USL Super League, Week 8

Brooklyn (1) - Fort Lauderdale (0)

I’m not gonna tell you Friday night’s match between Brooklyn FC and Fort Lauderdale United was a “playoff eliminator” game; anything can happen for either club with seven matches yet to play. That said, there was a punchiness at Maimonides Park that proved both sides – who’d combined for just two wins entering Week 8 – understood the moment.

Given the combatants’ shared attacking issues, Friday could’ve devolved into “stoppable force meets movable object” territory. Instead, both clubs were clever in how they approached the match. Brooklyn used natural center back Laila Booker as a deeper-seated left back, thus opening that flank for Tziarra King. The more that Brooklyn could play over the top into King and let her combine with striker Catherine Zimmerman, the better they fared – especially given a fairly tight defensive scheme on United’s part.

United, for their part, lacked the presence of starting fullback Maggie Mace and started Abi Hugh (who’s mostly been a left winger this year) in her stead. Hugh didn’t have a perfect night marking King, but her overall effort ensured that the Brooklyn winger rarely found her right foot without a marker close by. Likewise, Kelli Van Treeck’s help out of the 4-4-2’s defensive pivot was a boon.

Much like Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale needed to figure out how to quickly break lines going in the other direction. Daniela Todd’s ability to pop into space as a mid-long outlet from second striker helped, but their best sequences tended to run through Sh’nia Gordon.

Here, Fort Lauderdale start through goalkeeper Haley Craig and play into Ella Simpson. Within United’s 2-4-4ish build shape, the double pivot sticks close to the defensive line and forces Brooklyn’s attacking mids up in response. By begging the pressure, Fort Lauderdale necessarily invite trouble, but Taylor Smith is comfortable enough at the No. 6 spot to shrug off backside pressure and keep the ball circulating.

As Haley Thomas receives on the return pass to central defense, Brooklyn blitzes Jilly Shimkin from one of the No. 10 spots in their 4-1-4-1 – creating a gap in the process. Shimkin won’t reach Thomas in time to wreak havoc, but left winger Tziarra King still takes a half-step inside to cover for her teammate. As such, Hugh is wide open at the sideline.

Now, there’s room to breathe. Hugh will take one touch, play into low-dropping striker Kiara Locklear, and draw a defensive marker high upfield in the process. Further progression is a tightrope walk, but Locklear is able to knock the ball into an advancing Gordon with a Brooklyn center back out of position. Though Jennifer Cudjoe recovers from the No. 6 spot and central defensive help arrives, Gordon’s got the speed to play a dangerous cross.

Fort Lauderdale’s attack tended to be fly-by-night in that manner for most of the 90 minutes, whereas Brooklyn had better luck finding controlled methods of advancement. We start this example of that trend in media res, with Brooklyn playing through Garziano from their right side to their left. You can see Sara D’Appolonia hedging out of frame from right back as soon as the clip starts; conversely, Booker stays low on the left, almost forming up into a resting back three.

Immediately, Fort Lauderdale have a numerical problem. As they recover into their pressing shape, United commit Locklear up to the proper Brooklyn center backs, leaving Gordon and a stepping Treeck to mark two ball-side players. The rub? Cudjoe and Shimkin are unmarked in the dead center of the pitch.

From there, progression is easy; Cudjoe receives, picks her head up, and sees a front line of King, Zimmerman, Ashlyn Miller, and an overlapping D’Appolonia challenging the United back four. All it takes is one clean pass toward King to put Brooklyn into the box. King’s cutback to Shimkin and an ensuing rebound chance don’t end up on frame, but this is a prime example of Brooklyn at their attacking sharpest.

Combined, Fort Lauderdale and Brooklyn mustered just 1.8 xG, and half of it came from Carlee Giammona’s winner. There, United tried to build out from the back through Simpson and Craig, only for a bad backpass to unsettle the play. Miller’s curled closing run from the wing helped make it happen, setting the table for Giammona – a halftime sub, in for Zimmerman – to pounce for a tap-in.

Was it an especially spectacular goal? No, but this game was always going to be won on the margins. Brooklyn is increasingly finding the ways to grit out results, and Friday’s victory was a perfect case in point.

Tampa Bay (1) - Lexington (1)

When you play the Tampa Bay Sun, you are going to get bullied. Denise Schilte-Brown’s side entered Week 8 first in the Super League in recovery margin (+6.0) and second in challenges (28.8) per 90 minutes, and they lived up to that billing against Lexington SC on Sunday afternoon.

When you give Lexington the chance to comfortably pass around the back and pick out upfield options, you’re in for a very bad time. Tampa Bay set out to stop that from happening. Schilte-Brown didn’t stray from her usual 4-2-4 formula, but the sharpening of this lineup around players like Jordan Zade and Tori Zierenberg across the pressing line has added more sharpness with each passing week. That was certainly true this weekend.

Lexington’s challenge was to escape from their own zone unscathed. A slow start certainly didn’t help LSC’s cause, though they gradually grew into the game. The more that manager Kosuke Kimura’s side could find touches below the line of confrontation and pick out McKenzie Weinert or Alyssa Bourgeois over the top, the better they fared.

Here, Lexington start with the ball arriving at Allison Pantuso’s feet at the right-sided center back spot in their possessive back three, with Sun striker Shea Connors hedging her way. Connors, as part of the yellow-marked front four within Tampa Bay’s 4-2-4, noticeably doesn’t have support from her outside hip; instead, winger Syndy Nasello sits low off the left as a backstop against the threat of Sarah Griffith in the halfspace and Bourgeois on the overlap.

There is support from Sam Kroeger (blue) out of the pivot, who chases Katie Murray beyond the press’ initial line of confrontation. As Murray receives, she has no choice but to play backwards. Kroeger doesn’t waver, extending her closing run to defender Regan Steigleder and forcing a wide pass, directly into the maw of a waiting Zade off Tampa Bay’s right side.

Lexington handles the pressure well, but they don’t have options. As the play develops, Zierenberg – Connors’ strike partner – peels low to mark LSC midfielder Darya Rajaee, whilst Taylor Chism hedges up from behind Zade to shut down the sideline. More sideways passing ensues until an inevitable turnover arrives. At that point, it’s off to the races.

Connors is able to play Nasello through against the defense’s weak side, and while Nasello’s cross isn’t dangerous, this entire sequence is a prime example of the Sun philosophy in motion.

To say that Tampa Bay was “efficient” wouldn’t be quite right. Their attack, as we saw, was extremely cross-heavy – though often without that speed and punch we just saw amidst a break-driven chance. Still, Tampa Bay did control territory and exert pressure. When they earned the opening goal 31 minutes in, a throw on the edge of Lexington’s defensive zone found the feet of center back Vivianne Bessette. Rather than play sideways, Bessette opted to hit a long-distance cross. It might’ve been a low-percentage try, but it found Nasello for a cross-box header, troubled LSC goalkeeper Ryan Campbell, and let Connors clean up for a poacher’s tap-in.

Lexington responded in kind, wasting little time in generating an equalizer off a corner kick. The route taken to that set piece deserves note. Here, you see a frame from the build-up sequence that generated the corner, with play having switched into the feet of Pantuso on the right side.

In most cases, the center back would sit low in this position; we saw as much in the last clip. Here, though, Pantuso reads the moment – which comes just after a Rajaee dribble and a switch of point away from the left side – and opts to carry forth.

Pantuso knows that the No. 6s offer resting support behind her, so she knifes ahead with both Bourgeois and Griffith making vertical runs further upfield. While Tampa Bay uses midfielders to track their dual movements, LSC have all the forward momentum. Ultimately, Pantuso will play through to Bourgeois in a one-on-one against Nasello. The end result? That 41st minute corner, finished by Addie McCain at the far post.

Lexington almost never showed that same spark throughout the second half, whereas Tampa Bay brought a consistent level of fight. Neither side scored again in what became a 1-1 draw, but the Sun outshone their hosts to the tune of a +9 shot margin after the break. For whatever Tampa Bay lacked in through-the-thirds possessive incision, they made up for in the press.

In the 79th minute, for example, hard pressure from substitute winger Parker Goins off the right and tight marking from a No. 8 pairing of Nasello and Brooke Hendrix nearly furnished Connors with a winner. That move was all about front-end disruption that denied LSC’s build patterns and created transitional opportunities. You wouldn’t call that kind of chance “easy” – successful pressure is hard to sustain! – but Lexington never found a matching ability to shorten the field.

As crazy as it seems, we’re already in the business end of the season. Tampa Bay and Lexington might’ve split points on Sunday, but the Sun were the side that looked likelier to push on and contend. That’s not an indictment of the reigning champs; it's a reflection of the fact that Tampa Bay have upped their game considerably this fall.

Halfway Team of the Year, by the numbers

A few weeks back, I pulled together all-USL lineups on the men’s side based on my data model, so I wanted to repeat the trick in the Super League since we had a truncated week. Essentially, I've tried to make the best coherent lineup according to my "points added," metric of player impact.

Without further ado:

If you can’t tell, the numbers really like the Carolina defense; goalkeeper Syndey Martinez (+3.4 goals prevented) and three-fourths of the back four belong to the Ascent. Personally, I would argue that left back Jill Aguilera might be the real standout of the bunch, but she’s just edged out by Dallas’ Cyera Hintzen (3.6 takeaways per game) – a rare holdover for the Trinity in her position as a deep-seated, solidity-focused left back.

Hintzen’s teammate Carissa Boeckmann (0.25 xA, 6.9 recoveries a match) was hard to quantify by nature of her fullback-turned-No. 8 deployment, but I opted to slot her into the base of a diamond midfield. DC’s Emily Colton, who’s taken the leap as a No. 8 or No. 10 type, and Jacksonville’s Sophia Boman, having flexed more positional versatility this year, round out the line in front of her. Lexington superstar Addie McCain, who’s already got four goal contributions on a scintillating 0.92 xG+xA per 90, provided the top point of the diamond.

Jacksonville’s Baylee DeSmit (seven goals) and Tampa Bay’s Shea Connors (five goals) lead the league’s Golden Boot race, and they’re just as impressive under the hood. DeSmit is putting up a stellar 5.0 shots per game; Connors is taking more than six box touches and putting in 2.7 progressive carries a match, all while meaningfully contributing to a fearsome press.

In terms of snubs, I’d go to bat for DC’s Sydney Cummings in central defense and Fort Lauderdale center back Haley Thomas, whatever you might say about her team’s overall performance. There’s a similar “good player, bad team” argument to make for Brooklyn midfielder Jennifer Cudjoe. Lexington feels like they’ve got a number of edge cases; McKenzie Weinert and Sarah Griffith have excelled on the wings, reigning all-leaguer Allison Pantuso hasn’t missed a beat at the back, and I’m still salty right back Alyssa Bourgeois didn’t make last year’s Team of the Year. We’ve probably rounded the bend into “Sydny Nasello is taken for granted” territory, but she’s still an exceptional player.