The Back Four: One-month warning
Featuring Owen Damm, data viz, Super League xG extremes, and more USL miscellany
Welcome in to The Back Four!
As always, check out Backheeled for more USL content, including my one-month-to-go Championship awards ballot. Also, check out This League! for an audiovisual dive into the week that was.
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
Owen Damm, all-leaguer
If you’re trying to find a hole in Owen Damm’s game, you’re probably going to have a very bad time. After a good 2024 debut in Tulsa, the 22-year-old has become great in 2025. Damm has played four of the five positions in his club’s back line under Luke Spencer, and he hasn’t missed a beat along the way.
Last weekend’s hard-fought draw against Oakland saw Damm play as the right-sided center back in the 5-2-3, and his blend of athleticism and defensive foresight was crucial. The Roots’ left side, featuring Wolfgang Prentice in the midfield and borderline all-USL creator Panos Armenakas at left back, is as tricky a matchup as you can find in the West – particularly because there’s so little tape on it.
Damm held those players to just two chances created. Prentice only completed four passes in 67 minutes. While the Roots scored from a cross up the defender’s side, Tulsa’s young star registered three blocked shots and five recoveries.
Whether or not Damm is a “great” center back is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s remarkable that one of the USL’s best attacking wingbacks can slot into the back three without blinking. Either way, it’s that offensive portion of Damm’s game – the spark he provides as an overlapping threat – that really makes him special.
Damm ranks as a top-third wingback for his dribbles per 90 and dribble success rate, and he’s got a real ability to find the edge around opposing defenses. For a Tulsa team that loves to start restart sequences in a hyper-narrow shape designed to win second balls, that expansiveness is a primary pressure release valve.
That’s exactly what’s happening here. After recovering the ball off a long goal kick, Tulsa knows that opposing Birmingham is compressed. Damm notices the same thing, and he starts to make a run up the left flank. When Jamie Webber passes his way, the 22-year-old has enough momentum to easily dribble past a Birmingham closer. While Damm can’t thread the needle to Taylor Calheira in the halfspace thereafter, you can’t help but come away impressed with the ceaseless sense of progressivity.
It’s a similar idea here. Damm finds an edge as Tulsa switches play from the right to the left, using a gorgeous stutter-step to beat a defender and enter the final third. When he dishes to the sideline, the wingback continues his run toward the endline and forces Birmingham back.
Tulsa continues to flow from there, and Damm seeks out the ball. He’ll receive once more at the sideline, cut in on his right foot, and hit a dangerous cross into the box.
Despite ranking in the 16th percentile for touches per game, Damm has four assists on 84th percentile xA because of sequences exactly like this. He’s very good about finding enough space to cross, and he’s a major reason why Tulsa has played 826 passes into the box this year – second behind only Louisville City, Damm’s former club.
Taken as a whole, Damm’s skillset is incredible. He’s a capable center back, an elite wingback, and a ball of energy no matter where he’s playing. You can point to a million reasons why FC Tulsa has taken the leap this season, but their aggressive, vertical identity is a major factor behind the success. It’s hard to think of a player that better embodies the Tulsa system than Damm.
I declared Damm an all-league player up top, and that’s not just bluster. All-USL teams are only lightly bound by specific positions, but it’s hard to think of a left back this side of Emmanuel Samadia that’s been more consistent. Along with players like Taylor Calheira and Spencer himself, Owen Damm feels like a franchise piece at ONEOK Field.
Sacramento’s defense
If you missed it last week, the inimitable Catalina Bush and the team at American Soccer Analysis dropped a wonderful new data visualization tool covering every pro league in the United States. The timing couldn’t have been better, because the numbers make it clear that Sacramento is doing astounding defensive things in 2025.
You’re seeing Sacramento pace most of the USL in two categories: field tilt and defensive action height. The Republic’s average intervention has come nearly 46 yards upfield, tops in the league. Meanwhile, they’ve nearly averaged a 60% field tilt, meaning that roughly three-fifths of final-third passes in your typical Sacramento game belong to the Republic.
Those dual successes are tied at the hip. Neill Collins’ team presses in a 3-4-3ish defensive shape, winning the ball high upfield with uncommon regularity. Doing so allows the Republic to put their opponents to the sword by consistently tilting the field in their favor.
Since July began, no team in the Championship has allowed less xG than Sacramento at 0.68 per match. During that same stretch, they’ve only won the ball back in the final third 2.8 times per game – joint 11th in the league and, seemingly, in direct opposition to that aforementioned defensive action height.
How to explain the gap? Sacramento might not be winning the ball in the opposing box for fun, but their pressing structure creates a boatload of takeaways in the middle third of the pitch. That’s far higher than, say, a clearance in your own penalty box, but it doesn’t necessarily show up in terms of naive pressing data.
Here, Sacramento starts off by overcooking a cross in the final third, but they don’t give up on the play. The initial ball is served in by Jack Gurr from the right wingback spot, and left wingback Michel Benitez – recovering after having made a far-post run – is the first player in position to try and regain. As he gives chase, the rest of the Republic’s 3-4-3 shapes up.
There’s a boxy alignment that appears behind Benitez, with the pivot of Rodrigo Lopez and Nick Ross supporting behind forwards Blake Willey and Luis Felipe. As such, opposing Colorado Springs has no choice but to change the point of attack around that logjam.
When the Switchbacks hit a switch over the high 3-2-5 counterpress, Gurr closes to the ball on the right. Colorado Springs tries to pass around him, but defender Rayan Djedje is already breathing down the neck of a potential receiver.
Here, you’re seeing the stellar connection between Sacramento’s weak and strong sides. Even as the Republic send Gurr and Djedje after the ball on one flank, Lopez and Ross are rotating low in the left-central areas to prevent a cutback or another switch. Djedje is beaten around the edge, but Sacramento has half their team clogging passing lanes and, thus, force a pass into an impossibly tight window. The break ends with a block from Lee Desmond – one that comes nearly 50 yards upfield.
You’re seeing exactly why Sacramento’s defensive actions are uniquely aggressive compared to their USL peers. Even if the final-third press isn’t producing a boatload of takeaways, it’s forcing opponents to make mistakes and setting the table for middle-third interventions. It’s terrific stuff, and it’s why Sacramento is still tilting at the #1 seed in the West.
Triumph, back up?
Entering this weekend, Greenville was badly in need of a win. The Triumph had lost five matches in a row, including four League One games decided by just a single goal. They returned to form in style against Forward Madison this weekend, and while you might assume Ropapa Mensah’s hat trick signified an offensive explosion, Greenville’s glow-up mainly relied on their defensive structure.
It’s useful to contextualize what went wrong in that five-game run, particularly last Saturday against Tormenta. In that 2-1 loss, South Georgia’s 3-4-2-1 attack (more on that in the next section!) had too easy a time working to either side of the Triumph pivot. At that point, Zane Bubb and Brandon Fricke had to step from center back to intervene, risking their defensive structure in the process.
Between that problem and the ability for Tormenta to quickly play over the 4-2-3-1ish shape in second-ball situations, Greenville felt surprisingly vulnerable. At the same time, they had useful patterns of their own, particularly when Rodrigo Robles could get going. A prime 25th minute chance where Robles made a run over the top after Ropapa Mensah had dragged the defense right represented the Triumph at their brightest.
The good and bad features of that loss informed Greenville’s approach against Madison last weekend. This time around, Rick Wright gave himself an extra center back and used Robles as a proper partner for Mensah within a shifted 5-2-1-2 shape. The results couldn’t have been much better.
Even with Bubb ruled out because of an injury in warmups, a center back corps of Fricke, Anthony Patti, and DJ Benton held extremely firm. Shielded by a pivot of Connor Evans and Chapa Herrera, they limited Madison to an unbelievably low nine final-third completions in the first half. Madison only got to 33 by full time, evidential of the Triumph’s complete defensive dominance.
How’d it happen? Because Madison sets up in a squint-and-they’re-similar alignment to Tormenta, Greenville knew they’d need an extra player in central defense. Doing so added a layer of protection at the back, meaning that the step-up interventions that once proved problematic were suddenly a feature of the system.
You’re seeing that above. As the guests work upfield, one of their forwards makes a leftward run between the defensive and midfield lines. However, Benton (the right-aided center back) sees it coming and takes a step up. As such, he’s able to deny a passing lane upfield.
Still, there’s more going on here. Evans and Herrera are fronting the opposing center mids, making a clean pass impossible. Benton’s step also helps to limit the space behind the No. 8s. If Madison tries to thread the needle to one of those players, you’re likely to see an interception or even a blocked pass from right wingback Zeke Soto. In effect, that space between the lines is inaccessible.
Greenville’s high press was equally functional; the 5-2-1-2 base shape was designed to clog the central areas but had enough flexibility to deny Madison’s halfspace-centric build patterns. At no point was that more apparent than in the 31st minute, when Herrera claimed a pass intended for Jake Crull – a center back that often hinges into the channel in possession – and immediately found Mensah for the goal to put Greenville up 2-0.
The balance between defensive principles and offensive priorities never wavered. Here, you’re seeing Greenville in something like full attack mode, with Chevone Marsh high from the left wingback spot making a run into the box.
Marsh is dispossessed, but Madison isn’t allowed a clean chance to break. Multiple attackers immediately shiver around the ball, and Evan Lee takes the opportunity to charge at the carrier from the No. 10 spot. While Madison has a clean outlet up their left side, they’re rushed into a home-run ball toward one of their forwards.
That’s where the balance comes in. You can see the sense of structure in the still frame, where Soto sits low like an auxiliary center back to provide weak-side structure and complement Marsh’s forward run. The same goes for Herrera in the midfield, as he hedges low with his other linemates high.
Greenville seemingly kept a constant “three plus one” rest defense base at a bare minimum, supporting their back three with at least one midfielder or wingback. Here, they’ve even got an extra body back. The result is a takeaway for Soto and ability to work the ball right back into the mixer.
Even in back-foot transitional situations, the Triumph’s defense felt far more structured. This sequence begins with Madison breaking up Greenville’s left, finding the feet of striker Garrett McLaughlin. When the No. 9 receives, Fricke steps his way – hence why the back three is out of their natural alignment.
Still, the overarching “we want four or five guys back defensively against the break” concept holds firm. Midfielder Connor Evans starts to apply pressure to McLaughlin, who’s seen releasing a pass from the 40-yard line. Herrera fills deep to deny a passing lane that might take advantage of the bent back three. Meanwhile, Benton sees a chance to put pressure on the ball, trusting that the players behind him will recover in time.
You don’t see Soto tracking low from the right wingback spot, but he, too, is making the right decision. Ultimately, this play will end with the Madison receiver turning tail and dribbling backwards.
By the time Greenville led 3-0 thanks to that Mensah hat trick, they had allowed just 0.28 xGA. No matter how you slice it, this was a dominant performance – one that came about because of perfect tactical shifts made by Wright and his staff.
The Triumph have work to do if they want to make the playoffs, but they may’ve finally got their mojo back. Whether this 5-2-1-2 is the new template or we continue to see tweaks, you can’t count Greenville out.
Terrific Tormenta
If I had a USL League One awards ballot (ahem, any readers at USL HQ!), I’d think long and hard about Mark McKeever as a genuine option for Coach of the Year. That’s almost certainly Scott Mackenzie’s trophy to lose, but what McKeever has done in short order with Tormenta is nothing short of remarkable.
Some of the advanced numbers can hide that fact. Since McKeever’s first match in early August, Tormenta’s field tilt is merely 46%, and they’ve finished with less ball recoveries than their opponent in five of seven matches. In xG terms, Tormenta is ever-so-slightly underwater (-0.08 in total) since the change in manager.
Still, those marks are improvements even if they aren’t spectacular in a vacuum. South Georgia’s field tilt is up even if it’s still low, meaning that they’re spending a greater portion of their matches in the final third. They’re taking 58% of their shot attempts in the box and generating nearly 0.13 xG per shot, further marks of improvement. The xG margin was -5.5 under Ian Cameron, meaning that McKeever has turned a bad team into something far more competent.
The form is only getting better in Statesboro, with Tormenta riding a four-match winning streak in which they’ve accrued a plus-nine goal difference. This weekend’s dominant display against AV Alta was par for the course.
What stands out is Tormenta’s ability to consistently put their best players in advantageous positions. Niall Reid-Stephen is given license to run over the top; Mason Tunbridge tends to drop in to maximize his technique in tight spaces. Gabriel Alves has been expansive at left wingback, while Oscar Jimenez often tucks into the channel. Strong one-on-one defenders like Makel Rasheed are trusted to do their jobs.
All of that comes together in this shot-creating sequence. Initially, Tormenta is on the back foot. Jimenez and Callum Stretch have both pushed ahead against the ball, so Alta hits a searching ball into the seam. While you’re getting a recovering rotation out of the No. 6 spot, Rasheed is under pressure.
The former Xavier defender doesn’t break a sweat, safely passing back to Austin Pack. Immediately, South Georgia turns the table. Pack, whose long pass share has increased by 20% under McKeever and whose average pass has thus traveled 10 yards further, duly clears the danger and initiates an attacking sequence.
When striker Yaniv Bazini goes for the header, the reaction around him is instant. Reid-Stephen pushes up and Tunbridge – who’s getting five more touches per game and generating 30% more xA (0.23 per 90) under McKeever – tucks into space from which he can potentially create. By the time Tormenta claims the ball in the pivot, their 3-2-4-1 attacking structure is coming into clear focus.
Everyone thinks multiple steps ahead. Tunbridge has set himself up to receive after the knockdown, and he does so. Alves, who had tucked in like a weak-side center back when Tormenta was defending, knows he’ll be Tunbridge’s best outlet and sprints up the left flank. When the former Birmingham man receives, he’s got the space to go at goal because Reid-Stephen is pinning the defense.
You couldn’t ask for much better. Tormenta is playing with an undeniable sense of freedom at the moment, and they’re among the most fun teams to watch in the USL. Mark McKeever has done more than just instill an attractive style, of course – he’s suddenly got Tormenta looking like a legitimate title dark horse.
Super League potpourri
Hey, remember Catalina’s wonderful data viz tool? It also can tell us that DC Power is being really weird after four matches.
In terms of PPDA, or passes allowed per defensive action, this Power side is the least aggressive pressing team in the Super League by a country mile. Relatedly, their overall defense is poor – nearly twice as bad as first-place Dallas in terms of xG against per match.
The absence of pressure was most visible in the season opener, a game against Jacksonville where DC allowed the hosts to play 517 passes. Indeed, last Thursday’s match against Brooklyn was the first time all year that the Power held an opponent under 100 pass attempts in the final third.
Omid Namazi’s side looked far more pressureful with Brooklyn in town, using their 5-2-3 as a tool for disruption. That was most apparent when striker Gianna Gourley scored a press-driven goal in the 33rd minute, but the entire system felt far more aggressive from back to front.
Paige Almendariz, the left-sided center back, stood out for her tight marking against Mylena in the opposing midfield. Up the middle, the pivot of Alexis Theoret and Ellie Colton tended to play man-oriented and rarely let Sam Kroeger turn upfield from the No. 6 spot. Ball-side rotation by the wingbacks – particularly Susanna Fitch up the right – could turn the 5-2-3 into more of a 4-2-4, a similar shape to the one that Lexington used to shut Brooklyn down a few weeks back.
In other words, Namazi is picking his moments to apply pressure. DC still allowed 1.5 xG and conceded twice last week, but they’re looking better by my eye test – and they’re undefeated in the process.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Spokane has stellar defensive numbers but can’t get off the schneid. In their first six matches in the post-Jo Johnson era, Zephyr have allowed just 0.96 xG per match according to Opta’s data, yet they’ve registered only one win.
What’s holding Zephyr back? For me, it’s a mix of two things: still-developing attacking chemistry manifest in a 1.03 xG per 90 return and an insufficient counterpress.
This far into 2025, Spokane ranks sixth in the Super League in final-third recoveries (5.3 per game) and seventh in possession (48%), all while having created just two fast breaks. Not fast break shots; fast breaks, chance-creating or otherwise. Refer back to the chart up top, and you’ll notice that Zephyr have the league’s second-meekest press in the meantime.
This team tends to start long from the back via goalkeeper Hope Hisey, but they’re aiming to keep the ball on the ground thereafter. Spokane recently adopted a 3-5-2 to help support that aim, but they’re still short on off-ball movement and transition-creating aggression to bring it all together.
Here, you’re seeing Zephyr move across their midfield from Emma Jaskaniec into Felicia Knox. The entry pass is behind Knox – a star creator in Fort Lauderdale last season – and her first touch is negative as a result, which allows opposing Lexington to get their entire 4-4-2 block behind the ball.
Still, Knox is able to find herself a pocket. With Jaskaniec pushing upfield near forwards Ally Cook and Lena Silano, there should be options available.
Instead, Cook gets locked up with a defender, while Silano and Jaskaniec are both back-to-goal in front of the defensive line. There’s nothing going, and Spokane turns the ball over springing wide to change the angle of attack. You can see Zephyr drop off as soon as Lexington hits a backpass thereafter – there’s absolutely no impetus to counterpress.
Spokane generally hasn’t got enough from their forwards. In this game, a third of Silano and Cook’s touches came in the outside areas (i.e., wide of the 18-yard box) as compared to just three box touches. Those drifts could’ve been effective, but Spokane lacked replacement running to re-create a presence in the final third.
The good thing? This defense is wonderfully stingy, and Zephyr’s already showing improvement on the chemistry front. On Wednesday night, they shifted back into a 4-4-2 that felt far more comfortable. Opposing Carolina was held to just 0.74 non-penalty xG, which Spokane bettered.
In that shape, right winger Cameron Tucker led the charge. Tucker started as a wingback in the 3-5-2 last weekend, but the box-to-box responsibility of that position limited her offensive punch. With Haley Thomas as a rather conservative right back behind her this time around, Tucker played with far more expression as an out-and-out attacker.
Thanks to that creativity and better central movement from the No. 9s, Spokane felt balanced. They didn’t exactly rip the Ascent apart (0.9 xG isn’t necessarily good), but things felt far quicker and more intentional. With Tucker leading the way, the 4-4-2 feels like the blueprint for a more complete version of Spokane.
Quick Hits
In other news this week…
It doesn’t seem real that we’ve only got a month left in the regular season.
On The USL Show, I sang the praises of Indy’s second-half 4-3-3 that proved so effective against Birmingham last Sunday, but I want to double down. After the change that saw Aodhan Quinn step into the midfield, the Eleven held the Legion without a shot. Meanwhile, Quinn attempted 71% of his passes in the attacking half, up 15% as compared to the first 45 minutes. Indy didn’t get away from their direct identity, but they felt blissfully able to control the central midfield.
Chattanooga has been impressive for a whole lot of reasons, but their long throws are a real strength. 46% of the Red Wolves’ goals in 2025 have come from set pieces, and they’ve got three goals from throw-ins after Tobi Jnohope’s winning toss against Spokane last weekend. Both of those numbers top League One.
Ahead of his new movie, I rewatched Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, and I think it might be in the “best movies of the century” convo. Daniel Day-Lewis, kind of good at acting!
As tends to happen when I watch something great, I start making mental connections. For instance, I’d go to bat for 1954’s The Country Girl as a Phantom Thread forebear. Bing Crosby – who you probably think of as “that guy who made Christmas music” – gives an unbelievably tender lead performance, and Grace Kelly won an Oscar alongside him. It’s all about nasty lies people tell themselves to hide their romantic dependencies and personal traumas, a darker twist on whatever Oedipus complex Day-Lewis is conjuring.
Anderson has mentioned David Lean’s The Passionate Friends as an explicit influence, and it’s a wonderful movie. People think about Lean in the context of his late-career color epics, but his early romances and Dickens adaptations are equally unimpeachable. The Passionate Friends starts in that classic romance mold, but it gives way to emotional subjectivity and borderline expressionist filmmaking that’s straight out of Lean’s Great Expectations adaptation.
The moral of the story?
I need to get a life.Watching great people borrow and build upon ideas is incredibly fun – it’s literally what I do when I try to write about tactics.The good folks at Topo Chico should sponsor me. I’m legitimately addicted to sparkling water.