Week 25 Preview: all you need to know

The week hasn’t gone too well for Legion so far. After a dismal performance last week against Detroit City (which we studiously avoided covering), that same team went on to beat the Tampa Bay Rowdies 3-2 Wednesday evening. That used up their game in hand, but leapfrogged them over the Legion and Indy Eleven into 4th place. The East is pretty crowded now: Tampa Bay in 3rd is just 7 points better than Loudoun United and Rhode Island in 7th and 8th respectively. 4th through 8th are packed over just a 4-point spread. Everyone has everything to play for and the final stretch is going to be huge.

At the bottom of the conference though, The™ Miami FC is just 6 points from elimination. They can’t be out this week but they likely will get close (they play Tampa Bay).

The West is similarly tight. The Colorado Springs Switchbacks in 5th are only 6 points ahead of Phoenix Rising all the way down in 10th, and are only 4 points behind Oakland Roots in 4th with a game in hand. That side of the league could get brutal.

The most important part

This weekend’s steel derby (Saturday, 6:30pm, ESPN+) matches up the two longest-tenured head coaches in the USL Championship. The Pittsburgh Riverhounds hired Bob Lilley in November 2017 and of course Tommy Soehn has been the Legion’s only head coach since being appointed in August 2018.

That’s pretty impressive in a job that is not exactly known for security. Of the 24 head coaches in the Championship, only 7 have been in place more than two years, and only an additional 4 more than just a year. The average tenure is 714 days, 16 days less than two years. Only Lilley and Soehn top 2,000 days. There’s one more coach who is just 88 days from that mark; he’s rather a surprise: Loudoun United’s Ryan Martin.

This is also the first meeting of the two teams this season; the return fixture will be September 28. It’s a key game for both sides. The Legion, as noted above, is on a very tough battle for positioning in the playoffs. Pittsburgh finds itself in a rather unaccustomed position of being well out of the playoff spots this late in the season. Shocking for the team that won the Players’ Shield last year. They haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017. Right now they are in 10th on 28 points, 5 points shy of the playoffs. Also against them is that they have played one or two games more than every other team in the East except the Charleston Battery. With just 9 games remaining they have very little room for manoeuver and cannot afford to drop many more points.

The big problem has been scoring. Just 23 goals in 25 games is 4th worst in the league. They managed just 1 goals in the first five games but haven’t really gotten a great deal better. A 5-0 shellacking of Orange County aside, they have hardly impressed. They did score twice last week against Colorado Springs (they also gave up 2) but that’s the best they’ve done since beating Hartford 3-1 over a month ago. On the other hand, they haven’t lost in the last 5 games and got a creditable 1-0 win in Sacramento.

The primary scoring threat is Edward Kizza who has 5 to date. Next best are Kazaiah Sterling and Daniel Griffin on 3 each. Not exactly overpowering, really.

The strength of this team is its defense, which is what has kept them in near-contention this season. The team runs with a very defensive 5-3-2 formation most of the time, a pretty cynical setup. The two fullbacks do tend to play fairly high (they did not in a 0-0 draw with Detroit two weeks ago though) but that still leaves three centerbacks to get through. Not easy. Goalkeeper Eric Dick has 9 clean sheets to his name, partly as a result.

The Legion of course is not exactly a goal-scoring factory and is still overcoming a large number of injuries. Matthew Corcoran returned to training this week, but is likely nowhere near game-fit yet. Rida Zouhor did not really impress in his Legion debut last week and will have to step it up. The biggest question though is the status of Tyler Pasher, who is the team’s major game-changer.

Prediction: This one is going to be a very cagey affair. Neither team can readily give up points. They could end up spending a lot of time over the center circle. Lok for a low-scoring draw.

Best of the rest

All games this weekend are on Saturday evening. Keep an eye on the early Eastern games then, but there are a few games out West with very late kickoffs you can catch live. Those include two that could have an impact on the Eastern race.

Detroit City v. FC Tulsa (Saturday, 6:00pm, ESPN+)

Detroit is riding a 2-game win streak and a 5-game unbeaten streak. However, this will be their 6th game in 23 days, and the last 3 were all on the road. They have to be getting tired. Tulsa, for their part, are sitting just below the playoff line in the West on tiebreakers. They do have games in hand, but will want to make the most of this out-of-conference matchup.

Loudoun United v. Rhode Island (Saturday, 6:30pm, ESPN+)

Tied on points in the last two Eastern playoff spots and both just 2 points behind the Legion and Indy Eleven. This one is going to be massive. Interesting side note: the last expansion teams to make the Championship playoffs were Austin Bold and the Birmingham Legion in 2019. Khano going for the repeat.

Las Vegas Lights v. Indy Eleven (Saturday, 9:30pm, ESPN+)

Indy is in an interesting position here: they have a big game coming up on Tuesday in the semi-finals of the US Open Cup. They play Sporting KC of MLS. They are in a position to become just the third non-MLS team to make the final this century (Charleston in 2008 and Sacramento in 2022). Only one non-MLS team has won the Cup since MLS began: the Rochester Raging Rhinos in 1999. HIstory beckons. So do they rest some starters? They did just acquire Maalique Foster from Colorado Springs and are in a tight league battle, so who knows. Vegas will want to shrug off the loss to Hartford last week and get back on track; like Indy they are in a 5/6 points tie.

Phoenix Rising v. North Carolina (Saturday, 10:00pm, ESPN+)

Both teams find themselves just out of the playoff spots. Both have games in hand over the teams above them, so making up their respective 1- and 4-point deficits is well within reach. A lot to play for on both sides here. Could be a good one.

Back in the Old Country

Week 2 of League One play went rather better for Birmingham City, as they beat Wycombe Wanderers 3-2 away. That’s the same score Wycombe lost to Wrexham by in Week 1, as it happens. The Blues have another busy week, starting at 9:00am Saturday with a league game at Leyton Orient. Orient lost 1-2 to Bolton Wanderers and 0-1 to Charlton Athletic. Birmingham beat Charlton 1-0 in the EFL Cup despite going down to 10 men, although lineups were not heavily laden with regular starters. Form suggests a road win is on the cards. No US TV for this game, unfortunately.

Then at 2:00pm Tuesday, they play Fulham in the EFL Cup. That game will be streamed on Paramount+. Fulham being in the Premier League, this will be a major test. An interesting twist to this one: the Blues were actively pursuing a deal with Fulham for Jay Stansfield, who was easily the team’s best player last year while on loan. However, right now Fulham seem pretty adamant on keeping him so he could well be on the opposite side this week.

Other than that, a loan deal is in the works for Glasgow Rangers defender Ben Davies and may be completed in time for tomorrow’s game. Lastly, the team announced today that assistant coach Ashley Cole (a long-time English national team defender) will take additional duties with the national team under interim head coach Lee Carsley (who happens to be a Brummie and former Blues player).