The Back Four: California catch-up
On four West Coast clubs, plus other USL Championship and USL League one standouts from Week 12
Welcome in to The Back Four!
Before we start, check out Backheeled for Mukwelle Akale hype, a one-off Jagermeister Cup game, and more. You can also find This League! on the site for an audiovisual dive into the week that was.
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
Notes on NorCal
I track when I write about clubs on this blog for the sake of equality, and I’ve been weirdly mum on all things Northern California over the course of the last month. During that stretch, Monterey, Sacramento, and Oakland haven’t uniformly lit up the Championship, but key trends are emerging in their neck of the woods.
Monterey has slowed down significantly since a hot start to 2025, and it’s the declining impact of the midfield that stands out. I loved how Jordan Stewart sets his team up early in the year, but as my friends over at The Union Report have pointed out, opponents now know what Monterey is trying to bring to the table.
I think it’s useful to start with the good: what does Monterey look like when Stewart-ball is clicking?
The clip above comes from a recent draw in Rhode Island, a game that the Californians controlled for long stretches of time before falling on their sword. Here, though, you see Monterey engage all three central midfielders within their 4-2-3-1 structure.
To start, Wesley Fonguck and Mobi Fehr drop in against the press. In the act, they partner with defender Nico Gordon to force RIFC into a very narrow defensive shape. Fonguck is particularly good about getting opponents to lose their structure; he’s completing 42 passes a game so far (an 82nd percentile) mark and is wonderful at two-touching his way around unsupported foes.
Because of that reaction to the central overload, right back Joel Garcia is open and can carry forth into another passing triangle featuring Ethan Bryant, the most advanced center mid. When Bryant receives, Fonguck makes a splendid third-man run to his left, and it’s off to the races.
We’ve seen very little combination play like that in the last few weeks, second half against Rhode Island included. Still, Monterey is beginning to evolve.
The chart above, illustrating how Western Conference clubs have adapted as the season has gone along up until Week 12, shows that MBFC has remained one of the more cautious passing teams in the division.
However, that changed on Saturday. Stewart put his team into a back-three shape and invited far more long passes. Against Rhode Island, Monterey went long just 14% of the time. That number leapt to 24% against Louisville. While a result didn’t accompany the shift, it’ll be fascinating to see if Stewart continues to mix it up.
Sacramento, by contrast, has undergone one of the USL’s biggest, most definitive stylistic transformations already. Early in the year, the Republic were one of the most direct teams in the USL in terms of their average pass length (10.4 yards per completion) and ranked third-from-bottom in terms of their completions per match. The goal was to go long, press hard, and earn chances on the break; it culminated in a massive opening win over New Mexico and little else of note.
In the last month, that’s changed. Sacramento has become one of the West’s leading passing teams, yet they’ve done so while still encouraging Danny Vitiello to restart long from the back. The difference? Getting Rodrigo Lopez and Nick Ross healthy, allowing for sustained bouts of controlled possession after the field-tilting restarts.
Last weekend’s win against Las Vegas was the pièce de résistance, a game where the Republic held 56% of the ball and posted an averaged defensive action that came 56 yards upfield. Neill Collins’ 3-4-3 structure – really more of a 3-1-4-2 in practice – was set up for dominance going both ways; you can find more on the press from Quail City Soccer’s game breakdown.
You can see why Sacramento dominated possession in the screenshot. With Cristian Parano (marked in the Republic’s slate-colored tone, alongside the other forwards) sitting somewhat lower and Blake Willey (in black, ditto for pivot partner Ross) stepping up to create numbers, the Republic have layers of control amidst their forward line.
At the same time, Collins has built in pressure-release valves. This sequence starts with Jack Gurr (in red) at the far sideline and works across the midfield to the other wingback, Michel Benitez, but it’s easy to imagine an alternate world where Willey or Parano turns tail and resets with a backward pass toward Nick Ross. Sacramento put Las Vegas to the sword with quick lateral movement, but that overarching structure gave them endless options – options that have only improved with health.
Unlike the Republic, the Oakland Roots have become more direct and less controlled as the season has gone along. In a sense, that’s an improvement: Oakland felt rudderless and identity-free in their 4-2-3-1 at the start of 2025, and they’ve at least committed to a “back three, hoof it long” setup since then.
At its best, Gavin Glinton’s system leverages free movement from attacking players like Wolfgang Prentice and Jose Sinisterra to test defenses. Behind them, a midfield defined by Bobosi Byarahunga’s raw energy is meant to win second balls and disrupt opposing moves. Worst case scenario, you’re relying on Kai Greene and his defensive linemates to make a stop at the back.
If the 3-4-3 makes sense on paper, it hasn’t executed the gameplan with clarity in practice. We saw as much again this Saturday against New Mexico United.
That worst-case scenario? We saw a lot of it in the opening minutes over the weekend. Oakland simply couldn’t hang onto the ball, nor could they figure out the relationships between wingers like Prentice and wingbacks like Baboucarr Njie. It became far, far too easy for the visitors to quickly break and force disastrous defensive rotations.
You see that above, moments before New Mexico takes a 2-0 lead within the opening six minutes. Neither Gibson nor Byarahunga is applying enough pressure on the ball. Njie is out of the play entirely, and Oakland’s three center backs are shifting to their left against a pass that’s about to rip toward their right. It’s a mess of the Roots’ own making, and it’ll allow the flood of New Mexico runners (looped in yellow) to come good.
It’s a useful exercise to compare Oakland with Monterey and Sacramento because of their disparate trends. The Republic are the most talented team on paper, yes, but they’ve also been the most decisive about adapting their style. Monterey sits on a knife’s edge; they started hot, and they may be taking a page out of the Neill Collins notebook if Saturday’s growth was any indication. The Roots, meanwhile, badly need something to change – they’re losing pace otherwise, in the West and compared to the competitors in their own backyard.
On struggling Tampa Bay
This, for the most part, is a good sequence for the Rowdies:
Here, Tampa Bay works quickly around the edge and gets both Blake Bodily and Ollie Bassett involved. The run from Bassett is superbly timed, and it allows his side to enter the final third for a comfortable possessive sequence.
The bad? Whatever happens once the Rowdies near the 18-yard box. There aren’t options close to net, and the Bodily-Bassett pair has to spin their tires. Opposing Lexington settles, and the momentum dissipates.
This, on the flip side, is an ugly – and annoyingly typical – Tampa Bay sequence:
Here, Steve Coleman’s side doesn’t even get past the first line of pressure. With Bassett and Daniel Crisostomo tucked narrowly inside, Tampa Bay doesn’t have a great option wide of the central areas and plays right into the opposing trap. From there, the midfield recovery is slow and disconnected – look at that gap between center mids! – and allows Lexington to enter the box.
It’s a nice summation of a Rowdies team that feels labored in possession and concedes space far too easily at the back. I noted in my Backheeled column this week that Tampa Bay does well to prevent quality shots and posts strong xG numbers of their own, but the advanced stats can be a mirage. In the Rowdies’ case, a mix of poor finishing and an imbalanced “quality versus quantity” factor in terms of chance creation has come back to bite. Meanwhile, the defense has been let down by dire goalkeeping and a real sense of disconnection between the lines of Coleman’s 3-5-2.
Per FotMob, Tampa Bay has generated just 16 “big chances” this year, the sort of prime opportunities a team ought to convert. That’s the quality issue. Despite their gaudy xG totals, the Rowdies are amassing a lot of mediocre shots and very few golden opportunities.
Think about the first clip above. If Tampa Bay ultimately gets a shot in that scenario, it’s probably going to be a hopeful try from long range. That’s the core attacking problem: this team hasn’t developed the connections or fostered the consistent tempo to break opponents down.
Without the ball, the Rowdies rank 22nd in the USL in interceptions per game. They’re winning possession back in the final third just 3.0 times a match, down from 4.2 in 2024 and 4.6 in 2023. That’s a marked decline!
Luck, of course, is the elephant in the room. Tampa Bay hasn’t been great in terms of xG when you dig into the per-shot factors, but they certainly aren’t the worst team in the league. The Rowdies have lacked chemistry and organization, but a few lucky breaks would have them on the edge of playoff contention in a not-too-distant reality.
That puts Coleman in a tough position. The obvious move for a manager in charge of a last-place team is continually tweak things in search of answers. In Tampa Bay’s case, there’s an argument to be made in favor of systematic stability – the current shape fits players like Bassett and Leo Fernandes alongside one another, and it’ll only get better with Lewis Hilton and Cammy MacPherson fit.
I don’t know what the correct answer is, but something’s gotta give. Tampa Bay is one of the USL’s premier clubs, and 2025 has been unacceptably below their standard.
Agile Alta
Don’t look now, but Antelope Valley has just one league loss since March and looks increasingly like a pest in League One. The expected numbers don’t like Alta, who’ve posted the third-worst xG and xG against per game (1.3 and 1.8, respectively) despite the bevy of good results. Why am I bullish in spite of the data?
Brian Kleiban’s side has been eminently clever as of late. While luck played into a draw against Greenville, Kleiban cleverly moved his team into a 5-2-3 shape that hung its hat on expansiveness and opportunism with the ball. Players like Jerry Desdunes and Alexis Cerritos excelled in transition after Alta forced turnovers in mid-block, and the wingbacks – Walmer Martinez and Sebastian Cruz – combined for 135 touches.
Measured midfield risk-taking was innate to the setup. Maboumou Alhassane (seven recoveries, 16 duels) tended to sit deeper in possession as Jimmie Villalobos pushed further up, but the duo needed to hold a flatter line defensively. That didn’t always happen, and Greenville hammered passes into Leo Castro between the lines whenever possible. Still, trusting the process made all the difference.
Here, Alhassane literally drops into the back line and allows for Alta to almost recreate their typical four-at-the-back build shape. Because the Triumph need to push players ahead toward Alhassane when he receives, Villalobos can find an angle through which to shepherd play upfield.
Once #21 gets onto the ball, two members of the front line drop in to engage with him. Greenville, always a team that wants to put pressure on potential receivers, has to push up against that attacking duo. However, that focus gives Villalobos the time to pick out a pass. He does so splendidly, picking out Walmer Martinez on the overlap up the left and pushing his team into the final third.
This was Alta’s template throughout the match, and it’s no coincidence that Villalobos would eventually drive forward to assist a Cerritos goal. Though they only managed to earn a draw, the Californians won a slight majority of possession and completed 82% of their passes in the reformed 3-4-3.
The possession and completion numbers went up against Charlotte over the weekend with Alta returning to their typical back four, but you wouldn’t have known it by the eye test. Charlotte’s hexagonal 4-2-2-2 press produced any number of turnovers that put Denzil Smith to the test, particularly in the first half hour. Accessing players like Alhassane and Villalobos was an immense challenge.
Within that chaotic environment, Charlotte was able to earn a go-ahead, semi-transitional Souibao Marou goal. They struck a wonderful balance between defensive line depth and switch-denying high pressure. Alta would equalize just before half time by finding Javier Mariona on a rare diagonal ball up the left, but that was the exception that proved the rule.
Coming out of the break, Kleiban decided to change things up in the pivot. Seeking more pointed passing, he subbed Osvaldo Lay in for Alhassane and immediately reaped a reward. Lay took 40 touches in the second half and completed seven passes into the final third, while the starting No. 6 didn’t win a single tackle and only managed to complete 15 passes in total.
That’s not to disparage Alhassane; this game just needed something different, and Kleiban rightly identified as much.
Lay’s passing was complemented by creative off-ball movement across the board. Cerritos, the starting No. 9, was particularly keen to explore and began dropping toward the midfield far more regularly to provide a tertiary line-breaking outlet through the Charlotte press.
That manner of run from Cerritos is seen above. In the clip, Alta starts quickly from the back and finds the feet of Martinez at left. With Lay low, Martinez elects to dribble upfield and finds three players – Cerritos, Villalobos, and Eduardo Blancas – in close proximity.
It’s a similar “use central overloads to draw the defense high” pattern to that shown in the Greenville game, and here it frees Martinez to hit a switch toward Cruz up the right side. This is the exact sort of openness that defines Alta at their best; they’ve got the central options to do damage, but they’re always looking for a killer ball that can set up a one-on-one.
Because of their tweaks, Alta would get a comeback win against Charlotte and keep the good times rolling. With each passing week, this club keeps on gaining important points, and they’re doing so with a fun, flexible style.
Texoma-Greenville
On a red-hot Sunday in the Lone Star State, Greenville and Texoma contested one of the best cat-and-mouse matches of the weekend. The Triumph entered the match winless since April 5th, but you wouldn’t have known it given the aggression and verticality that defined their performance. Texoma, however, set themselves to absorb that pressure and squeak through the guests into the feet of burgeoning star Ajmeer Spengler.
Ultimately, Adrian Forbes’ side got the win, but the three points arrived in spite of a strong Greenville showing. I don’t want to say that the Triumph are in trouble, but it’s worrying that they can’t turn good showing into points this year.
In terms of the approach, Rick Wright’s side started direct, using longer passes into Leo Castro or Ben Zakowski across their 4-4-2 to spread Texoma out and pin them deep. That manner of distribution had another side effect: allowing Greenville to fully activate their attacking 3-2-5ish mode by pushing Conor Evans up the right sideline.
To stay on the front foot, Greenville deployed Castro in a vital defensive role within the press. As Texoma built out, the striker marked Ozzie Ramos at the base of Adrian Forbes’ 4-1-4-1.
You see that scheme play out here, with Sebastian Velasquez pushing high toward the ball and fellow forward Castro (dark blue) sitting lower to track the holding mid. As Greenville flexes their 4-4-2 against the rightward-moving path of the Texoma sequence, Castro continues to tail Ramos until a turnover occurs.
Once the ball comes loose, you can see the switch flip. The 36-year-old forward bursts ahead, collects the ball in open space, and charges ahead. Castro draws a midfielder’s attention immediately, and he wisely elects to dribble into the zone of the opposing right back to freeze that player, too. Doing so opens a through ball to Chevone Marsh that nearly sees Greenville in.
Between Castro-led transitions and the moments where Wright’s side could activate the 3-2-5, the Triumph’s vision was clear as day. Executing upon it once Texoma settled down and began to find space between the lines was another question.
I often criticize teams when their star players are taking a boatload of deep touches, but using Spengler in that manner was critical for Forbes’ unit. The dynamic 24-year-old received 17 times in his own half on Sunday, but he also took seven touches in the opposing box. In other words, Spengler was the perfect outlet to receive skip passes that sailed beyond the man-marked Ramos and allowed Texoma to break through.
If Texoma could beat any one player within Greenville’s elevated 4-4-2 press, they tended to find themselves in acres of space between the lines. That’s shown in two phases above.
To start, left winger Davey Mason receives a chipped pass over the Triumph wing, forcing the deeper-seated pivot of Chapa Herrera and Carlos Anguiano to rotate over. One will charge at Mason, while the other will tuck low to cover Texoma midfielder Teddy Baker.
Still, Baker knows what’s coming and receives while taking a stutter-step inside. That move dekes out the lower-rotating Triumph mid, and the other isn’t quick enough to apply backside pressure after having committed to Mason. At this point, Spengler is wide open in space; he’ll receive from Baker with nothing but space between him and attackers like Solomon Asante and Maciej Bortniczuk against a backtracking defense.
I’m not here to pretend that Texoma ripped Greenville a new one with these sorts of plays. In the second half especially, Greenville looked far more balanced and structured. When Evan Lee and Michael Gonzalez entered the game, they upped the ante even further and spent about 30 minutes asking questions around the goal.
Still, the Triumph couldn’t get it done. Texoma took their chance in the 96th minute, and it was a masterclass in biding time and attacking small holes whenever they arose. Greenville isn’t taking advantage of the make-or-break moments, and it’s why they can’t buy a win in League One.
Quick Hits
In other news this week…
Next Tuesday will be a bye week for this column because of travel. Expect a team-focused bonus article in the meantime, and check out Backheeled for all the usual content.
Related: say hi if you’re at the Phoenix/New Mexico game this weekend!
Quote of the week here from Tormenta manger Ian Cameron, courtesy of the always-excellent Luke Martin down in Statesboro:
Fascinating, fascinating stuff. Cameron right to note that possessive teams aren’t guaranteed success, but I just love to see a manager be so frank.
Nick Firmino starting over Speedy Williams in the Lexington pivot was the decision of the week. While Lexington didn’t get three points, they looked so sharp, and Firmino’s ability to go 42-for-47 as a passer while staying supremely progress was key. He added 10 defensive actions for good measure! More on that choice on the USL Show socials this week.
The other decision of the week? Orange County deploying Nico Benalcazar at right back. The do-it-all Swiss Army knife won four tackles, completed eight passes into the final third, and didn’t miss a beat in one-on-one situations against Colorado Springs’ more dangerous flank. Benalcazar is a stud, no matter where he’s playing.
Great breakdown of AV Alta, & you beat me to the punch in talking about the 4atb / 5atb flexibility! I’ve got the screenshots highlighted & everything for tomorrow’s article.
I think Pehlivanov was pretty poor against Greenville & bumping him a little more inside was helpful there… but he stabilized some against Charlotte, though I’m not positive I’d play him over Mastrantonio personally.
Sebastian Cruz has been really solid recently – hustling back to defend nicely as a LB (or LWB) when needed, but also pushing forward to provide real value in attack as well.
I hadn’t caught as much of Cerritos dropping back vs. Charlotte til your mention, great call. I was interested by him staying central / Alaribe playing wider, just since I think of Alaribe as the closest thing we have to a true 9, but it worked.