The Back Four: what's wrong with Charleston?
The Back Four: what's wrong with Charleston?
Tactics, stats, and other developments that stand out for North Carolina, South Georgia, Knoxville, and Charleston
Welcome to The Back Four, where I’m analyzing four things that drew my eye from across the USL. Need an analysis-heavy recap of the entire Championship? Backheeled is the place to be. Backheeled is also the place to be for Copa America coverage, where we’ve got boots on the ground.
Now, let’s get to it.
What’s ailing the Charleston attack?
Charleston hasn’t scored a goal in their last 363 minutes of USL Championship action, added time not included.1 Their once-rampant offense has fallen off a cliff, and while defensive excellence can’t has kept this team in second place, something is amiss at Patriots Point.
Is it bad luck? Has something fundamentally changed in the Battery attack? There are a few possible explanations to consider.
There’s no better place to start than at the feet of Nick Markanich. During his earth-shattering run of form in April, the 24-year-old picked up eight goals in four games, and he did so on just 14 shot attempts. Indeed, from March 16th to May 4th, Markanich converted chances at a staggering 34% clip while averaging 3.9 shots per match.
Unless you’re prime Messi, that’s an unsustainable scoring rate. For a winger to put up that shooting volume is nigh unheard of as well. Still, there was fortune involved. From opening day to the beginning of May, Markanich outperformed his underlying numbers by a margin of 4.7 expected goals, 62% more than any other player in the USL.
Fast forward to late June, and defenses have honed in on Markanich. Opponents are likelier to keep their left-sided midfielder low against him (see Gabi Torres for Phoenix) or allow the nearest center back to step up against cuts inside (a la Devon Amoo-Mensah for Detroit) on his inverted left foot. Coaches can gameplan against Markanich’s strengths, and players armed with a strategy are less likely to compromise their team’s structure.
The result? #13 has no goals in the league since May 4th. His shooting numbers have declined, and he’s getting far fewer touches in the box.
If defenses are getting wise to Markanich and selling out to stop him, shouldn’t that open up holes elsewhere on the pitch? Yes, in theory, but Charleston hasn’t been able to take advantage.
I wouldn’t call MD Myers the problem by any stretch of the imagination, but his limitations can be a drag on the Battery. Myers sports cleverness as a finisher, intensity as a presser, and underrated guile on the dribble, and that’s all great. Still, the No. 9 is a limited passer, one with a meager 64% passing accuracy in the opposing half. Myers can be functional, but he doesn’t have the consistency or weight on his balls to test well-aligned defenses.
Myers’ passing map from the Phoenix game is instructive. You see a nice handful of touches for the striker in zone 14, and his accuracy in the final third is laudable, but the passes are almost all sideways or negative. There’s one sole attempt aimed into the box.
Moreover, Myers isn’t the caliber of aerial threat that fits a cross-heavy or long-from-the-back style. He’s 18 for 51 on aerial duels this season. Now, that’s not a particular issue given the classic Ben Pirmann gameplan. The Battery don’t need a target man. They use inverted wingers and feast on slick passing sequences, not on repetitious crosses. Still, it becomes easier to stop an attack when you don’t have secondary reads.
The up-and-down performances on the left wing haven’t helped Charleston’s cause either. Relative to Markanich there’s an imbalance. At that left-side spot, Juan David Torres is stunningly technical. The young Colombian has the ability to whip a ball into the box (his 40 crosses are 11th-most in the USL), but he’s also wasteful and impatient in his shot selection. Meanwhile, Diego Gutierrez is zero-for-15 on cross attempts. He has no goals and just nine shots in 589 minutes of league action.
Defenses are clamping down on Markanich, but his supporting cast is ill-equipped to punish open space with regularity. How to fill the void, then? Some very smart people that I respect and admire think that Aaron Molloy needs to be the player to step up and solve that problem.
It’s true from a certain perspective that the Irishman has been less active in the attacking half this season. While coached by Pirmann in Memphis in 2022, Molloy attempted 52 shots. That number was 45 last year. This season, the No. 6 is on pace to only take 19 attempts on goal.
Still, if you need a defensive midfielder to assault the net from 30 yards out to make your offense tick, you’ve got a problem. For my taste, the “get Molloy higher” argument misunderstands his game and his value as a deep-lying creator. No one is as gifted at progressing the ball; Molloy is in the top quartile of center mids for progressive distance on his passes and is third at his position with 3.5 expected assists.
Yes, that sum includes set pieces, but we haven’t seen a season-over-season drop off even when you filter out dead ball situations. Charleston’s #6 only generated 1.8 expected assists in the run of play in all of 2023, and he’s at 1.1 already this season. He’s better as a creator.
If anything, I want to see more from Chris Allan in the pivot. A clean passer with a very good sense for off-ball movement and defensive positioning, Allan does a lot of good things. Progression and creation aren’t really among them.
#4’s services will be key when the going gets tough in October and November, but he doesn’t provide any danger that commands defensive attention. If Molloy is low, he needs an active partner that opens up the Markanich types further ahead. We aren’t seeing it, and we didn’t see it from this pair in Memphis, either.
What does it look like when build is going right? When Pirmann-Molloy teams are ticking, the prodigious midfielder often starts build-out planted between the two center backs. This is intentional. When you jam a center mid into the back line, the center backs can widen into the half spaces, thereby allowing the full backs to push higher upfield as well. That chain reaction is what you’re seeing above in the Memphis 901’s 2022 season.
Now, there must be follow-up to that initial seed of an attacking idea. For Molloy, that does mean advancement upfield.
Molloy doesn’t just turn into a No. 10 in a snap. As he steps up, he becomes a safety net that recovers errant passes at halfway, or he probes on the edge of the final third to recycle possession from side to side to keep moves going. None of that has gone away in 2024.
Still, that set-up is designed to foster a sense of width with Molloy as a distributive hub, and Charleston are definitively not an expansive side. Starting full backs Nathan DosSantos and Mark Segbers have attempted just 29 crosses between them this season with an extremely subpar 16.8% accuracy. Both are in the 21st percentile or worse in terms of the volume of their service.
Let’s recap. You’ve got a talisman on the wing that isn’t scoring like a talisman. The remainder of the attack (and the full backs!) are an imperfect fit in support of him. The central midfield is doing its job, but they might be too conservative. What does that look like in action, and how does it compare to Charleston at their sharpest?
You can see the contrast above in two similar offensive passages.
In each instance, you start from the back with Charleston forming a double pivot. It’s the classic Molloy-Allan duo in the clip from a rout against Tulsa to start. In the second play from a recent loss in Detroit, Molloy and an inside-tucking Josh Drack do the job.
The plays are in sync from there, with a left-sided defender progressing the ball into Emilio Ycaza at the No. 10 spot. This point, with Ycaza receiving, is where the key differences arise.
In the first play, both Markanich and Myers make smart downfield runs that open the pocket for Ycaza. Meanwhile, Molloy shows underneath him as a passing outlet to keep the defense on their toes. It’s a constant stream of motion, and Tulsa can never target one player to get a stop. Six different Battery players get touches in short order, and everyone on the pitch provides a threat; at the end of the play, even Allan and Ycaza are driving into the box.
Compare that to the second play. There’s much less motion behind Ycaza, and the central midfield is too static. Detroit doesn’t have to bend, and they can focus on denying Ycaza’s immediate lay-off options. Drack is there making a Molloy-esque show to the ball, but it’s far too easy to clamp down.
Note Markanich on the far side as well. In the Tulsa example, #13 is carving into the middle of the park with confidence, and his movement drives the chance. In the play against Detroit, Markanich is on an island and feels disconnected.
This is just one example, but it captures the essence of the Charleston Battery’s attacking downturn. First options aren’t coming off, movement has slowed down, and defenses know how to make stops. Recovering to the form we saw at the beginning of 2024 won’t be possible without tweaks; you can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice.
The options to improve are endless. Charleston could change up their shape and use DosSantos in a back three. They could play around with an Ycaza-Molloy pivot more often. Signing(s) are surely coming in the wake of the Jake LaCava sale; I’d love to see a winger or striker with pure pace come in.
Ultimately, though, this Charleston team won’t be down for long. Ben Pirmann has won the USL Coach of the Year award for a reason, and he knows that things need to improve. His response will determine whether the Battery can repeat in a much tougher East this time around.
NCFC’s unexpected stars
When North Carolina prepared for their move up to the USL Championship, they did so by acquiring numerous all-USL caliber talents. Rodrigo Da Costa, Evan Conway, Collin Martin, and Paco Craig moved to Cary, bringing with them hundreds of USL matches worth of experience and quality. Nine senior players were retained from a title-winning 2023 campaign, but it seemed that the new faces would lead the charge this season.
It’s thus been a surprise that Louis Perez, a League One holdover, and Ezra Armstrong, an addition from St. Louis in MLS NEXT Pro, have been NCFC’s brightest stars. The duo entered this season with 42 combined appearances in the second division; both were former Riverhounds. Together, their ability to link up down the left side has defined North Carolina’s season.
If you’re looking for other full backs and wing backs that match Armstrong’s level of activity, you’re short on options. He has two goals and three assists this year and is a top-25 crosser by total volume (though Rafa Mentzingen ranks even higher there). Defensively, Armstrong’s burning recovery pace is his greatest asset, one that he weaponizes to recover back with aplomb.
Perez also has two goals and three assists, and he’s it while creating the sixth-most chances in the entire USL. By my modeling, Perez ranks in the 88th percentile for expected assists at his position. Primarily, though, it’s movement that makes the Frenchman so impressive. Few players are as smart and active as North Carolina’s star winger.
North Carolina line up in a 3-4-3 shape as a baseline on the ball, and their offensive drives through vertical interaction between the lines. That’s a blessing and a curse, in a way: this team is dependent on their wide players to create chances through their vivacity and motion. There are limitations down the middle, where NCFC’s four most-used central midfielder have as many combined key passes as Perez does alone.
This is a team that keeps the ball on the ground, patiently allowing half-space interchange to bend defenses and create advantages. You see that above via Perez and Armstrong. The left winger comes extremely low toward the left sideline, and he attracts a Pittsburgh wing back in the process.
Seeing this, Armstrong pushes upfield behind that advancing defender, who’s pinned between NCFC’s best threats. Perez gets the ball and wisely decides to chip over the top where Armstrong has an advantage. Armstrong beats his man, crosses, and it’s a half chance for NCFC.
The reliance on certain wide patterns and the lack of goal-mouth movement you see above can be problematic. North Carolina is somewhat one-note at times. Even so, when your Plan A is so good - and is replicable with Da Costa and Mentzingen on the right, mind you - it becomes a little less hard to swallow.
At the back, North Carolina sits in a 5-2-3, denying the central areas with a trapezoidal front five and compressing the vertical expansive of the pitch by holding a high defensive line. You see that shape above, with all five defenders just feet away from the center circle; that’s a typical position for the NCFC defense to maintain.
The look is doubly advantageous. If you’re an opposing attack, you can either force a risky pass over the top or try to work around the edge with control. Given that North Carolina don’t give you time to pick out long balls and run a strong offside trap, the latter scenario is unappealing.
Still, if you go wide, you allow the NCFC center mids to rotate outwards and the ball-side wing back to close down. Admiral Akbar said it best: it’s a trap. That’s what’s happening in the screenshot, with Armstrong on the verge of a takeaway.
Defense has been North Carolina’s strong suit all year, and they’ve got the second-best goals allowed record in the East to show for it. This club is clinging to eighth place for now, but they’ve used stability at the back as a springboard for experimentation up front. As the established stars catch up to Louis Perez and Ezra Armstrong’s breakneck pace, expect this team to keep on rising.
South Georgia, tormented
Tormenta is in a funk. While they’re holding onto sixth place in the league, they’ve earned just 12 points in 11 matches; their playoff position may evaporate as other clubs use their games in hand. Amidst a five-match winless run culminating in a shorthanded loss at Chattanooga, what’s going wrong?
The numbers would tell you Tormenta has a distribution issue. No team rates worse in League One in terms of goals added via passing, as per American Soccer Analysis. Now, that undersells the fact that Ajmeer Spengler and Jackson Khoury are among the most prolific dribblers in the division, but it’s nevertheless an important factor behind Tormenta’s lowly expected goal production.
In their nationally televised draw against Forward Madison a few weeks back, Tormenta - who’ve often changed shapes this year - rolled with a 3-5-2 and proceeded to generate just 0.9 expected goals. Even so, a few important patterns prevailed. South Georgia was successful at drawing Madison in and finding Nick Akoto on the right. Their three center backs were a huge asset in build, offering technique that asked questions of the opposing defense.
Still, a scoreless draw was the outcome.
Soccer is a cruel game, so even though Tormenta generated 2.6 expected goals against the Red Wolves a week later, they still lost by a 3-2 margin after a sending off. It wasn’t all bad: the back three’s useful patterns were still on display. A loss is a loss, but the shape choice showed promise all the while.
The Red Wolves pressed in a 4-4-2, so Tormenta (with three center backs) had a three-on-two advantage against the two high pressers. You see that above. South Georgia trusts Jake Dengler and Callum Stretch to keep the ball, so they push Preston Kilwien up into a momentary central midfield position.
That step up from Kilwien is valuable for a few reasons. If you want to beat a 4-4-2 down the middle, you need to work past (1) two forwards and (2) center mids. Stretch and Dengler do the first part, and Kilwien’s step creates an overload to accomplish the latter.
In action, Tavio D’Almeida lingers upfield to take out one Chattanooga midfielder. Thus, Kilwien and Daniel Steedman have a two-on-one against the remaining obstacle. Steedman receives, turns nicely into space, laces a pass into the final third, and it turns into a cross for Akoto from the right. If you want a platonic Tormenta sequence in possession, this is pretty darn close.
Still, there’s a concern: when Steedman’s pass hits the forward line, South Georgia has four attackers behind the Chattanooga midfield. Why are we dishing it wide when the entire defense is backtracking? Controlled chances down the middle are far more dangerous than any cross.
That’s been the story far too often for this side. See the heatmap from the Madison game: the middle of the pitch is a ghost town. The fact that Tormenta can dominate the half spaces in their own half is cold comfort if it doesn’t create opportunities in the most dangerous areas.
Curious about the poor goals added number from up top? There’s your answer. Tormenta builds very prettily, but their best passages come at the back. A model like American Soccer Analysis’ doesn’t reward you with “goals added” when you aren’t in dangerous areas.
What’s interesting about Tormenta is that they’re middle-of-the-road by most indicators of style. Their long passing rates players are firmly average. A 25% crossing accuracy is fifth in a 12-team league. They aren’t overly dogmatic, nor are they particularly statistically ineffective. Nothing about this club screams “bad!” and yet the results aren’t quite coming.
Simply asking to trust the process is a weak conclusion, but that’s where I’m at with Tormenta. I fundamentally believe in Ian Cameron’s management and his application of this roster. By my eye test, the outcomes are due to improve sooner rather than later.
Knoxville’s shape
When Knoxville started the year with four wins in a row across all competitions, they seemed ready to make a leap into contention. It’s been rough riding since then. A general cooldown punctuated by back-to-back losses against legit title threats in Northern Colorado and Greenville have taken One Knox down a peg.
For my taste, an inability to hold a shape in the center of the park is setting Knoxville back. This team has swapped out formations freely throughout 2024, but they’re increasingly unable to find any look that gives them enough solidity down the middle.
That’s the case here. with Knoxville in a 4-2-3-1 against Northern Colorado. In this instance, the three-man attacking midfield is too slow to tighten up after a clearance to halfway. The hosts aren’t challenged or constricted, and they can pass through.
Meanwhile, the Callum Johnson-Sivert Haugli pair in the pivot is split extremely wide. That’s the safety net in your five-man midfield, but it’s more like a sieve in practice.
You see the result from there. NoCo gets four players between Johnson and Haugli, and Hailstorm find their striker between the lines with shocking ease. Though the Knoxville back line handles the ensuing break extremely well, the danger is palpable.
In this game, the double pivot pair combined for a single tackle and a single interception. Now, takeaways aren’t a perfect indicator of defensive quality - positioning is everything - but they tell you something meaningful. One Knox is allowing passes into dangerous areas, and they don’t have the added layer of aggression or destruction to make up for it.
Returning to a 3-4-3 against Greenville last week, Knoxville did a better job of shaping up when they dropped into their low-block 5-4-1. However, the familiar central issues prevailed further up the pitch.
Failures to maintain shape can be just as meaningful at halfway as they are near the edge of the box. A good defense is like a chain; if one link breaks, the whole thing disconnects. What you see above is that exact sort of failure in progress.
Kingsford Adjei, nominally a winger in the flat foursome, steps high and narrow. He forces a teammate, Callum Johnson, to cover double the ground in the midfield as a result. The outcome is Triumph access between the lines against a One Knox shape that’s stretched and disconnected.
The same lack of interventionism we saw against the Hailstorm prevailed again. This time, Johnson paired with Angelo Kelly-Rosales in the center. Johnson won a single tackle but was dribbled past twice; Kelly-Rosales - so impactful as a forward early in the year - went zero-for-two on tackle attempts. It’s difficult to be a destroyer when you’re forced to react to breakthroughs, but that’s subpar even in context.
This final screenshot comes at the start of a goalscoring sequence from the Triumph, and it evidences the same dynamic. One Knox is in 3-4-3 mode here, pressing upfield by bending their wider mids against the Greenville back three. However, note the spacing: Knoxville is so spread out.
Greenville smartly drops Ben Zakowski into the hole to take advantage, and he isn’t really tracked by a center mid or adventurous center back. Zakowski receives in that pocket, turns to the left, the world is his oyster.
Say what you will about Knoxville’s up-and-down attacking successes, but their issues begin with an inability to maintain a compact shape. The best defenses dictate where their opponents can go and limit possession to the perimeter of the pitch. One Knox needs to get back to that ideal if they really want to contend.
Threads!
I post too much, so here’s a backlog of my bigger game recaps. Nothing for the ESPN2 games because the platform was blocking my screen recording capabilities.
Looking for a breakdown of Loudoun’s comeback in Miami? Check out this week’s USL Tactics Show.
Final Thoughts
In other news this week…
Phil Baki, my trusty co-host on The USL Show, is putting out bangers every week for Protagonist. Follow him on Substack and Twitter, and check out what he had to say on Oakland’s rise and other things in his most recent column.
I’ll probably have more Orange County talk this week if some rumors come to bear, but their back line is so insane right now. Ryan Flood and Sergio Chavez literally just signed, and Flood is out of position at center back. Ashish Chattha turning into a good left back is wonderful, but who could’ve seen it coming? Weird times there.
So, ramble time…
Kevin Costner’s Horizon (or Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 if we’re using Christian names) debuts this week, and I literally cannot wait. The idea of this guy selling his ranch and shelling out $40 million of his own money to make a four-part Western epic movie series is the funniest thing in the world. If you read or watch any interview with Costner, he’s clearly a total egomaniac, but I love it so much.
While we’re at it, Costner’s enigmatic political philosophy lives rent-free in my head. This is a guy who endorsed Liz Cheney, but he also loved Barack Obama and begged Michelle Obama to run for office. There’s a streak of “Great Plains libertarian” here, but that doesn’t capture the complexity. He absolutely values the almost outmoded idea of a patriarch - that strong and silent protector. The Bodyguard is absolute pop filmmaking, but it gets at the persona Costner so strives to embody. Waterworld is bonkers in almost every way, but Costner is a glowering, reluctant hero throughout.
The movies where he has the most creative control are sweeping epics about individual responsibility, but they’re underpinned by a deep respect towards institutions and the romance of community. Dances with Wolves can’t be reduced to a white savor narrative; it’s about a Confederate wastrel uplifted by Native Americans and their communal bond amidst the unstoppable sweep of manifest destiny arrogance. The Postman is a chore to watch, but it’s unbelievably reverent towards American institutions - the post office is a beacon of hope in the middle of an apocalyptic civil war! Fascinating stuff.
Anyway, Horizon’s gonna suck, but I’m so seated.
See you soon! In the meantime, peep my guest appearance on the Mon Goals podcast. We sat down for half an hour, watched tape, and discussed how I approach tactical analysis. I think it’s interesting, so check it out.