The Back Four: Free Agency Big Board

Welcome in to The Back Four!

Because it's the last newsletter of the year, I get to be self-indulgent. First, we'll start off with free agent big boards covering nearly 400 players. Then, I'll transition into my 2025 movie rank.

Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Free Agent Big Boards

As we enter 2026, it’s time to assess the free agent market across the USL. To do so, I’ve taken the (mostly) complete list of unsigned players from 2025 rosters and ranked them, going position by position.

Below, you’ll find a table with each position group laid out. For each player, you’ll see their current status (i.e., confirmed as a free agent or as-of-yet unannounced), former team, and matches played in 2025. You'll also see their returns by my own “Goals Above Replacement” calculations as well as American Soccer Analysis’ g+ rating.

Each position group is subjectively ranked, and players are also slotted into a tier. That's an art more than a science. Someone in “Tier 1” has all-USL talent by my reckoning; “Tier 5” is where I throw my hands up at players that didn’t play enough to form an opinion on. In between, the tiers are supposed to denote a leap in quality, but that's tricky – a fourth-tier player could look far better than that in the right system, and so on.

To start, here are the forwards:

Cal Jennings is the clear cream of the crop, and his numbers were so outstanding in 2025 that they essentially broke my rating system. Jennings has been pining for an MLS move for years by now, and it’ll be a coup for any Championship team that acquires his services.

Out of the League One circuit, I’m especially partial to Jon Bakero and Rodrigo Robles. The former is fresh off a three-goal, nine-assist season in which he anchored Charlotte’s attack in a relatively free role, taking 63 touches per game. The latter, who I wrote about a few weeks back, is an either-side winger-forward whose experience in a high-pressing Greenville system stands out. Neither is a classic No. 9, but both are very good attacking options.

In terms of the statistical models, Ropapa Mensah (Greenville) and Luke Ivanovic (Monterey) are free agents to watch. Mensah’s g+ relied on an exceptional ability to receive in the box and beat opponents in high-leverage spaces, though he only scored six times in 1,300 minutes; Ivanovic was similarly able to find touches close to goal and similarly modest with four conversions in 1,400 minutes. Do with that what you will!

Now, for the attacking mids:

Among the confirmed free agents, Panos Armenakas is at the head of the class. The 27-year-old played somewhat deeper with Oakland last season, finishing the year at left back. Even so, he still created 75th percentile xA relative to other USL attacking mids, slotting into Benny Feilhaber’s 3-4-3 and 4-4-2 shapes without missing a beat.

You’ll notice that Ryan Becher is ranked rather high, but I’m smitten with his game after a stretch on loan at Union Omaha. Like a latter-day Pedro Dolabella, Becher combines 6’3” size with the ability to play as a striker, box-to-box mid, or halfspace-hugging left winger. For my money, he’s got Championship talent in the wake of his release from the St. Louis system.

We’ll see what becomes of Niall Reid-Stephen and Michee Ngalina; both are premium speedsters and dribblers on the wing, and neither is confirmed to return to their 2025 club. In the meantime, the numbers love Pedro Hernandez (Chattanooga) because of his goalscoring instincts – see 10 goals on 55 shots – and pressing energy. Ditto Eliot Goldthorp, whose g+ components are above water in essentially every category. Goldthorp struggled to stick amidst stints in Tulsa and Lexington last year, but he’s got a terrific profile as a right-footed firestarter.

Next up, center mids:

Kevon Lambert is the cream of the crop, and he’s got almost a decade of experience as a center back, a water-carrying No. 6, and an in-box target to back it up. After being released by Real Salt Lake, he’ll be a prize for someone in this league. I’ve belatedly come around to recognize Raheem Sommersall’s talent, and I’ve got him at #2 on the board. The St. Kitts & Nevis international is a defensive action and recovery machine, able to operate as a holding player or ball-driving No. 8.

My personal favorites here are numerous, but Kevin Partida (Orange County) is chief among them. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better midfielder in terms of defensive positioning, and he’s the king of the “pass before the pass” as a deeper set-up man in possession. Partida is turning 31 and has only played about 60% of possible minutes during his four years with OCSC, but the club’s goal difference is 1.03 better per 90 when he’s on the pitch. Other favorites: Ryan Williams, who’s a premier deep initiator but may end up back in Detroit, and Jackson Dietrich, who’s a real Swiss Army knife in a League One pivot.

Isaac Angking (Rhode Island/Madison) is a statistical standout, having posted strong numbers by my and American Soccer Analysis’ modeling. With 1.2 dribbles per match on a 62% success rate and 5.5 duel wins per game, Angking was a powerhouse on loan with Forward Madison last season. I don’t necessarily know if he’s a Championship starter from the jump in 2026, but he’s earned a shot at consistent playing time somewhere.

At the fullback spot, we’ve got a feast of high-end options:

Up top, you can’t go wrong with either Rafa Mentzingen or Ezra Armstrong as part of the ex-NCFC contingent. Though both suffered through injuries in 2025, Armstrong might’ve been the USL’s best wingback in 2024 and was named to the all-league team; Mentzingen has put in nearly 100 tackles and created more than 50 chances as his right-sided counterpart over the last two years.

Nick Moon is among the most versatile pieces on the board. You can use him as a winger in a pinch, and while he's best as a right back, he's a solid option on the left in a pinch. Jonathan Ricketts is similarly capable of holding down either flank, and he’s criminally under-discussed after putting up 90th percentile duel wins, aerial wins, interceptions, and blocks with Miami across 2,600 minutes.

I continue to swear by Gabriel Alves as a terrific technician on the left, whether he’s swashbuckling like he did with Tormenta or sitting deeper as a penetrative initiator. Grant Robinson is cut from a similar cloth, capable of pulling strings and providing plus physicality off the left as he exits Monterey. On the right, Pacifique Nyongabire is the numbers' sweetheart; he barely played amidst Tampa Bay’s coaching change in 2025, but his g+ of 2.47 over the last two years (inclusive of top-end progressive dribbling) is highly commendable.

Shifting toward central defense:

The young free agents are the headliners here. Pape Mar Boye, a year removed from an all-USL nod and just turning 22 years old, is the most talented option available. Even in a “down” year, he won 66% of his total duels and was dribbled past merely three times in 1,300 league minutes. If Boye needs some work as a distributor, the other young gun atop the board – 19-year-old Finn Sundstrom – is just the opposite. He’s confident on the ball, smart in the tackle, and could earn an MLS or European move.

I may be naive lumping Sivert Haugli with those two in my top tier, but I’m all in on his 2025 leap with One Knox. He’s a plus passer from the left side of a center back pair and can distribute from the elbow in a pinch. Moreover, Haugli has grown confident in maximizing his 6’5” frame and sits on the positive side of the tackles won-to-fouls conceded divide.

My darling is Declan Watters, who gets obliterated by g+ but consistently impressed me in Chattanooga. The use of Watters as an elevated No. 6 for restarts and the centerpiece of a back three in every other phase remains my favorite thing in the world, and I’d love to see it continue wherever he lands. For an underrated player that the data admires, look no further than Gagi Margvelashvili. After two years in Oakland, the hulking Georgian center back is available and offers easy-to-miss agility while jumping passes lanes and ease with the ball.

Last up, the goalkeepers:

I haven’t placed any goalkeepers in the top tier, but that’s not to say there’s a lack of quality. Plenty of options here are proven winners – Antony Siaha lifted a trophy in 2025! – but I wouldn’t say that any are 100% guaranteed to revolutionize their future team. Still, players like Siaha, Raiko Arozarena, and Jake McGuire all provide fairly modern profiles and have USL Championship bonafides that ought to inspire confidence.

There aren’t any real surprises in the goalkeeping pool, but Ethan Bandre is my dark horse. His advanced shot-stopping stats don’t impress, but his g+ components for sweeping, fielding, and claiming are all positive. In the context of a Rowdies team where he was thrown into the fire behind a bad defense, Bandre did what was asked. More is on the table in a better situation.

As with every player, fit matters. Someone I’ve got ranked low could be a star in the right system. The best teams don’t just recruit by name alone; they figure out what makes a player tick, relate that skillset to their own system, and do the business that’ll be the most additive within a specific framework. I’m here to provide the highest-level guide, but the takeaway is that there’s tons and tons of talent on offer entering 2026.

2025 Movie Rank

Once a year, I subject y'all to an indulgent segment where I ramble about the year in movies. Let’s get it.

My favorite movies of the year ⁠– No Other Choice, Highest 2 Lowest, and Materialists ⁠– are all about worth. In a commodified world, what makes a person (or the work they do) valuable? All three films dug into variants on that idea.

In No Other Choice, a father is let go from his longtime job at a paper plant, forcing him to compete for opportunities in a shrinking industry. It’s all about the devaluation of the individual laborer, the way that a cutthroat system drives the working class into internecine conflict. That sounds didactic, but then Park Chan-wook mounts the camera on top of a dog, shoots from inside a beer glass, has a woman suck snake poison out of an open wound, and generally nails a Fargo-by-way-of-Looney Tunes tone. It’s a dark comedy romp, but it’s also utterly of the moment.

Highest 2 Lowest starts from the top of the pyramid, forcing Denzel Washington’s comfortably aging record executive to confront a world where internet-driven social capital is as good as the real thing. Spike Lee’s direction is as singular as ever, swinging from saccharine melodrama to dual train chase sequences that border on the ideal of “total cinema.” Lee’s choice to dispense with the structural rigor of the original High and Low makes the whole project worthwhile; there’s autobiography in an aging artist rejecting the flattened cultural landscape of the 2020s to pursue something smaller and more meaningful.

Materialists is about the market of romance, examining an obsession with status and statistics (e.g., height, salary, etc.) over actual connection. Mis-marketed as a return to ‘90s rom-coms, it’s almost got an M. Night Shyamalan tone – not in the twist sense, but in the use of not-at-all-naturalistic dialogue that draws attention to the themes at hand. Celine Song’s script is full of repeated scene set-ups, highlighting how Dakota Johnson's lead grows and changes. Any movie ending with a romantic ending powered by a Japanese Breakfast needle drop is a winner for me.

I own that I’m a “style over substance” guy, but my favorites from 2025 all used style in support of substance. Park’s vivid colors and madcap camerawork are engrossing on their own, but they’re supporting the narrative on a scene-by-scene basis. Something like Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, in which the camera represents the perspective of a ghost, uses that trick to (a) stay interesting and (b) build to a harrowing conclusion. The long, contemplative takes in Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind slowly reveal the titular character to be anything but; Hong Sang Soo’s What Does That Nature Say to You uses the same technique to a similar end, but it deploys camcorder informality in contrast to the ‘70s heist haze of Reichardt. Weapons is terrific for a lot of reasons, but its interwoven narrative is the choice that does the most to create meaning.

As a white guy in his 20s, I naturally loved One Battle After Another – though not to the degree of the critical consensus. There isn’t another film this year that’s as well-constructed or that flies by as quickly; DiCaprio, Penn, and Regina Hall are doing Oscar-worthy work, and Benicio Del Toro’s subplot (and the contrasts it creates) couldn’t be more politically astute. At the same time, I failed to connect to the emotional plot in a way where movies like Weapons and Is This Thing On? succeeded in “parental desperation.”

In the star-driven department, Jennifer Lawrence takes the cake for Die My Love, in which she’s doing something utterly unexpected every single time the camera cuts. I saw a review describe her as “feral,” and I pass that along with the utmost excitement. Timothy Chalamet is joyfully arrogant in Marty Supreme, but the ending he gets is too convenient and consequence-free; George Clooney waltzes through Jay Kelly with screwball charm, only for a movie that’s overly saccharine to pull the rug with a hammer-blow of a final scene. I’m alone on Gerard Butler island, but his continued scumbaggery in the “guaranteed to get dumped in January with minimal marketing” genre (see: Den of Thieves 2: Pantera) is hall-of-fame work.

You can see the full ranking of 75 movies here, but I’ve got the top of the pile excerpted above. Some other notes:

• Andor is actually the best thing I’ve watched this year, and probably the best media of the 2020s with a bullet.
• Tony Goldwyn casually talking about a nugget shortage in One Battle could not be funnier; ditto for Jim Downey every time he’s on screen. “Mo Bamba” is the sneaky needle drop of the year.
• There’s a bit in the Naked Gun reboot where Liam Neeson lists the members of the Black Eyed Peas that’s living rent-free in my brain.
• Elizabeth Olsen-led Eternity and Riz Ahmed-led Relay are this year’s best “should’ve ended 30 minutes earlier” what-could’ve-beens.
• A$AP Rocky is the best part of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and delightfully up to the task next to Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest. It’s his world, we’re living in it, and now he needs to drop the album.
• Bugonia is a perfect execution of Yorgos Lanthimos’ vision: the camerawork is distressingly distant until it crashes into a close-up, the score is annoyingly brash, and Emma Stone would win Best Actress (again) in a just world. It's also way too misanthropic and gives you absolutely nothing to root for.
• I think 28 Years Later is the best directed movie of the year barring No Other Choice, but it didn’t quite connect with me in the way the original did. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are still the film equivalent of the LeBron/Wade alley-oop pic.
• Best first-time watches of the year, non-new release department: Brian De Palma’s Obsession, which is like Vertigo but with John Lithgow imitating Foghorn Leghorn; Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done, which is produced by David Lynch and covers his suburban territory with Herzog’s typically existential bent; Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, which is the most beautifully colored movie ever; and Masayuki Suo’s Shall We Dance?, which is the sort of earnest romance we don’t get enough of.
• Apologies to F1, Sirat, It Was Just An Accident, and Rental Family, which I didn’t get around to.

Thanks for being here, and see you in 2026!