one to blindly throw himself into challenges that compromise his team’s shape.
Miami may well elect to use their new signings in a wing back role given their roster construction. I expect Jordan Ayimbilia to play at left back in a 4-3-3, but he’s roughly 6’1” and could be a potent outside back in a defensive threesome; Alejandro Mitrano is positively built for that same role. Nico Cardona, added from League One, is a similar center back-full back ‘tweener on the right.
You want spark? Put Mitrano, Ofeimu, and Cardona together in a back three with Gavilanes and David Mejia on the flanks.
That spark would be better weaponized for Gavilanes in a classical winger’s deployment, where he could terrorize the final third with less box-to-box responsibility. There’s a very useful secondary scorer somewhere in his game, and it’s probably the aspect that could turn Gavilanes from a very bright creative prospect into a terror at the Championship level.
Again, though, the tools are there and have occasionally peeked out of the toolbox. You see a criss-crossing run that culminates in a quickfire left-footed shot from a tight angle above, as well as a sizzling long-range effort that starts with a moment of inspired body control to slow the tempo and feint off a charging foe. Gavilanes has a good shot, and he’s a fair enough dribbler to reach shooting angles if he so chooses.
Even if that extra skill as a scorer isn’t forthcoming, Gavilanes still projects to be an extremely useful player in Miami, one who can turn this team from an afterthought into a pesky foe with tricks up their sleeve. I’d also look for him to connect well with Andrew Booth in the midfield; Booth is a former Greenville man as well and is very underrated as a shuttling No. 8 or No. 10 type.
I don’t know if I’m fully at the pointing of trusting Riccardo Silva’s process in South Beach, but signings like Allen Gavilanes get me part of the way there. Maybe this team surprises me; if they do, the Greenville stars they’ve brought in will surely be a big reason why.
Can Loudoun get over the hump in 2024? I desperately want the answer to be “yes,” and their offseason moves are the sort of under-the-radar but immensely solid transactions that will take them much, much closer to the playoffs. You can see the starting lineup from their recent friendly against the Richmond Kickers below, a team sheet featuring seven new signings.
Note that Kwame Awuah technically isn’t new, but he missed the entirety of his putative debut season in 2023 because of injuries. He was a standout in the Canadian Premier League who earned a trial with MLS’ Vancouver Whitecaps once upon a time, and he could be a breakout star. Not to dismiss Florian Valot (18 goal contributions out of the midfield between 2022 and 2023) and Christiano Francois (super fucking fast, one of my personal favorite players), but it’s the additions further back alongside Awuah that really stand out to me. Jacob Erlandson, Keegan Tingey, Drew Skundrich, and Tommy McCabe are exactly what Loudoun need.
Erlandson, recruited from a Columbus Crew 2 roster that basically migrated to the USL in its entirety, is a central defender with ample passing talents. He launched 4.9 long passes for game in Ohio but still kept an 86% accuracy because of those skills. Erlandson is mobile as well, good on the back track (as seen below) and responsible for a club-best 29 interceptions while jumping passing lanes.
(Note: I’m travelling and had this thing pre-written when the Keegan Hughes loan broke. A teammate of Erlandson in Columbus, he was a standout late in 2023 for Tulsa on a half-year loan. More good stuff for Loudoun.)
Tingey, 23 years old, was mainly a left back for San Jose Earthquakes II but has the two-footedness to start at right back for Loudoun. He led his side in tackles won (38) and placed third for chances created (21) while in NEXT Pro, and American Soccer Analysis rated him as the fourth-best receiver in the league at his position; Tingey knows how to get into good positions. You see him spark play from deep and initiate a move with the ball at his feet below, highlighting the two-footed passing talents all the while.
Skundrich, seen initiating into the midfield from the right back spot in the clip, is no stranger to the DMV, having played 39 games for DC United. He started 32 games in Colorado Springs last season, ranking in the top third of USL full backs for pass completions, pass completion rate, and tackle win rate along the way. He’s as safe a pair a feet as you can imagine for Loudoun; there aren’t flaws in Skundrich’s game.
McCabe, meanwhile, is a journeyman in the Championship, but one who played a fairly key role in Orange County’s 2021 title run. He was a top-third pass completer among central midfielders between stops in Tulsa and Detroit last season, and he did so with a 72nd percentile forward passing share. McCabe isn’t afraid of a progressive pass but really shines as a stellar positional defender with a good read on space; he shares those traits with Skundrich.
What does this group do that improves upon Loudoun’s 2023 core? Last season, the club’s central defenders won just 54% of their duels. Erlandson had a 60% win rate. There was a lack of balance in the central midfield as well. Landry Houssou was as explosive they come as a No. 8, but he and Aidan Rocha struggled to find chemistry. This year, I expect the McCabe-Skundrich pair to form a pivot of their own; both are solid initiators capable of feeding options like Francois or returning striker Zach Ryan.
Even though my model has Loudoun 11th in the East, it gives them about a 40% chance of making the postseason. That’s not far from a coin flip, and that’s huge progress for a team that earned 25 points in all of 2023.
That’s all for now! Be sure to check out Backheeled as always, and I’ll be back in the mix soon enough.
Nicholas Murray’s positional players to watch series is simply the best. We love to see a fellow Kyle Scot stan out in the wild.
Jon Hunt had a great awards preview for League One to match my Championship effort.
Tenet still rules, and the re-release is no different. I’m not even a Christopher Nolan guy, but I can’t deny a temporal pincer movement.
Sound track for the week is Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings” on repeat. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.
Adios.