Offseason Notebook: Sacramento strengthening

Plus Monterey's Loyal-heavy zag and other news of the week

The Thanksgiving food coma is over, and we’re into the thick of the offseason. You could build a title team out of the players that changed clubs this week alone, and I’ll have plenty more on what the signings mean in the weeks ahead.

Also: Nate Worth breakdown coming Monday at Backheeled! Subscribe for all the goods, like Joe Lowery’s amazing MLS Cup coverage.

For now, let’s stick in Northern California and dive into two squads that seem fairly fully-formed already.

Last year’s Sacramento Republic were really good. Despite fairly major absences from Rodrigo Lopez, Arnold Lopez, and Sebastian Herrera across the pitch in 2023, Sacramento still coasted to the top of the Western Conference with a +25 goal difference and a top-three expected goal difference.

2023 was a step up for a few reasons, namely because of changes in the back half of the lineup that gave the Republic more quality options. Think about Shane Wiedt and Jared Timmer, two nailed-on starters at center back with great abilities in their box and as ball carriers. Arnold Lopez also brought a destructive instinct to the pivot. Internal shifts mattered: Nick Ross was used more expansively, sometimes popping up in a defensive No. 10 deployment.

In signing Jonathan Ricketts, Sacramento is doubling down on the same additive philosophy. The right back, who appeared in my list of the top 50 USL players last season¹, may seem surplus to requirements at first glance thanks to the presence of Jack Gurr at the same position.

Not so.

Yes, Ricketts is a right back by trade, but he’s comfortable anywhere on the field. With the Chattanooga Red Wolves and Rio Grande Valley FC, the 26-year-old played as a center back or winger in more than a dozen total matches in recent years.

Within his full back deployments, Ricketts has seen it all. Most comfortable on the right, his skill level makes him a viable choice to invert as a right-footer playing at left back. At 6’1” and 174 pounds, he’s got the heft to handle heat when cutting inside; inverted full backs have a natural tendency to drift towards the middle of the park.

At times, Ricketts has operated like a marauding wing back, popping up into an attacking front. Still, he has equal experience sitting low in a flat back four. The native Tennessean’s talents as a passer, ranging from bent crosses to well-weighted balls in build, open up a world of possibilities.

The numbers bear out his flexibility. Ricketts had an 81% passing accuracy in the defensive half last year, which was within 1% of Damia Viader and Gurr’s rates. He uses his size like a center back; he won 89 aerial duels last year, whereas the four Republic wing backs won 48 in total. Still, he put up more expected goals and shot attempts than two-thirds of USL full backs.

If it isn’t yet clear, I envision Mark Briggs using Ricketts variably. Wide center back in the 3-4-3’s threesome? Proper wing back? Yes and yes. He can be a Swiss Army knife, one that has to be involved in the lineup.

I also wonder if we’ll see experimentation with Gurr (or even Ricketts) moving into the forward line. Watch that clip above for examples of each defender scoring a tidy goal last season.

The Republic man receives a diagonal, goes one-two with Keko, and slices into the box for his conversion. The ex-Toro, meanwhile, receives a cutback on the edge of the area and precisely curls in a lovely left-footed strike. You can’t declare someone a forward on that evidence alone, but the highlights are indicative of the range provided by Gurr and Ricketts alike.

Acquiring Trevor Amann helps the case for experimentation in Sacramento, assuming he recreates his Northern Colorado-era scoring and brings a sense of gravity. When you have a No. 9 capable of scoring 23 times² and doing so with an elite read on loose balls and opposing momentum, it opens up the game considerably.

There’s nothing wrong with imbalance either. Say it’s Amann in the middle, Russell Cicerone as a second striker-left winger hybrid on one flank, and Jack Gurr completing the trio. You’ve added that much more defensive heft on one flank, and you’re giving the central midfielders extra leeway to cover behind Cicerone - at right winger, Gurr would track back and patch up holes instinctually.

The USL season is a long one, dense with travel, midweek matches, and injury troubles. Charleston arguably had the best midfield corps in the league, and they added Aaron Molloy to the mix with those challenges in mind. Bringing Jonathan Ricketts to Sacramento matches that philosophy and helps to assure another year of success for the Republic.

---

Monterey had a promising offseason last year, inking their entire core to deals with options and adding players like Alex Dixon, a bonafide USL star, and Alex Lara, an underrated defender. The moves I deemed “good” didn’t quite pan out, and Monterey slunk to an 11th-place finish with the West’s second-worst goal difference.

Inconsistent finishing that ran cold after the opening weeks plus a slow, physical defense not built for the Western grinder were the primary culprits, and Frank Yallop has acted quickly to change the dynamic in year three. Stalwarts from back (Hugh Roberts in central defense) to front (Christian Volesky at striker) are on their way out.

In turn, Monterey have taken a page out of the San Diego Loyal’s book. Really, they’ve ripped out an entire page and bound it within their own spine; their only new signings to date are former Loyal players, and they betray something significant.

Carlos Guzman leads the way as a big-ticket pick-up, one that’ll change how this club plays in a real way.

No defender in the USL with at least five matches played was as involved with the ball as Guzman. A 12-year veteran of Mexico’s top divisions at age 29, the center back played on the left side of San Diego’s back three last season and completed more than 75 passes per match. He didn’t just circulate the ball without intention, either, ranking well above average in terms of his forward pass share.

Monterey toggled between back threes and back fours for much of 2023, but the answer never quite felt like a fit. Using Mobi Fehr, a natural No. 8, as a defender to fill out the threesome was a misuse of his skillset, for instance. Having two bulky, slow-ish players in Roberts and Kai Greene reach “undroppable” status didn’t allow for balance.

Guzman changes the dynamic. He isn’t going to burn you with pace, but he has the profile to play full back in a pinch and can effectively cover the space behind a wing back if Yallop keeps to a 3-4-3 shape. Throw him and Lara on either side of Greene, and you’ve got much more verve in build-up on top of improved lateral speed in coverage.

Indeed, we could see a more possessive sort of Monterey team in 2024. The club finished 18th in the league by keeping 47% of the ball on average last season, and they were more reliant on long balls out of the back than almost any other side. Guzman won’t fit such a route-one style.

Xavi Gnaulati is the other San Diego emigre, an 18-year old starlet signed to a one-year deal with a team option for 2025. The move is interesting on a few levels. For one, the teenager broke out last season on the back of an added-time brace to beat - wait for it - Monterey themselves!

Furthermore, Gnaulati is the centrally-located No. 10, even in raw form, that this club has never relied upon. Yallop’s side has burst with good wingers like Sam Gleadle and scoring-minded second strikers like Chase Boone and Alex Dixon, but none are the creative cogs that the teenager has the potential to become.

Gnaulati may just be the start of a youth movement for a club that leaned old in 2023 and for a manager often recalcitrant to play the kids. Many of Monterey’s most important contributors last year were over the hump of the USL aging curve; Volesky, Roberts, and Rafael Baca were notable members of that group who won’t be back next year.

Even if Gnaulati isn’t the panacea for an aging squad, the overall trends are positive. Yallop is moving beyond the day-one core in a judicious manner, one that ought to deliver upon the promise I ascribed to the club coming out of 2022.

---

In other news…

• I’ve got a bigger piece on North Carolina coming, but adding Rodrigo Da Costa and Paco Craig is wild. That’s two legit all-league players on top of a League One core that already projected to be a bubble team at worst.

• I was tempted to make this another El Paso-heavy column, because I love what they’ve done so far. The Dollenmayer-Akinyode-Martin back three won’t make unforced errors. Pairing three smart, interchangeable forwards in Amando Moreno, Justin Dhillon, and Joaquin Rivas is going to addle defenses at the other end. Clarhaut season, here we go.

• Loudoun keeps making smart moves. Tommy McCabe and Drew Skundrich, both signed to multi-year deals, are going to be so annoying to break past in the midfield.

1. Be on the lookout for the updated edition over at Backheeled in the months ahead! It’s unhinged and my favorite, most thought-out and stressed-over work.

2. Amann scored 11 goals on his right foot, six on his left, and five with his head; he was tied for the League One lead with four goals from outside the box. The dude is money in any context.