Previewing North Carolina FC ahead of their USL Championship return
What to Expect When You're Expanding
After three years away in USL League One, North Carolina FC are coming back to the USL Championship. The artists formerly known as the Railhawks are dominating the third division in 2023, sitting in first place and having comfortably dispatched with their closest rivals - the Northern Colorado Hailstorm - a few weeks back. With a return on the cards, what can we expect to see from North Carolina on the pitch?
John Bradford has led NCFC since 2021, overseeing two last-place campaigns in which the club accumulated a -58 goal difference. 2023 has been a total transformation, predicated on an offseason in which Steve Malik invested heavily and gave Bradford a cast of League One all-stars. Still, the coach deserves credit for instituting a positive style to fit that squad.
As a baseline, North Carolina bases their system out of a 4-2-3-1, as seen in the average position map from a recent league match.
In attack, that shape turns into a 4-2-4 or 4-2-2-2. The forwards - usually Garrett McLaughlin playing underneath Oalex Anderson - are relatively free-flowing and are supported by narrow, half-space-centric wingers Rafael Mentzingen and Louis Perez a line behind.
Bradford prefers a style focused on control down the middle. NCFC’s goalkeepers go long less than average, and their overall long passing rate is 14%, which would rate in the lower quartile in the second tier. This is a team that only completes 9.8 crosses per 90 minutes, a full 20% lower than the bottom side in the Championship. That’s by design; the narrow wingers and fluid strikers allow for more controlled chance creation.
If you’re looking for an analogue, Orange County SC is a decent place to start. Neither team is especially dominant in terms of possession - North Carolina hovers around 50% - but both are discerning in terms of their passing profile and rely on tucked-in wingers.
The tape, as always, is instructional. Here, you’ll see a few instances of Mentzingen pulling the strings on the left side. A veteran of the lower leagues, the Brazilian had a cup of coffee with Memphis 901 before exploding with the Chattanooga Red Wolves last season.
You see a few examples of the midfielder’s role in build here. In the first, he comes central from his baseline left-wing position, turning quickly to try and find McLaughlin. In the third, Mentzingen draws eyes by staying tight to the sideline, thereby opening a backheeled pass into a charging Raheem Sommersall.
The second clip is the best of the bunch. #14 dips into the middle again, preventing the defense from closing to central midfielder Mikey Maldonado. Another big-ticket offseason signing, Maldonado has the angle to find a countervailing set of Anderson-McLaughlin runs from there.
Those sorts of patterns apply equally to Louis Perez on the right flank. Signed from FC Tucson this winter - sensing a pattern? - Perez is a product of PSG’s academy who spent a year with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds previously.
Perez camps in the channel in the first clip above, drawing a defender inside and allowing full back Christian Young to get a touch. Meanwhile, Anderson is making a diagonal run as the opposition adjusts, and the right back plays a longer but controlled pass into his path.
In the second example, Sommersall and Maldonado link cleanly, finding the soft-footed hold-up of McLaughlin. The striker drops the ball onto Perez as he tucks inside, and NCFC is off to the races into the attacking zone. Both wingers, #14 and #13 try for a give-and-go from there, illustrating Mentzingen’s game-breaking ability to get into the box as an inverted winger; he has nine goals in League One this season.
Still, Oalex Anderson is the driving force of this club’s offense. He has 11 goals this year, second in the league, and his probing motion without the ball constantly creates space for North Carolina. McLaughlin’s presence helps; he’s tied for third in the league with six assists, and he uses a good build at 6’0” and underrated athleticism to drive moves as a complementary No. 9.
The example above is typical for North Carolina. The defense, busy respecting the presence of the narrow wingers, cedes a ball right down the middle from Sommersall in the pivot. Anderson finds it this time, but McLaughlin is already looping around him to get around the overwhelmed back line and earn a penalty.
Depth pieces like Luis Arriaga, Jaden Servania, and Preston Popp all deserve a shout as well. They’ve done it in League One and other competitions and can ably fill minutes. Overall, though, that front four steals the show at WakeMed Soccer Park, and they allow NCFC to attack with a real sense of intention.
Defensively, North Carolina has been quite good in a clean and simple 4-4-2. Their press isn’t overly aggressively, and NCFC has actually put in a number of defensive actions and pressing actions that would rank near the bottom of the USL Championship. In terms of personnel, Nelson Flores and Christian Young are stalwarts at the full back spots, and Gustavo Fernandes is the team’s most-used center back.
Notably, that defensive success - the club has a top-third defense by goals allowed in League One - has come despite a minus-two Goals Saved Above Expectation in net. Four different goalkeepers have started this year in Cary, owing to injuries and uncertain depth behind teenager Nicholas Holliday, the preferred starer.
However, those totals can be misleading. North Carolina’s 4-2-4 press puts them in the neighborhood of the Tampa Bay Rowdies or Birmingham Legion, two teams that actually show a fair amount of aggression but use it to force errant passes rather than put in risky tackle attempts.
You can see a basic example of the 4-4-2 deep in block here. There’s not a lot of commentary to add. The appeal of that shape is obvious, with clearly defined lines and a simple capability to drop into a compact bunker.
The press affords more room for variation, and this is where the higher 4-2-4 comes into play. You can see how Perez steps up to the opposing full back at the beginning of the clip, but that Maldonado-Sommersall pair stays deeper as a central pivot. The forwards are upfield, but they aren’t directly pressing the center backs, preferring to use their press shadows to deny the central midfield.
Still, a 4-4-2, as simple as it is, can cede lanes in the channels if spacing isn’t perfectly tuned in. Sommersall and Perez aren’t locked in against a cut from an rival attacker, allowing the opposition to break into the half space. Still, those two NCFC midfielders adjust well, and the entire team tightens up to prevent any further progress down the middle. The hosts play a switch to take advantage, but North Carolina cleanly dispatches with the pursuant cross.
Looking at the heat maps from Bradford and co.’s last three matches, the trend in that 25 seconds of defensive soccer become apparent.
Much of the focus of opposing possession is focused far away from goal; that 4-4-2 or 4-2-4 is very effective at forcing center backs and central midfielders to recycle possession without making headway. When breaks do occur, they come through those pockets in the half spaces, though North Carolina’s strong and fast defensive rotations anchored by Fernandes and the pivot prevent effective entrance into the box.
When the dangerous chances come, what’s behind them? Right off the bat, you’ll note that McLaughlin and Anderson, rather than holding a tight two-man front line, are stacked atop more of a 4-4-1-1 that opens up room down the spine. Sommersall steps up to stifle the initial break, but he and Maldonado can’t maintain a flat midfield as a result.
Because of the two faults in the flat banks of four innate to NCFC’s shape, the center backs have to step up and try to plug holes. The defenders’ momentum is all wrong as they go at the opposing ball-carriers, and the hosts can get in behind. Still, disaster never comes; David Garcia, #24 at center back, makes a fantastic recovery and shows off his acceleration in denying a clean shot on net.
I’ve not given enough shine to the individual talents at the back, but players like Flores (top half for defensive actions, top third for xG and xA) and Young (two assists, 80th percentile tackle win rate) are models of efficiency as two-way full backs. Garcia ranks in the top third for almost all defensive interventions, and veteran Daniel Navarro continues to stand out as he often captains North Carolina.
The tactical takeaways from North Carolina in 2023 come down to a few key tenets. There’s a preference for bright, attacking-minded soccer that relies on fluid motion within a 4-2-4. A press in the same shape seeks to funnel opponents into dead ends before rotating into a compact 4-4-2 in block.
Many of these players will be back in 2024 in the USL Championship. Backup striker Preston Popp was the only player announced as having signed a multi-year deal this winter by my research, but I’ve heard from multiple sources that the core of this team has term going forward. This isn’t the middling NCFC of USL PRO; Steve Malik is willing to splash on his squad.
For what it’s worth, you could replace West-bound Tulsa with this team right now and get a club that’s in the playoff mix, or wholly respectable at a bare minimum. In the preceding chart, I took the club’s existing roster and projected it into the second tier.
If nothing else, North Carolina FC’s return will be a wonderful test of League One’s quality against that of its big brother. It’s widely accepted that the best teams in the third tier would be playoff bubble teams in the Championship, but NCFC will have the chance to test that theory. I wouldn’t bet against them.