The Back Four: Fuego's failures and more
On the Central Valley controversy, plus Orange County, Sacramento, and Championship post mortems
Welcome to The Back Four, where I’m analyzing four things that drew my eye from across the USL. Need a recap of the entire Championship? Hit up Backheeled!
Now, let’s get to it.
On Central Valley
A USL team on the West Coast that’s been a perennial bottom-feeder hires a first-time head coach to revive their organization. This is a club that’s struggled for attendance and garnered a reputation for ineptitude, but 2024 is supposed to be the first step on the road to a revival.
If you’re the Las Vegas Lights, that means you’ve locked up a playoff spot and could end up as the #2 in the USL Championship’s Western Conference. If you’re Central Valley Fuego, you’re in dead last yet again and embroiled in a major controversy because of the abusive actions of Jermaine Jones.
Jeff Rueter’s report in The Athletic found that Jones had been suspended through the end of 2024 and put on probation for 2025 because of his behavior. Jones threatened to “destroy…careers” and labeled USL League One as a “shit league.” Meanwhile, the club itself is facing complaints raised by the USLPA about union busting.
It’s a stark difference compared to the upturn in Las Vegas, where new ownership and Dennis Sanchez’ community- and people-first management on the sidelines have made all the difference. The Lights recognized how years of apathy had affected their fanbase, and they wisely chose a manager that had a genuine vision for their club’s culture. The results have been undeniable.
Fuego, by contrast, went for star power. Where Sanchez spent years as an academy director in Sacramento and won a MLS Next Pro title as Austin FC II’s assistant coach in 2023, Jones had never been more than a NISA assistant. The hope was that a competent manager lay dormant inside the former USMNT star, but that simply hasn’t been the case.
The warning signs were there from the start. In a preseason interview with CBS Sports Golazo, Jones said:
Every indication was that Fuego’s new manager was focused on results and results only. On Sanchez’s front, culture was the driving impetus:
The ability to build a roster from scratch is a really unique position. In some ways I prefer that to coming into a group that already had 10 players that you know don't fit the culture. The hardest challenge that we faced was…trying to build an identity. And as we develop the team, I'm such a believer in the collective.1
I hope the delineation there is clear. As was made evident in Rueter’s stellar report, Jermaine Jones came into the USL with a sense of arrogance on multiple fronts. Jones star underestimated the quality of League One, both on the pitch and on the sidelines. He overestimated his own acumen as a tactician and man manger. His approach to the roster construction process was marked by naivety and immodesty.
Indeed, if Jones wanted to build a new squad in his image, he failed at doing so. Central Valley currently sits six points back of a playoff spot with three games to play. My model assigns Fuego a 2% chance of making the cut. This club didn’t advance in the Jagermeister Cup, and they sport a cumulative minus-11.2 xG margin across all competitions.
Many of the new players acquired in the preseason haven’t been up to snuff, and Jones’ constant lineup changes have paired with a “pump and run” style to minimize chemistry in fluidity.
Many of the issues begin in net. Carlos Avilez’s +7.1 goals prevented mark is the second-worst in all of League One. Andre Zuluaga-Silva, his backup, is third-worst with a +4.2 number on the year. Both goalkeepers were poor in prior seasons, yet Jones either didn’t put in the scouting work or errantly assumed he could fix their games.
Jones vacillated between two- and three-at-the-back systems before his season-ending suspension, starting no less than eight different players in those positions as Fuego defenders fell in and out of favor. On July 18th, the club sold midfielder Robert Coronado, arguably their best player, to the El Paso Locomotive in an implicit admission that the season was lost.
They weren’t far off in that conclusion. Central Valley won just two of their first 15 games, inclusive of cup competitions, and crashed out of the Open against amateur El Farolito. To Jones’ credit, he kept iterating by adding players like Alfredo Midence (on pace to lead League One in assists) and Dembor Benson (signed off El Farolito themselves), but the strategy felt patchwork at the best of times.
Not to oversell the Las Vegas comparison, but that club nailed down key pieces in a short preseason and trusted them to click. Sanchez’s possessive 4-4-2 didn’t click instantly; the Lights only won three of their first 13 games in the Championship. Unlike Jones, they trusted the process and had a collective culture as a bulwark.
Outside of a three-wins-in-four run during the summer, Fuego has never been consistent enough to do the job. They never rebounded in the same way their Championship mirror image did. Central Valley’s “cult of personality” approach failed, and Jones spiraled.
The USL has grown to a point where clubs need a mature organization to succeed. Historically, neither Las Vegas nor Central Valley had that apparatus. Under Jose Bautista and Dennis Sanchez, the Lights have quickly caught up with the times. After a disastrously inept season under Jermaine Jones, Fuego must learn their lesson and do the same.
Orange County’s rise
Early in 2024, Orange County SC looked like a contender, and they may be recapturing that form. It’s easy to forget that this club sat in second place in the West after eight weeks of action. Morten Karlsen led this team to a hot start on the back of Thomas Amang’s finishing, midfield contributions from Brian Iloski and Sofiane Djeffal, and unexpected composure from teenager Ashton Miles in central defense.
Since then, Amang and Iloski have missed significant stretches of time with injury. Djeffal was released and became a squad player in San Antonio. Miles’ performances never dropped off, but he was displaced by more veteran presences. Now coached by Danny Stone, Orange County looks and feels like a different team - one with potential to be a dark horse in the postseason.
In recent vintage, the rise of Ethan Zubak and Chris Hegardt alongside steadier wingers like Bryce Jamison and Cameron Dunbar has given Orange County an identity. Stone has done fantastically well to fit those pieces in a fun, fast-paced 4-2-4 that is on pace to lock up a playoff spot.
You see the dribbles (triangular) and useful attacking passes (crosses and chances created; circular) from Hegardt and the various right wingers above. This team is maximizing Jamison and Dunbar’s dribbling, and they’re giving Hegardt - a midseason addition - the freedom to cut inside and pick defenses apart.
Between the start of May and the end of August, the extended nadir for Orange County, this club put up a shockingly low 1.05 xG per match. That was the second-worst production in the Championship during that span.2 That number has actually gone down in recent weeks, but that’s because Orange County is getting early leads and shutting games down from there. OCSC hasn’t trailed a match since August 31st and has scored in the first 30ish minutes in four of their last five.
Stone’s side is pressing effectively, finding room in transition, and weaponizing their attackers with freshly l effective patterns. It’s easy to credit the wingers for their highlight-stealing skills, and the steadying presence of the Seth Casiple-Kevin Partida pivot has been key. However, Ethan Zubak’s increasing confidence may be the most crucial part of the new balance.
Acquired over the offseason, Zubak started the year as Amang’s backup at striker and took time to heat up. He scored just for goals in his first 25 appearances, underperforming a 5.5 xG total accumulated during that run. Since then, Zubak leads the entire USL with five goals since the start of September.
The finishing on the end of service from the Hegardt types is key, but the 26-year-old’s hold-up play stirs the drink and lets those chances come to fruition. You see Zubak drifting and engaging in build above, swooping into the midfield to complement Ryan Doghman’s overlap from left back. The striker gives-and-goes into the channel, nearly teeing up a teammate for an acrobatic finish.
In OCSC’s last match, a win against Colorado Springs, Zubak took eight touches in the left half space and six from the right. When he drops low, a speedster like Jamison can make a darting run to replace him. When Zubak rides the back shoulder of the defense like a classic striker, it allows Hegardt to invert onto his right foot. Every Zubak run is intentional.
Throw in inspired goalkeeping from Colin Shutler (5.6 goals prevented versus expected this year, sixth in the USL) and you’ve got standouts anchoring this club at either end. Those performances wouldn’t have been possible without Danny Stone’s clever, subtle changes. Stone may just put Orange County in position to make a 2021-esque run if he plays his cards right.
Lee Desmond!
I tend to be very “big picture” in these blurbs for no good reason, but sometimes I just want to shout out a guy. That’s what I’m doing here: Lee Desmond doesn’t get enough love.
Desmond joined the Sacramento Republic for the 2022 season after seven years and nearly 200 appearances with St Patrick’s in the Irish Premiership. With each passing season, the 29-year-old has made more and more league appearances under Mark Briggs. Some of that owes to injury-related necessity, but it also reflects how Desmond has earned Briggs’ trust with stellar play at the back.
This year, Sacramento concedes 0.89 goals per 90 minutes with Desmond on the pitch and 1.29 when he’s out of the game. That’s a demonstrable difference, and it owes to his two-way impact for the Republic.
Sacramento has almost exclusively run a back three since the early stages of Desmond’s debut season. The left-footed Irishman plays on the left side of the defensive trio (duh), anchoring things behind a somewhat malleable press. When defending upfield, Sacramento can vary between a 3-4-3, a 3-1-4-2, or other geometric iterations therein. The excellence of the back three and goalkeeper Danny Vitiello undergirds that flexibility.
The Republic’s recent double matchweek painted a solid picture of that reality. Against a Monterey team that’s utterly reliant on Morey Doner to drive offense from the right wing back spot, Sacramento allowed just one cross from Doner’s side. Desmond made four ball recoveries in that match and went four-for-five on duels; most of the danger Sacramento allowed came down the middle.
Against Memphis, Desmond’s assignment was inverted winger Luiz Fernando on the 901 right. Memphis is a more grounded team than Monterey, and they’re much more in-your-face in the press. That system does well to activate Fernando on the ground much of the time.
Still, #4 didn’t falter. Desmond went 35 for 49 on passes, which is low by his standard but consistently kept the Republic out of danger versus the Memphis press. The center back also made five recoveries and accounted for six clearances, and he did so while preventing Luiz Fernando from attempting a single shot.
You see a few examples of the Irishman as a defensive intervenor above. The first play sees the center back step high into the midfield while riding Marlon, a 901 attacker, amidst a left-to-right run. When Marlon flicks a pass toward Fernando, Desmond hands off the first threat to a midfielder. Swiftly turning thereafter, he recovers on a dime to knock the ensuing pass out of play.
The next two examples see #4 doing the job in the air. Desmond is winning 71% of his headers this year; his total volume of aerial duels ranks in the 72nd percentile. What stands out in the first play is the lift and direction of his defensive header. A less assured center back might glance that ball into the midfield, where Memphis could claim it and zip into attack. Desmond lofts it leftward, pinning the 901 recoverer at the sideline.
It’s a similar idea in the second play. This time, Memphis is in better position to break off the clearance, but Desmond trusts Conor Donovan to rotate to the sideline and makes a smart replacement run down the middle. In doing so, he fills in for his linemate and makes sure there’s a body on Fernando.
Execution and communication are on display in equal measure across those clips. Desmond knows when he ought to get more aggressive, and he always talks to the rest of his line to maintain shape. That’s the sort of quality few defenders possess, and it’s a major reason why the Republic have allowed the least goals in the USL in 2024.
Post Mortems
As we wind down over the next few weeks, I figured I’d eulogize the teams that wouldn’t be making it to the playoffs. I’ll do so in reference to my preseason predictions and analyze where things might’ve gone south. Without further ado…
Miami
Projected: 12th, East | Actual: 12th, East
There’s no glory in accurately predicting Miami’s place in the table. This season was a hard reset in South Beach, with Antonio Nocerino taking over for his first season on the sideline in charge of the USL’s youngest roster. Between a spate of additions from League One, the Italian lower leagues, and Miami’s own academy, this team’s average lineup has been just 25 years old; every other Championship club at least rounds up to 26.
In some ways, Nocerino chose a sensible style for an outmanned team: he adopted a low-block 5-4-1 that defended with 10 men behind the ball, and he opted for forwards that could either go at defenders on the break (think Allen Gavilanes) or hold up play until such a teammate could arrive (a la Frank Lopez). The problem? Miami never actually leaned into a bunker-and-run system. Roughly 40% of goal kicks have gone long for this team in 2024, one of the lower rates in the USL. Nocerino wanted his back three to pass their way through the thicket; there’s never been an attempt to tilt the pitch, and turnovers have abounded as a result.
As such, Miami has constantly been on the back foot. They’re dead last in the league with an average 43.9% share of possession. They never press. Miami is last in terms of passes allowed per defensive action (PPDA), and they regain the ball in the final third a measly 2.2 time per match.
It seems that Miami will be back in 2025. Still, it’s hard to know where this team goes and whether Riccardo Silva will spend. Having seen the results this year, I personally wouldn’t trust the young core to coalesce into something approaching a playoff team, but it’s unclear if Nocerino and the Miami front office think differently.
El Paso
Projected: 7th, West | Actual: 12th, West
My preseason projection model put El Paso at 43.9 points, with fairly wide error bars estimating their bottom end at about 33 points. As El Paso sits on 29 points with three matches to go, so it’s fair to say that 2024 has been the Locomotive’s worst-case scenario.
The club began the year under Brian Clarhaut, who led the team to a poor finish in 2023 but still managed a postseason appearance thanks to the residual impact of a hot start. Nevertheless, the dire form that ended 2023 carried over into the new year. Clarhaut’s lineup on opening day back in March was chock full of new faces, a core seemingly built to make the Locomotive a contender anew. In practice, it didn’t change the club’s fortunes.
It’s interesting to look at that lineup in hindsight. Eight of the starters were brand new additions; two of the 11 would leave the team midway through the year, and Clarhaut would lose his job. The Locomotive struggled to do anything right in the opening months, bleeding space behind their wing backs and consistently using players like Bolu Akinyode and Tumi Moshobane outside of their best positions.
Justin Dhillon was one of the players that would be sold partway through 2024, and his exit essentially left El Paso without a proper striker. The impact of that absence has been clear. El Paso is dead last in the USL with a 7.1% conversion rate this season, which captures their primary attacking problem. Half-chances have arrived consistently enough, but there hasn’t been a No. 9 in position to finish, much less to drag defenders and set up teammates.
El Paso will end the year on a bright note, at least on relative terms. After taking over on the sideline, Wilmer Cabrera simplified the system into a more stable (but still loosely Clarhaut-ian) 3-5-2, and he added familiar Rio Grande Valley faces like Ricky Ruiz and Robert Coronado to do the job.
Heading into the winter, it’ll be fascinating to see if Cabrera stays aboard and if he can elevate the Locomotive above his typical “bubble team” ceiling. El Paso has leaned heavily into Juarez loanees down the stretch in addition to ex-Toros, and their futures are unclear. This club could look fundamentally different yet again come opening day in 2025.
Threads!
Here’s a backlog of my bigger game recaps. Looking for a breakdown of Hartford’s rapid-fire attack? Check out this week’s USL Tactics Show on the socials.
Final Thoughts
In other news this week…
No team is more fascinating than Birmingham heading into the winter, whether they make the playoffs or not. The Legion lead the USL with six players that have been with the club for five years or more, but has the formula gone stale? Check out my main man Kaylor Hodges’ latest Hammering Down pod for a solid look at the Birmingham situation.
I didn’t talk enough about Kevin Partida in my OCSC blurb, but he’s a longtime favorite of mine since his Reno days. Go check out the Orange & Black SoccerCast’s latest episode for more from the man himself.
Still in awe of “Bos Nation” as a name. Who does this?
That’s all, folks. See you soon!
Cover photo credit: TheCup.us
Linked above already, but go read my Backheeled deep dive into the Lights’ comeback year for more.
Never go full Miami.
Re: CV Fuego --Keepers are the "general on the field" as the GK sees and direct the entire field, better dimensional view than the head coach yelling on the sideline. It's also a notoriously high-pressure position in which mental well-being can influence reflexes, energy, etc. TLDR: Jermaine Jones intense critical and abusive style may have affected the Keepers' poor performance, and that in turn doomed the entire squad.... Your thoughts on this theory?