Offseason Notebook: LouCity’s winter and new-look Tormenta

On how Louisville got stronger, plus Tormenta and personal updates

Welcome back to the Offseason Notebook! Before we dig in, make sure to check out Backheeled, for last week’s preseason power rankings and a soon-to-come breakdown of USL Championship breakout candidates.

Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Louisville re-loaded

LouCity finished with a plus-43 goal difference in 2024. With 83 goals scored, their offense was 24% more potent than any other club’s. Louisville ultimately finished 12 points clear of their nearest pursuer for the Players’ Shield, and – playoff exit notwithstanding – cemented themselves as one of the greatest USL teams of all time.

Still, the playoffs didn’t go to plan. Even with Wilson Harris and Elijah Wynder in tow, Louisville couldn’t get over the hump of a tough Rhode Island team and lost their longstanding streak of conference final appearances. Now, both Harris and Wynder are gone, but LouCity has reloaded in a major way. If Danny Cruz, the reigning USL Coach of the Year, can find a balance, this team could be even better in 2025.

Start in the midfield, where Wynder – sold to Los Angeles for a USL-to-MLS record fee of $400,00 – has been replaced two times over. Keen readers will remember that Wynder was my MVP pick partway through last season, largely owing to his progressivity, offensive punch in the final third, and relentless defensive energy. I eventually circled around to Taylor Davila as my hipster MVP shout,¹ but that takes nothing away from one of the brightest prospects the USL has ever developed internally.

In Wynder’s stead, LouCity added Zach Duncan from Memphis 901 on a permanent deal and Kevon Lambert on loan from Real Salt Lake. Lambert, of course, is familiar to USL fans thanks to his legendary run in Phoenix, but it’s Duncan that provides a truer like-for-like replacement relative to Wynder.

In 2024, Duncan tended to start on the right side of the pivot and Wynder the left. That’s an academic distinction. Both took a majority of their touches in the attacking half and attempted about two dribbles per match. Both are also capable of quick, progressive pass-and-move plays; that ability to read a press is probably the standout feature of Zach Duncan’s offensive game.

Still, it was the union of offensive verve and defensive omnipresence that made Wynder so good. Lambert – the leader among all USL center mids in duels won in 2024 – matches that latter trait more closely on paper, but Duncan showed real bursts of brilliance in the press with Memphis. For a LouCity that led the league in final third takeaways last year, Duncan is the continuity candidate.

Kevon Lambert still gives this club a new facet. Against a fierce counterattacking side like Rhode Island, Louisville didn’t have a destructive No. 6 to keep deep against danger. The Davila-Wynder pivot often had to serve double duty in all contexts; by contrast, Lambert’s defensive sensibility would allow Taylor Davila to focus more singularly on creative duties.

With Wes Charpie out, Lambert’s ability to cover in central defense is also key. I’ve heard good thing about University of Louisville graduate Josh Jones at the back, but his size seems a more natural fit for the center of Danny Cruz’s back three. The rangier Lambert is built for the outside spots.

There’s reason to anticipate internal improvement to boot. Ray Serrano is somehow just 22 years old. Jansen Wilson is due for a jump in his sophomore campaign. Aiden McFadden and Manny Perez will get full preseasons under their belts after coming in as mid-season pick-ups in 2024.

Louisville may have lost a talismanic player in Elijah Wynder, but they’ve got about five pieces that deserve such a moniker. With Damian Las back on loan and the midfield (arguably) enhanced, the only question is whether Phillip Goodrum can re-create Wilson Harris’ production – in terms of scoring, yes, but also pressing and off-ball movement.

If your biggest concern is whether your striker is going to be all-USL or just a plain-old 12-goal scorer, you’re in great shape. Given Goodrum’s track record and the excellence of Danny Cruz and his staff, I wouldn’t bet against this team marching to the top of the East yet again.

Tormenta’s rapid rebuild

Among League One’s nine returning clubs, South Georgia Tormenta boast the lowest retention rate at a mere 24%. Heading into 2025, this team looks fundamentally different at almost every position group – and that’s probably a good thing after a year in which Tormenta earned just 20 points in 22 league matches to miss the postseason.

As it stands, Ian Cameron and Tormenta may only carry over four starting players, but the roster construction seems to be (mostly) complete. Outside of a handful of depth additions to come, this is already a vastly improved side.

Last season, South Georgia was caught between identities or, rather, lacked a coherent philosophy entirely. We saw back threes and back fours without a decision ever truly being made. Tormenta held 49% of possession on average, and they ranked within a standard deviation of league average in terms of passing length and pressing success – all middle-of-the-road.

There were hints of an aggressive team that drove outside-in toward creators like Pedro Fonseca or Ajmeer Spengler. Cameron had ideas, but the execution wavered. Too often, Tormenta was simply milquetoast.

Who’s returning from that mix? After impressing thanks to his versatility between the right back and central defensive spots, Callum Stretch is the lone returnee in defense. Stretch is 6’4” but ranked third on the team for crosses last year on a strong 33% completion rate. It’s an idiosyncratic skillset, and it hints at the use of a back four rather than a back three with Stretch as a wing back.

Ahead of him, veterans Conor Doyle and Aaron Walker (who’ll also be picking up some assistant coach duties) form a technical duo in the pivot. Walker rated out as a 78th percentile passer and 80th percentile long passer by volume last year; Doyle’s forward pass rate placed him in the 96th percentile. Both know how to circulate the ball and pick their spots to get progressive.

Eight-goal scorer Sebastian Vivas is the headliner up top, and he’ll be joined by presumptive starter Mason Tunbridge out wide. Both are strong retentions, but their scarcity is evidential of a very fresh-looking roster.

Indeed, it’s the new additions that stand out, and Austin Pack is chief amongst them. Last season, Tormenta’s goalkeeping platoon of Drew Romig and Ford Parker combined to concede 3.4 goals more than the advanced stats would’ve expected. On his own, Pack prevented 3.6 expected goals in Charlotte. That’s par for the course for USL League One’s premier shot-stopper.

Consistency defines the goaltender’s game. Pack has racked up the second-most minutes in the division since joining Charlotte in 2020. During that time, he’s saved nearly 12 goals above expected; no other goalkeeper with a similar workload is even above par.² Austin Pack is simply the best goalie Tormenta could’ve acquired.

In front of him, the imports are impressive. Chattanooga’s Anatolie Prepelita led MLS Next Pro win3.1 aerial wins per match. Jackson Kasanzu posted 1.7 interceptions and 77 touches per game as teenager with San Diego in 2023, his last full season. They give Tormenta a classic center back combo, and that’s before you consider enticing ex-LAFC man Thabo Nare, who’s only 21 years old.

You can bank on defensive improvement with some combo of those players to the side of Stretch, especially given that Gabriel Alves is completing the set. Indeed, Alves might be this team’s tactical turnkey in 2025.

Alves’ standout feature is his comfort as a center mid and left back alike, something he showed off in spurts even during a frustrating season in Rhode Island. The former Marshall star has the skill and touch to operate centrally – see 83rd percentile passing and 65th percentile progressivity in 2024 – and you could easily imagine him anchoring a modern possessive system in the “three-box-three” vein.

As mapped out above, Tormenta would start in a classic defensive 4-2-3-1 for optimal stability, allowing the new-look defense to frustrate opponents into submission. Upon, regaining, however, Alves would flex up and inside to essentially become a fourth center mid – one of the vertices in the “box” midfield.

This sort of formation is increasingly common across the global game, and Tormenta is uniquely set up to deploy because of Alves and two other additions: Handwalla Bwana and Gabriel Cabral.

We’ve seen Cabral in this team before; he scored three times and assisted three times for Tormenta in 2022 to earn a USL Championship move, and he did so while sitting in an off-ball pivot before advancing into the half spaces in possession. That would be his job again in a “three-box-three” attack, and he’d benefit doubly from Bwana’s presence as a second No. 10 alongside him

Bwana has been a coveted player in recent years, someone that Ben Pirmann acquired twice between stops in Memphis and Charleston. That’s as strong an endorsement as you can get in the USL. Derailed by injuries at both those stops, a healthy Bwana is still a potent piece. As a sub in MLS in 2020, he posted 0.66 expected goals and assists per 90 minutes, and he put up three goal contributions in just six USL appearances the year prior to that.

Even if I’m out over my skis and Tormenta is less experimental, they’ve still reloaded in a creative sense. Indeed, Taylor Gray can revolutionize this offense on his own if Cameron elects to go with a true 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3.

With nine assists last year, the 26-year-old Gray was among MLS Next Pro’s most prolific creators. Still, he put up big numbers in basically every single statistical category. I’ve had my eye on Gray as a willing presser and star attacking outlet for multiple years now – see some 2022 praise here! – and love his fit in Statesboro.

If Cameron wants wingers that can do the job on the dribble, Gray and Jonathan Nyandjo are built for that task. The former was a top-quarter attacker in terms of dribbles, while Nyandjo nearly led the league with a jaw-dropping 2.1 successful take-ons per game on a 52% success rate with Crown Legacy.

Though Nyandjo was inefficient in front of goal, he’s dually capable of backing up the striker spot or starting out wide. His profile encapsulates some of the variability that Tormenta has built into their roster for 2025. There’s an overarching vision based around forward-line intensity and considerate midfield play, but the individual pieces involved give Ian Cameron the ability to mix up his shape as required.

Can this new-look Tormenta team contend in 2025? I tend to think so. League One will be a gauntlet with Central Valley and Lexington gone as a few high-powered expansion clubs join the mix, but there’s a lot to like in Statesboro.

On biting off more than you can chew

Surprisingly, blogging about the finer points of Monterey Bay FC’s roster construction and the intensity of the Spokane Velocity press isn’t my full-time job. I like to imagine that my output reaches the caliber of a legitimate analyst every now and then, but I don’t support myself off of USL writing.

Time is a limited resource. In the last few months, my real career has been taking up more and more of it. If you’re a media company that can offer me a full salary and benefits, I’d gladly change paths. But, uh, the journalism industry isn’t exactly booming – and especially not for wannabe USL full-timers.

Time is also something that can be used to maintain a social life. You know, that thing people do when they aren’t watching back tape of mid-summer Detroit City games? I often haven’t allowed myself to do be social, and to deleterious mental effect.

That’s a long, self-aggrandizing way of saying that my USL coverage is going to change a bit heading into the 2025 campaign. This Substack isn’t going away. My commitment to Backheeled isn’t either. In fact, I’m hoping to hone my work on Backheeled to an even greater degree.

So, what’s actually changing? For one, the weekly Twitter game threads are a thing of the past. First and foremost, I’m wholly uncomfortable with using that site. It’s one thing to engage with team accounts that remain on Twitter – it’s necessary to the work I do, and it’s necessary to keep relationships with people around the USL. Still, I’s another thing to post unique content to a site run by a malicious, bigoted, unstable wannabe-tyrant.

The threads themselves were always duplicative of my Backheeled work anyway. You can expect the same materials to start appearing in my weekly power rankings; note the use of video and marked-up screenshots from the 2024 playoffs for an example of that shift.

The other big change comes relative to the Super League, which I won’t be covering week-to-week when it kicks back off in February. I had an absolute blast covering the league in the fall, but it isn’t sustainable for my work-life balance. I’ll still be discussing the league on The USL Show and maintaining my attendance tracker, but anything else is gravy.

That said, there’s still plenty of new content on the way. I’m working with some very talented folks on a project that I think is genuinely novel in the USL space. I’m planning on traveling to a game for each Jagermeister Cup matchweek next year. Next month, I’ll have 24 team-specific season previews up on Backheeled, which is easily my most unhinged writing project ever. I’m aiming to be even more focused on League One here on Substack throughout 2025.

No one ever asked me to do what I do under the “USL Tactics” banner, but I take a lot of pride in my work. There’s a preposterous sense of responsibility that I feel whenever I think about my coverage of the league. I appreciate anyone that reads my writing on the regular, and I hope you can understand that sometimes life just happens.

Final Thoughts

In other news this week…

• Taylor Calheira looks like a massive signing for Tulsa. The former NYCFC II forward picked up 17 goals in all competitions last year, but he did so as much more of a hyper-involved second-striker than a poaching No. 9. In their preseason game over the weekend, Tulsa seemingly opted to use Calheira as a proper striker with Stefan Stojanovic (five goals in 2024) on the bench. I’ll be fascinated to see how they balance Stojanovic’s gift for movement in the half spaces with Calheira’s ample skills as the season begins.

• Augustine Williams to Pittsburgh is such a fascinating move for a traditionally spendthrift Riverhounds organization. I noted it on social media, but this might be the splashiest free agent signing in club history, and it sets up a potentially lethal front three combining Williams, Bertin Jacquesson, and Robbie Mertz. Pittsburgh was nearly doomed by a slow start in 2024, but they’ve got the firepower to avoid that fate in the new year.

• The under-the-radar add of the week? Javier Mariona to AV Alta. I’ve been waxing poetic about Alta’s roster build quite often on The USL Show, and Mariona – a 20-year-old Project 51O product that tore it up as Central Valley’s wing back last year – is the exact sort of fiery wide player that this squad needs.

• January is my favorite movie month because it’s a game of roulette. Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg’s Flight Risk? Made by genuine scumbags, ugly to look at, but undeniably tense. Companion, a movie about a murderous sex robot? Kinda hokey, but oodles of fun. I’ll throw a genuine recommendation for Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, which is shot in first-person from the perspective of a ghost watching a broken (breaking?) family. It’s getting mixed review from critics, my friends hated it, and I still connected deeply enough to cry at the end.

That’s all, folks. See you soon!

1. I voted Markanich, for the record.

2. Austin Pack is insane. See chart for League One goalkeeping numbers since 2020: