The Lineup:

Over the last several years, Republic has had the propensity to play to the level of their opponent, both up and down. To everyone’s frustration, we’ve already seen it twice this season. On one hand, Republic held MLS side Minnesota United and star goal scorer James Rodriguez to a scoreless draw over 120 minutes just 2 weeks ago. A month before that, Republic needed 120 minutes to beat amateur side El Farolito.

This is not an unfamiliar pattern; even within just the USL-C, Republic have played down to the opponents level in recent memory. Through last season, Monterey Bay has won exactly 1 game in their last 20 matches - a 1-0 win against Republic last September. That same Monterey team has just 2 draws and 3 goals this season, including a 1-1 draw with Republic in Sacramento.

So it was fantastic to see Republic break out of that habit with aplomb. A 4-0 drubbing of a very good USL-1 side in Spokane Velocity showed a side of Republic that not only refused to lower their level of play to the level of USL-1, but endeavored to show the gap in quality between the two sides. We’ve seen Republic go up by 1 or 2 goals in the past, and pump the breaks. Not tonight - the 4 goals were evenly spread throughout the game. Republic refused to be content to sit back and see the game out.

Two returning players, a debut goal, and 2 breakout midfielders help of course. Republic seriously needed the moral boost - let’s take a look at how they did it.

The Good:

The Return of Jack Gurr and Memo Rodriguez
A huge positive for Republic in this match was the continued return of Republic players from the injury list. While players such as MAK, Reedy, Crisostomo, and Timmer remain out, Republic is slowly building strength as we head into the summer.

Memo’s injury seemed to be less severe than a few of the others; he only missed a month, and made his return in the 59th minute. With just 30 minutes to impact the game, Memo stepped up with 3 shots, 1 of which was on target and one hit the post, and went 3/3 in duals. Republic has struggled with midfield control, and Memo returning helps solidify that control.

Making his first start of the season, and second appearance, is Jack Gurr, whom Republic have desperately needed. Gurr is not just the best right back on the roster - he’s the best right back in the entire Championship. We’ll discuss how Republic has started to prefer to play on the wings below, but what the return of Gurr does is that it makes Republic a threat on both sides of the pitch. Compare where Republic attack against Minnesota (no Gurr), with how they attack against Spokane (with Gurr):

Against Minnesota, it’s heavily skewed to the left side of the pitch. Add in Jack Gurr, and all of a sudden Republic is a threat on both sides of the pitch.

Wing Play
Speaking of playing on the wings, let’s get into that a bit. Republic has started heavily attacking up both wings, which is what we expected a bit more at the start of the season. I think the injuries have delayed that plan from coming in - what we’ve been seeing is Republic relying on the left side of the pitch. Look at how the defenders move in this image from the match against Phoenix a few weeks ago:

That is the right back and both center backs staying in the back line, which in turn has freed up Benitez to push all the way up the field from the left back role. The attack becomes one dimensional though; opposing teams know where the attack is coming from, and can plan for it. What Republic want to do is something more like what we saw against Lexington:

There’s still three at the back while Republic have the ball, but it is Crisostomo in this case who drops into the backline from the CDM role, allowing both the left back and right back to surge forward up the wings.

With the absences of Gurr and Crisostomo, there just hasn’t been the personnel to utilize this tactic. With Gurr back, look where Benitez (left) and Gurr (right) played against Spokane:

They are both pushed way up the field. On the right side of the pitch, that’s the furthest upfield a Republic right back has averaged all season. But with Crisostomo out, how did Republic fill the defense gaps? They used both CDM’s: Willey (left) and Essel (right):

Both drop in and back fairly often throughout the game, almost to the sideline, because they are covering for both wing backs going up pitch. We’ll have to see if this adjusts to just Crisostomo dropping when he and MAK return from injury, but this is a great sign that Republic is getting their offensive verticality back without losing their defensive structure.

Another factor of this wing play is how it affects Republic’s strikers. You may remember Quail City’s 2026 predictions:

Noticeably absent from the predicted “Golden Quail Award” for top striker is Forster Ajago, Republic’s main striker, and we’re starting to see why. It’s not because Ajago is a bad player - quite the opposite! He’s a fast and strong player, which means he’s very good at 1, getting assists, and 2, secretly drawing attention. Look at Republic’s third goal on the night, which was scored by Malango and assisted by Arturo:

Ajago actually makes this goal off the ball. It’s a little hard to see, but follow him (number 11) as he runs to the near post. He pulls both opposing center backs with him, which is what leaves Malango wide open. Because Republic are attacking from the sides much more often, keep an eye out for this type of play from both Ajago and Edwards going forward - it doesn’t make the stat sheet, but damn, it should be recognized somewhere.

The goal scorers in this system are going to be the wingers - all 4 of Republic’s goals came from outside players. Benitez scored while roaming up from left back, Malango scored his brace from the left wing, and Wolff scored his debut goal from the right wing.

Breakouts and Debuts
Speaking of Wolff, Republic’s newest signing made his club debut after just a few days of training, and scored just 5 minutes in. That’s the sort of drive and eye for goal that Republic needs. Collins seemed ecstatic about his new signing:

“He showed in his first goal and his first action why we brought him to the club. He’s dynamic, and he’s got an eye for goals, and I think every team needs that.”

The other interesting thing to note with Wolff’s debut is where Arturo played. Arturo, who has predominantly played the right wing role that Wolff sits in, was played at what seems to be a “False 9 “role. The False 9, similar to a center attacking midfielder or CAM, is supposed to be your central offensive focal point, dropping in to the midfield to collect the ball before pinging out passes to the wings to open the opposing defense up. Until his injury, this was Memo Rodriguez’s main role - it’s also a bit similar to where Roro has played in the past, though Roro often sat back in the midfield just a tad further.

But Arturo, over the past 3 games, has suddenly taken control of the position. His 2 assists tonight are exactly what you want from this spot on the pitch, especially in a system that so heavily emphasizes the outside of the pitch rather than the center. It will be very interesting to see how Collins handles this role as players return from injury.

Malango also broke out, with a brace from the bench. Malango is one of the players who I think can show the most growth this season - the talent is all there, he just needs to keep adding the finishing touches. A 2 goal night is a great way to build that confidence.

The Bad:

Further Injuries?
Republic, while slowly getting healthy, just can’t seem to kick the injury bug. Currently hurt are:

• Jared Timmer

• Pierre Reedy

• Danny Crisostomo

• Mark-Anthony Kaye

Those are all key players. And while Gurr and Memo are now back on the pitch, their minutes are still limited - Gurr subbed out after 60 minutes on the dot, and Memo subbed in for just 30 minutes.

Further worrying is the substitutions of Freddy Kleemann and Dominik Wanner - Kleemann’s seemed less serious, but Wanner subbed out after just 39 minutes. Either player missing some time will just cause further issues, especially on the backline. We haven’t heard any updates on any of these injuries, let alone return time-lines, given Republic’s usual habit of being tight-lipped. But the sooner these guys are back, the better.

What Stood Out:

Overall, a great night for the club. Every other team in Republic’s USL Cup group dropped points - which is huge in a tournament where only the group winner advances. 4-0, at home in front of the fans, is a huge result. Collins had this to say:

“It was great to see a score, four goals in front of our home crowd. I think we could have scored a few more. At home, we want to create, we want to score and if that means, at times to be a little looser, that’s fine… credit to the boys for a great result.”

With the first USL Cup match game of the season complete, Republic now move back into league play, where they’ll host Orange County in a big show down - OC needs the points to hang on to first, and Republic desperately needs to move up the table.

Something to watch for is how Collins handle the return of all these injured players. He almost has too many options now in the midfield, with how well Arturo, Essel, and Willey have been playing. Crisostomo, Memo, and MAK returning makes for a very crowded midfield, not to mention new comers like Wolff. We may also see some position shake ups - you’ll note that Memo came in for Wolff and played on the wing instead of playing in the center, which left Arturo playing at the False 9 we discussed earlier. And I’m very curious to see where Pierre Reedy comes in when he’s healthy - Wanner has cemented himself as a solid left winger to go along with Malango.

Either way, the Quails are getting healthy again and the depth is returning. It’s time for a push in the standings.

The Lineup:

Republic’s offense finally left the gate firing on all cylinders, as 2 first-half goals lead them to a 2-0 win over the winless Phoenix Rising. Phoenix, who had tied 3 straight before this week, struggled to contain the Republic offense in the first half and then couldn’t get their offense working in the second half—even with Republic all but giving them control of the game for the last 45 minutes. It’s a good win for Republic, even if it wasn’t the most convincing; I have some real concerns about that second-half performance. That being said, 3 points is 3 points, especially with the continued absence of several key players.

Still missing from the lineup due to injury is Gurr, Memo, Reedy, and Timmer, and we now add Spaulding to that illustrious list. This growing list of injuries is concerning, as Republic has yet to field what I would classify as a “full strength” squad. Also not starting was Malango, who had just played 60 minutes for the Malawi national team in Botswana on Tuesday, though he did come in later as a substitute. I can’t imagine the jet lag after that quick of a trip is particularly comfortable.

On the bright side, the “next man up” mentality is really working in Republic’s favor. In for the injured Spaulding and Gurr was Aaron Essel—who quietly had the best performance of the night of any player on the pitch with an 8.2 player rating. And starting in place of Malango and Memo were Dominik Wanner and Blake Willey respectively, who both scored. The first-half performance out of this group was the best we’ve seen Republic play on the year.

The Good:

First-Half Dominance
Before tonight, Republic hadn’t scored earlier than the 62nd minute in league play. Then, they showed up and scored 2 goals in the first 25 minutes. What was great to see was how dominantly they controlled the first half—despite only having 51% of the possession. They did this by largely confining Phoenix to their own half when they had the ball; while Rising had basically the same number of passes as Sacramento did, they coupled it with only 3 shots (none on target) to Republic’s 9 shots.

For this first half, Phoenix tried to get their offense going in by predominantly playing over the top, but Republic won 10/18 aerial duels and were successful on 78% of their tackles, largely negating Phoenix’s attempts. Republic also set the backline fairly high, catching Phoenix offside twice in the first half. They did all this by regularly switching to a back 3:

Republic here have just lost the ball on a turnover in Rising’s side of the pitch, and Rising have booted the ball upfield to their up-top outlet of Studenhofft… . But you can see that Republic, despite having 4 defenders, are actually holding 3 of them back —Desmond, Kleemann, and Essel. This, in turn, allows one of the 3 defenders back to step up when needed, which you can see Lee Desmond doing here, and allows Benítez to get forward up the pitch, where he grabbed himself an assist. Compare Benítez and Essel’s heat-maps:

Essel does get forward occasionally, but not as often or as far as Benítez, and Essel drops towards the middle right of the pitch more often than Benítez drops to the middle left. This largely shifts in the second half, where Republic start to give up more ground with a 2 goal lead, but the flexibility of the defense to allow Benítez to push forward really unlocks the offense.

Dominik Wanner and Blake Willey
Speaking of that unlocked offense, the player that is most unlocked by Benítez pushing forward is Dominik Wanner. Look how far his average positioning is compared to every other Republic player—he’s number #17:

He’s able to move so far forward because Benítez (#22) is pushing up the same side. Wanner was largely a fringe player after he was signed last season, and more than a few folks were disappointed with his production. In 2025, he had only 12 starts and had just 4 goal contributions (3 goals and an assist)—good for a goal contribution once every ~289 minutes. But just this week, he’s already matched 2025’s goal contribution total, with 2 goals and 2 assists. In total, he has 2 goals and 3 assists on the year, good for a contribution once every ~74.5 minutes. A significant portion of this is the formation change—Wanner was able to get up field last year with the 5-2-3, but the 4-2-3-1 of this season means that there are more numbers crashing the box, and more defensive stability behind him.

Blake Willey also showed up in a big way, and I couldn’t be happier for him. He became the 5th Republic academy prospect to score for the first team when he scored his first professional goal in just the 10th minute of the match. Doing it during a home match in his hometown makes it even sweeter. Blake really deserved a goal last season with how well he played, and he is really developing into a true box-to-box midfielder. Look at his heat map, he’s all over the place:

The goal he scored was interesting for a few reasons. First, it’s just a great finish, one timing it into the bottom right corner. And second, this is the first goal Republic have scored that played out in the way we thought they would score before the season started. I didn’t predict Forester Ajago to be the top goal scorer for a reason—because this is what I figured we would see:

Ajago is quick, strong, and really good with his feet, so he is really quick to get on the ball and get behind the opposition's lines. But by the time he does so, he’s drawing all of the attention, with 2 defenders crashing on him. What this does, though, is completely open up the player playing at the 9 (in this case, Willey) to make a late run into the box for a backwards pass. I think we’ll see more of this as the team starts to click more—Ajago is going to be the creator that sets up the goals, while occasionally snagging a few himself.

Defense bent, but didn’t break
The second half was a different story, one we’ll touch on below, but to their credit, the defense did not break. In the second half alone, they faced 11 shots and 6 corners. Only 3 those shots were on target—1 was blocked and the other 7 were off target. A big part of this was that Republic kept Phoenix largely out of their side of the pitch: despite Republic managing just 28% possession in the second half, Phoenix only had 31 final-third entries to Sacramento’s 29. And look at Phoenix’s shot map:

See that big grouping of shots from way outside of the box? All of them but one were during the second half. That speaks to Phoenix’s frustration with their inability to move into Republic’s box for better shots. The defense also stepped up when things did get dicey:

Danny steps out too early here, but he’s able to confidently do so because he knows he has defenders like Freddy Kleemann, who instantly runs to the goal and perfectly positions himself to block the shot off the line. Lee Desmond did a similar thing during the Open Cup match last week. It’s a bit nervy, but these are the moments that make the opposition wonder if they can do anything to get a goal—and it leads to Phoenix taking the long shots we discussed above.

The Bad:

Sitting Back a BIT too early…
Three points and a clean sheet aside, the second half was a bit… nervy. Republic sat back in defense way too early. In the second half, Phoenix took 72% of the possession, 11 shots to Republic’s 2, and 6 corner kicks to Republic’s 0. Republic sat back, sat deep, and struggled to not just break out, but hold on to the ball at all. A full 45 minutes of this is too much. Yes, it worked, but it doesn’t help that Phoenix wasn’t clinical. If Kleemann doesn’t make the goal line clearance we talked about above, this is an entirely different ball game. And when you sit back for that long, inevitably someone is going to miss their man mark:

How Charlie Dennis misses that is a question for the ages. This match could have very easily ended in a 2-2 draw. Collins tried to fix the lack of forward movement in the 72nd and 77th minutes as he brought on Malango, Edward, and Cambridge in to replace tired legs, but neither of the trio did much to change the game—they combined for just 22 touches total due to how late they came in.

I am glad that the defense held, but the second half should not have been as defensive as it ended up being.

The Linos…
Special shout out to the line judges tonight—it’s not often that they do a bad enough job that they make the center official look poor. There were several missed calls on who touched the ball last before it went out of play. One or 2 I can excuse at this level —3 or 4, most of which were seemingly obvious, is not a good performance.

But there is nothing worse than a misapplication of the Laws of the game. The broadcast was showing a commercial here (a tirade I will save for another day…) so the clip is cut a bit short at the beginning, but this was called offside:

However, this can’t be offside—it’s not a pass by an attacking player or a “save” from a defensive player! The Phoenix player is the one who deliberately kicks it out wide, and then a Republic player collects it. The International Football Association Board, or IFAB, literally have this exact situation as one of their questions under the Law:

“A defending player (Team A) challenges an attacking player (Team B) and deliberately kicks the ball (no foul is committed). After that, the ball goes directly to another Team B player who is in an offside position. What is the correct decision?

Answer: The referee allows play to continue. There is no offside offense if a player in an offside position receives the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball”

I can excuse officials at this level missing judgment calls—there’s no VAR, and the game moves fast. But to misapply the basic rules, especially one that is literally a question that IFAB clarifies, is inexcusable at this level. Someday, officiating in the United States may reach a decent level, but that requires a level of investment that few organizations seem to want to make.

What Stood Out:

With exception of maybe the Tulsa match, we still haven’t seen a full, cohesive, second-half match out of the Quails. While last week’s match was “As poor of a first half” as head coach Neill Collins had seen, he called this week’s first half “as good as we’ve been”—but neither match’s opposite half was particularly good. Phoenix is showing themselves to be a weak team as well, given they don’t yet have a win, so the falloff in the second half was a bit of a disappointment. Ideally, Republic would have gone for a third goal instead of sitting back. We’re still waiting for a “definitive” win that really shows that Republic can play a full 90 minutes of top class football. With several injuries to key players though, it could be that the club is just trying to ride things out until those players can return.

That being said, 3 points puts Republic right back up to third in the Western Conference. San Antonio and El Paso above them are the two scariest teams in the West for now, and Republic will need to perform significantly better against lower-tier teams if they want to match either of them. The next opportunity for that comes against Las Vegas on Saturday, in what will be an intriguing matchup. Sacramento USL-Cup hero Jared Mazzola is now in between the sticks in Vegas—and we all know what Jared can do. On top of that, Vegas is one of the top scoring teams in the entirety of USL, trailing only El Paso and Louisville, but they also have the second-worst defense in the entire league too. Matching that sort of team up against the low scoring but best defense team that Sacramento has historically been leaves a critical question: What happens when an unstoppable defense comes up against an unstoppable offense? We’ll find out this weekend.

The Lineup:

For the first 55 minutes of the match, the Quails looked like they had been punched in the mouth. Then El Paso received a red card… and Republic acted like they were still reeling until the 90+2’. It was a fiery ending, but by the time they got things together, it was far too little and far too late.

It was made worse by Neill Collins having only a few substitute options. On the roster side of things, Republic is still struggling. We have confirmation that Memo Rodríguez, Jack Gurr, and Rohan Chivukula are out injured—and Pierre Reedy hasn’t seen the field or bench yet this season. He was seen sitting with Gurr in the stands this week, so I think we can add him to the injury list here. Additionally, Mayele Malango was out on international duty. This Republic roster is not deep, leading to a bench that contained 5 players under the age of 20. And while Chibi and Willey have both seen considerable playing time, the other 3 teenagers have yet to make their professional debuts.

Collins only real attacking substitute option was Kyle Edwards, who entered the game in the 64’. Outside of giving a teenager a debut, he also only realistically had Essel, Willey, and Chibi—and none of the 3 are attacking players. Due to all the absences, Casas and Wanner received their first starts in league play, in place of Memo and Malango respectively.

Now, Republic has taken steps to alleviate this. On Monday, they announced the signings of Brandon Cambridge and Sergio Rivas to 25-day contracts. It’s currently unknown if these signings will turn into long-term deals or not; if Republic expect players back from injury soon, these may just be temporary band-aids, but if not, they’ll likely be joining long term.

None of this is to excuse the play on the field, of course. It more just explains why Collins didn’t sub out the players that couldn’t match the pace of the match. Before we rip this performance completely apart, let’s check out what few good things we can pull from this performance…

The Good:

A few individual performances
Despite the outcome, a few players did have notably good performances. Benítez in particular performed well; his 8.1 match rating was the highest on the field of both teams. He had 85% pass rate, had 3 passes that directly led to a teammate’s shot (a “key pass”), and created 1 of Republic’s 5 big chances. He also had 4 accurate crosses in 5 attempts, 2 clearances, and went 3 for 4 on duels. He absolutely deserved to be the one to take the penalty, which he slotted away for just his second goal as a Quail.

Spaulding also had himself a decent game, getting himself a key pass, a big chance created, and missing an incredible goal by literally an inch. Seriously, if this ball is just an inch more inside, it’s a goal:

It doesn’t get any closer than that. Two other decent performances were from Casas and Kaye, both who had player ratings of 7.0 mostly because of their dribbling and passing.

Last Gasp Chances
Say what you will about the rest of the match (and oh boy will we get into that below…), but the boys threw the kitchen sink at El Paso for the final 7 minutes of the match. In those final 7 minutes, they scored a penalty, completely controlled the ball, had 5 shots, and hit the post in the final seconds. The only player who didn’t get forward was Danny Vitiello—though it did appear that he wanted to but was waved back by the coaching staff. There is plenty of criticisms to be had of Republic’s relaxed approach for most of the match, but at least they showed they wanted it at the end.

What Could Have Been…
As bad as things were, Republic still could have won this match. Spaulding and Kaye both hit the post—Republic certainly had their chances. If either or both of those shots go in, this becomes a very different article. That being said, they didn’t… so let’s get into what went wrong.

The Bad:

Slow Starts
Republic have started every single match, with the exception of this week’s Open Cup match, extremely slowly. How slow? Well, let’s look at some numbers in USL-C play:

• Earliest Goal: 62’ (vs. Monterey Bay)

• In the first half of matches:
  13 shots, 4 on target. 0 goals. 2 goals allowed Shooting accuracy: 30.7%

• In the second half of matches:
  27 shots, 10 on target. 4 goals. 1 goal allowed. Shooting accuracy: 37.0%

So over twice as productive offensively in the second half of games than the first, and that 0 first-half goals is particularly glaring. The offense is just slow. We’ll address the lack of urgency below, but if you watch the last few minutes of the first half, Republic are just… passing the ball around. I don’t understand it—they’re already down 2 goals, and rather than getting the ball forward before the referee can end the half, they pass the ball backwards and out of a threatening position, allowing the half to come to a close.

That’s not to mention the two goals they allowed. The first seemed lazy; not only was the El Paso player free in space in Republic’s box, but the shot trickled in agonizingly slowly and certainly could have been better dealt with by either one of the defenders or Vitiello. The PK, you could argue, was a pretty soft—but it also comes from lazy defending, where Republic were too slow to react:

The El Paso player finds the space between Kaye and Kleemann, both of which seem to pass the player off to each other. Kaye ends up chasing the player down, but there is no reason to foul here. There are only 2 El Paso players in the box and they’re both pretty solidly covered:

If anything, Kleemann should step up to help here, and Kaye should have stepped in front of the player instead of trying to win the ball from behind while in the box. It’s just too sloppy.

A Complete Lack of Urgency
Even more alarming than the slow start was the complete lack of urgency displayed by the players on the pitch. Republic has been able to overcome slow starts in the past—that becomes hugely problematic when they stay slow through the second half. It becomes baffling when they stay slow despite being down 2 goals and up a man.

The most significant showing of this was the 37 minutes after El Paso received their red card. Down to 10 men and up a goal, El Paso sat back, content to let Republic control the game. In this situation, you would expect Republic to drive forward, consistently shoot, and try to grab 2 goals. Instead, from the 55th minute, when El Paso went down to 10 men, to the 90+2 minute, when Republic won a penalty, Republic recorded just 3 total shots.

Not shots on goal. Three shots total. Just one of those was on target. The attack was slow, lackadaisical, and unintentional. If you had hidden the score bug, one would assume Republic was winning 2-0 and closing out the game, not losing 2-0. This period of play is simply unacceptable. Now, there is an argument that scoring against 10 men is actually more difficult—they put all 10 guys behind the ball, leaving little room for the attacking team to operate. But I don’t buy that excuse. The final 7 minutes of the match showed that Republic were able to drive forward, create chances, and shoot on target. The real question for the club is where was that earlier? Why was that pressure not applied for the entire second half while down by 2?

Collins commented on the second half specifically:

“We missed chances early in the second half, and I think then we had a little lull. I think we lacked some quality, some times on the ball, which meant we weren’t able to progress the ball as quickly as we should have been. But it comes down to the intensity, but I don’t think we played with quality, we looked like a good team, but at times, the breakdown in possession was just very disappointing.”

It’s an interesting comment—but 37 minutes with 3 total shots while up a man is not a “little lull.” It is nearly an entire half of sitting on your hands and doing nothing of note to win the game. He also mentions the intensity, and I mentioned earlier Collins’ limited subs, but where is the driving force that is willing to step up and fire the team up? In past years, Roro would be that force on the field: on Saturday, no one took up that mantle.

Corners. Corners. Corners.
This may become a permanent section of the tactical article if things continue. Republic have now had 36 corners this season, and exactly 0 have resulted in a goal. I spent a night going over every single Republic game of 2025, and I finally found the last corner goal that Republic scored: May 17th of 2025, when Trevor Amann scored the 5th goal of a 5-0 drubbing of Las Vegas in the Open Cup. The only other corner goal of 2025 was a Ryan Spaulding goal the week prior to that when Republic beat Vegas (again!) 4-0.

In 2025, Republic took 155 corners total. With 2 goals scored, that’s a conversion rate of just 1.3%. If you add in the 36 corners taken so far this year, their conversion rate since 2025 is just ~1%. Ok, ok, that sounds rough, but where does that compare to the average team? While benchmarks vary across leagues and levels, the widely accepted average sits around 3-4% of corners resulting in goals. By that measure, Republic is converting corners at less than half the typical rate, and none of their corners so far this year have inspired any confidence to buck this trend. That’s an extra 3-4 goals a year that they are missing out on just by being below average—enough to turn a few games from losses to draws or draws to wins. It’s valuable points being left on the table.

But hey, maybe we only score corners against Vegas? If so, mark your calendars for April 11th, when Republic plays in Vegas—maybe we’ll finally see one.

What Stood Out:

It was not a good performance from the Quails. Collins went so far to call it:

He’s not wrong, but what is going to change as a result of it? A midweek Open Cup win of 4-0 is certainly a start, but it’s not quite the same beating an amateur team. Republic also desperately need someone on the pitch to step up and get mad when the energy isn’t there. Collins can shout obscenities from the sidelines, as he usually does, but it’s not the same as a player on the field taking responsibility and getting the team going.

I think there are a few guys who could step into that role. Kaye and Desmond are the team’s natural leaders, but Crisostomo, Artuto, and Benítez have also shown that they could step up and be that for this club. Best case scenario, this match was a slap in the face that wakes the team up, and they roll out angry on Saturday against a Phoenix team that hasn’t won a game this year. Worst case scenario, this is what we can expect from the club. Only time will tell.

The Lineup:

Ouch. Despite being the more dominant team for the vast majority of the match, Republic came away with just one point and was lucky to even get that; former Republic player Nick Ross’s chance to grab all 3 points from the penalty spot late was denied by Danny Vitiello. It’s important to realize that Republic also played 120 minutes just 3 days prior in the Open Cup and most starters saw significant minutes. Tired legs were almost certainly a factor in the late-game breakdown.

The Starting XI saw only one change from what we saw in the first two league
games—and that was Blake Willey stepping in for Memo Rodríguez. As usual, the club has been tight-lipped about Memo being out; the broadcast mentioned he was injured, but gave no indication to the severity or a timeline for return. There was no indication he was even hurt until the Starting XI was released. Speaking of injuries, also out again was Jack Gurr, who has yet to make his 2026 debut—though a few folks on Reddit did mention seeing him in the stands.

Injury concerns aside, it was fun to see Willey take on that 9 role in the offense and the entire formation played as advertised. But what did we see that stood out?

The Good:

Ajago Stays Hot
A 3-goal week for Forster Ajago is exactly what you want to see from your starting striker, as Ajago scored twice against El Farolito and once against Monterey Bay. He’s now averaging a goal every 92.3 minutes—that would be an elite pace if he could keep that up throughout the season. This goal against Monterey is special because he both creates it and finishes it:

He both wins the header and the foot race while staying onside, before cleanly slotting the shot through the keeper’s legs. There is a brief moment in there where his touch gets away from him, but he stays composed and gets the goal. Just this week, he’s scored half the goals he did in 20 appearances for Lexington last season. And we’d be remiss not to mention Arturo’s one-touch assist, what a great pass.

Still Undefeated
Republic remains 1 of 9 teams in USL without a defeat. In 4 games (3 in league play) they have 5 goals, only 1 goal allowed, and a combined expected goals (xG) of 4.6 while their xG against is only 3.05. This is a very good start to the year, especially after kicking off against 2 tough teams, Tulsa and Lexington. I have high hopes going forward, especially because Republic don’t play any truly “elite” teams for the next few weeks, giving them time to work out any issues.

Dominant Stats
Republic genuinely dominated this game. Sure, the xG was 0.81 to 1.38… but that includes the PK. From open play, it was 0.81 to 0.52. Republic averaged 56.8% possession and still haven’t had less than 50% of the ball this season. They also won 52% of ground duels and 64% of aerial duels. Obviously the final score matters more, but it is good to know that Republic played and controlled the game, they just didn’t finish it.

Danny Vitiello
Arguably the point Republic did get belongs to Danny Vitiello. The USL’s best every goalkeeper is now 8 for 15 on penalty saves in his career. I can’t express how absurd that is—elite keepers usually hover around 30-40%. So I’ll just leave this beauty of a save here:

The Bad:

Slow Starts
Republic have struggled to get the offense going in the first half of any game this season. Of the 5 goals Republic have scored, none of them have been scored in the first half. Even looking at when they’re shooting, they have 9 total first half shots through the first 3 league games… and 16 total second half shots. In fact, they only have 2 shots *on target* in the first half of all 4 games! To say they’ve been a second-half team is an understatement. It’s still early, but getting the offense going earlier in games is going to be crucial down the stretch.

Sloppy Defense
Republic’s first allowed goal of the season was a really sloppy one. Look, goals against happen. Sometimes you miss a mark on a corner, or an opposing striker makes a good hit, or you get caught out transitioning. It happens. What sucks about this goal is that it was far too easy. Watch the Monterey Bay player (Leggett) who gets the first head on the ball—and goes on to score:

He just runs straight up the middle and everyone just kind of… let’s him go? Let’s pause right after he heads the ball. Kleemann (circled) is taking care of the opposing player the ball goes to—that’s where he is supposed to be. But this came off a goal kick, so the other center back, Lee Desmond (squared), gets caught out a little too far up the pitch. Someone has to step into the center to block, or at least slow down, the opposing attacker:

But no one steps into that space quickly enough. So you’re left with this:

And Leggett is just off to the races. No one even gets a touch on him. It’s only the first goal allowed of the season, 3 days after the squad played 120+ minutes, so I don’t want to harp on it too much. But damn is it annoying for the first goal allowed of the year to be such an easy one.

Bad Subs
This game wasn’t helped that the substitutions were late and less than ideal. Yes, yes tired legs, long term fitness, etc, are all factors, but Republic conceded just 4 minutes after subbing Wanner and Chibi on. Immediately after the goal, Collins subbed in Edwards in hopes to get the winning goal—but with only 5 minutes left, Edwards managed just one touch of the ball. The only substitution that had any sort of significant play time was Pep Casas, who came in in the 69th minute but was all but absent from the game for 21 minutes—he had just 5 touches, was 2/4 on passes, had 0 shots, and had no defensive contributions.

As a whole, the subs averaged a 6.4 player rating and it’s hard to fault them for it. They just didn’t get enough time to actually get into the match, and all 4 of them started Wednesday. Add in the 2 known injuries Republic has to starters and midweek matches and things can get dicey; it could be Republic needs to find some depth as the season goes on.

What Stood Out:

A point is a point, but dropping 2 points to easily one of the worst teams in the league at home stings quite a bit. While Republic is averaging only 0.25 goals against per game so far, the goals against are going to happen over the course of the season —and Republic needs to figure out how to score early and often enough to offset those. It doesn’t help that Republic played 120 minutes in a fiery contest with El Farolito in the Open Cup midweek, a game where every single player except Crisostomo played a not-insignificant number of minutes. Starters Lee Desmond, Freddy Kleemann, Blake Willey, and Danny Vitiello not only played all 120 minutes Wednesday but also played at least 70 minutes in this match.

Even still, it’s 2 points dropped to a poor Monterey team and drops Republic to 3rd in the West, just off the pace of Oakland and San Antonio. Neill Collins’ post-game comments showed some disappointment:

“...when they scored, I think we looked very tired at that point. Understandable, to play 120 minutes the third week into the season. But… there’s no excuse. I thought we did more than enough to win the game in probably the first 75- 80 minutes, but the last five minutes. We could have lost it… it feels like two points dropped.”

Republic re-takes the field Saturday at home against El Paso—a team that beat Monterey in Week 2 by a score of 3-0 and who are now also coming off a bye week. This is going to be a tricky test for Republic; El Paso were vulnerable to set pieces in their first match, but Sacramento hasn’t scored off a corner since 2024 and have struggled on set pieces for years. They may need their first corner goal in over a year to break the deadlock.

The Lineup:

Well, a football match was played. A 0-0 draw with both teams combining for 3 shots on target, 4 corners, and a single yellow card each is hardly the most exciting match we’ve seen before. If you want an idea on how little happened in this match, USL’s own YouTube highlights for this match jump from the 16th minute, to the 38th minute, to the… 80th minute. There just wasn’t a whole lot to see.

Now, that doesn’t mean it was a bad result. Lexington is easily the most anticipated team in the league this season—a flurry of offseason signings saw Lexington bring in almost an all-star team of talent, punctuated by USL-C’s first 6-figure intraleague transfer when Lexington acquired midfielder Aaron Molloy from Charleston. So getting a point on the road in just the second week of the season, especially with a clean sheet, is a strong point. And Republic played better as the game went on—their strongest moments were at the end of the game, when they would have taken the lead but for 2 strong saves from Lexington’s keeper.

Collins came into Week 2 and utilized the exact same starting XI he had used in the home opener. If you missed last week’s Tactical Analysis, we spent some time explaining how this new-to-Republic system works:

And this week, it operated in the same way with 2 slight departures. First, Spaulding played much higher on the right side. Last week we talked about how pinned back he sat against Tulsa, and speculated that this was likely due to Gurr’s late scratch in that game. Sure enough, with a full week of Spaulding knowing he was starting, he played significantly more vertical. Look at his average position here, #3:

He’s averaged on the other side of the half line instead of inline with the center backs. That is much more of what we expected to see from the right back out of this formation.

Now one of the reasons he and Benítez (#22) are able to push up so far is because of something we only saw a bit of last week: Crisostomo (#27) is actually dropping back from the midfield to fit into the center of the backline:

This enables Republic to send both the left back and right back forward, while still maintaining 3 defensive players—it essentially enables them to switch into a 3 or 5 at the back while maintaining a base of a 4-4-2. Look how far he drops when Republic has a goal kick:

Meanwhile, Mark-Anthony Kaye (MAK), in the middle of this image, pulls centrally to balance the midfield. All of this works together to make Republic’s 4-4-2 (I’ve also seen it listed as a 4-2-3-1) extremely flexible and they can adjust on the fly into different looks. This requires players who can wear multiple hats throughout the game. Republic has the pieces to do it.

The Good:

The Defense, Part II
Two games, 2 clean sheets. One of the league’s most stingy defenses has come into 2026 firing on all cylinders, with the center back combo of Kleemann and Desmond averaging a 7.6 player rating. It will be interesting to see how personnel shifts as Timmer works his way back from surgery, but it really just gives Collins yet another stellar option. On top of the clean sheet, Republic only allowed 2 corners all night, and they both came before the 16th minute.

A fun thing to watch was Spaulding getting booed every time he touched the ball after a foul in the first half—fair play, Lexington fans. Though they did appear to miss when Chibi subbed in for Spaulding, as they continued to then boo Chibi every time he touched the ball instead.

A Tale of Two Midfields
Really, this match was a battle in the trenches of the midfield. Both teams split possession evenly, and we already talked about the lack of shots and corners. The ball stayed mostly within the center third of the pitch, and Republic’s midfield had to battle the entire game. MAK scored himself a player rating of 7.1, mostly due to his passing and winning duels.

Post-match, Wanner brought up an interesting point:

“I think the first half was intense. It was a lot of running. I think it’s one of the biggest pitches in the league, or even in the US. So yeah, we had to run a lot, a lot of spaces, and I think we had to get used to the field a little bit.”

Republic really did grow into the game, especially later in the second half, as the midfield started to take a bit more control.

Midfielders Generating Chances
Even better for the midfield was that they also drove most of Republic’s offense. We talked above about Crisostomo dropping into the backline. Well, he also worked his way up to the other side of the pitch, where he gets stuck in, wins it, and then nearly wins the game:

That he is playing so much of the field and being effective on both sides of the ball is incredible. And look at this sequence that newcomer Pep Casas put on display. He’s the player that has the ball at the start of the clip:

He pulls 3 defenders in, passes, finds the open space again, then lays off a one-touch pass perfectly into space for Wanner, who only doesn’t score because of a great save. This is the first time we’ve really seen Casas, who played only a minute in the home opener, but he has a confidence on the ball that Republic can really utilize late in games.

Crisostomo commented on those second half chances:

“First half, we didn't implement everything of what we wanted to do. I think second half we came off really strong, created more chances, won the ball high up the field, and I think the last 15-20 minutes, it could have gone our way, and it didn't.”

It did not, but it was close. A draw is probably fair, but both sides also probably deserved a goal. C'est la vie.

Sidenote: Away Announcers
As a side note, on the non-tactical side of things, the commentary for this match was next level. This match was originally scheduled to be on the Golazo! Network; however, due to technical issues, it was moved to a free YouTube stream. Jamie Watson and Josh Appel both call national broadcasts for multiple leagues, including USL, MLS, and NWSL, and absolutely knocked it out of the park with an unbiased commentary.

The Bad:

Shooting Boots Go Cold
It’s hard to fault much else except the goal scoring chances, honestly. Ajago and Malango in particular haven’t excelled through 2 games in Old Glory Red, averaging a player rating of just 6.4 between the 2 of them. However, especially with an entirely new-look midfield and offense, it’s going to take time for things to click. Add in a game bogged down in the midfield and you have a situation where none of the attacking players really got good service. The best service of the night was Casas’ pass to Wanner we highlighted above—and that came after both Ajago and Malango had already been subbed off. A few games against weaker opposition coming up should give both of them chances to build confidence.

What Stood Out:

Overall, it’s a match that I don’t think anyone can be upset about. Lexington is a good team, who have spent a lot of offseason money, and Republic taking a point on the road with a clean sheet is a good point. Collins commented on starting the season against two heavy-weights in Tulsa and Lexington:

“We've had two really tough tests out of the gate, which should set us up well for this home stretch that's coming. Different challenges than we faced tonight. I think starting on Wednesday, we just want to carry on where we left off against Tulsa: be aggressive, get our fans on their feet, and make it difficult for every opponent that comes into Heart Health Park.”

Making it through the 2 toughest games in the early season with no goals allowed is excellent. Republic will play Lexington again in August, this time in Sacramento, and it will be interesting to see where things are in the table at that time. For now, Republic has El Farolito in the Open Cup tonight before hosting a Monterey team on Saturday that has allowed 4 goals and scored none in their opening two games. This should be two easy wins.

The Lineup:

Welcome to the first Tactical Analysis of the 2026 season! The USL-Championship is underway and it is off to a roaring start. Sacramento Republic had eight player debuts, three two goals, a brand new tactical system, and a rambunctious sell out crowd at Heart Health Park, so we have a lot to discuss. If you’re new here, this is the place where we like to discuss the numbers, formations, and tactics of what makes Republic “tick”. Let’s dive right in!

Let’s start with first looking at the starting XI, where we see six player debuts! While Vitiello in goal and Republic’s backline are as consistent as ever, not a single player from last season started in the midfield or attack. In fact, the only returning player to even sub in was Blake Willey, who made a 2 minute cameo at the end of the game. Collins has implemented a full and complete overhaul.

And it’s not just the players themselves who have changed, it’s the entire system. Readers from last season will recall that Republic ran a 5-2-3 system, defined by 5 defensive players and a light midfield. We first suspected things would change this season as Collins brought in midfielder after midfielder, while the attacking options stayed rather slim. We actually called the new tactic correctly on The Quail Call:

And we nailed it! Gone is playing 5 at the back: Collins has shifted to a more compact back 4. And the midfield is now loaded with talent, with 4 midfielders (and occasionally 5) instead of the just 2 we saw last year. Up top, Republic utilizes a 2 striker partnership that relies on the midfield pressing up during the attack. That leaves Republic at a 4-4-2, which switches into a 4-2-3-1. Look how Republic stack up when they don’t have the ball:

That’s Memo Rodriguez the far left of your screen playing as a striker, with Ajago just to his right. Meanwhile, the 4 in the midfield is really clear here - Malango on the left and Arturo on the right are positioned slightly higher up field, while Kaye and Crisostomo drop into more of a defensive midfielder position, as part of a “double pivot”. And then you have the back 4 just off screen, other than Spaulding and Kleemann who are stepping up to take on the ball. But look how this formation changes when Republic gain possession:

The back 4 is still there, but Kaye and Crisostomo are now on their own line, while Memo actually drops into the midfield; he’s basically playing as a “false 9” when Republic have the ball. Meanwhile, both Malango and Arturo crash forward on the wings, while Ajago is already way up field (and off screen). Let’s take a look at the defensive-half of this structure specifically:

Here, Vitiello plays the goal kick short, both outside backs split wide, and both Kaye and Crisostomo drop back to receive the ball. This is, essentially, the entire role of a double pivot - they play as outward defensive “sweepers” when not in possession, and as transitional pieces to get the ball from the backline to the offense while in possession. Keep an eye on this all season - Collins' tactic heavily relies around these 2 players controlling the game on both sides of the ball. Now let’s focus in on the attacking side:

Here, Memo has already completed his drop into the midfield and is now pressing forward again while both midfielders are going with him. Ajago, meanwhile, is able to charge at goal. But look at the space he’s creating by doing so. He’s pulling both center backs in, leaving just one man responsible for both Memo and Malango on the left side. Ajago will certainly score a few goals this season, but I suspect that his main role will be to pull defenders out of position before laying the ball off to one of the 3 runners behind him.

This system can be much more explosive than the defensively-safe 5-2-3 from last year and it is much stronger through the midfield. The compromise is that Republic gives up a lot of space on the wings, especially when they get countered, and you lose a center back. But Collins used almost this exact system in Tampa Bay when they lead the league in goals for and goals against - so my hopes are high.

The Good:

The Defense, Danny Vitiello, and USL Records
Any clean sheet is cause for celebration, but this night was a special one. Danny Vitiello logged his 59th USL-C clean sheet, in just 150 career matches, to become the USL Championship’s all-time leader in regular season shutouts. To add to a momentous night, the win marked Republic’s 200th club win across all competitions - that’s an average of ~17 wins a year for the last 12 years, including a shortened 2020 season. From what I can find, the only other USL club who has hit the 200 win mark faster is Louisville - and they play in a significantly easier Eastern Conference.

A goal from… a center back??
One of Republic’s quiet but persistent issues last season was a complete lack of attacking production from the backline. Despite playing with 5 defenders, Republic center backs combined for just one goal on 25 shots in USL Championship play in 2025, had just 3 assists, and the club failed to score a single goal from a corner kick all year.

Through one match, Republic matched their 2025 total when center back Freddy Kleemann got his head onto the end of a fantastic cross by Spaulding that was built off a set piece in the 68th minute. Center backs aren’t expected to carry an offense, nor should they be, but dangerous aerial threats force defenses to commit extra markers. If Republic’s center backs can be a looming threat on set-pieces, that opens up the front line to further take advantage. Kleemann mentioned after the match the becoming that threat was an area of focus for him:

“I know, through my whole career, finding a way to score has probably been one of the places I’ve been lacking, so this year, I really focused on trying to get better. Then my boy Ryan lofted it up there and I was like ‘no one is beating me to this ball’, so it was perfect.”

The New Guys
We mentioned earlier those 8 debuts - but a few players in particular stood out. First off, Mayele Malango wrecked absolute havoc down the left side of the pitch and really should have had himself an assist (more on that later). But look at this turn to beat the defender on his back

He’s unlucky to not win this foot race (and even more unlucky not to get the foul call), but these sorts of moves are going to start to be a staple of the left side of the pitch.

Meanwhile, in the center of the pitch, Mark-Anthony Kaye took on the role of quarterback as he directed traffic. Watch him in the middle of the pitch here as he directs the Republic defense out of a high Tulsa press:

This happened regularly throughout the night - and it will be interesting to watch him grow into this role throughout the season.

Another quite standout that didn’t make the score sheet is Crisostomo. If you watch the clip above, you’ll notice he actually drops into the backline between the center backs, which he did off and on when Tulsa pressed. On top of providing defensive stability, he also was the highest rated Republic passer of the night, having 53 accurate passes on 56 attempts (94.6%). Those 56 passes also accounted for 28%(!) of all Republic passes.

And of course, we can’t miss talking about Kyle Edwards’ game-sealing goal - a perfectly weighted shot to the bottom right corner in the 83rd minute. Edwards becomes the 7th Republic player to score on their opening night debut, and Arturo becomes the 8th Republic player to notch an assist in their debut. Edwards has long had the “super-sub” moniker, especially after he set the USL record last season for goals scored from the bench in a single season with 8. Neill Collins had this to say about his super-sub striker:

“His finishing is just exceptional. To get him on the ball and around the box, he’s very, very good. Kyle’s come here to try and play as many minutes as he can, but we all know that we’re going to need guys to start, set a platform, guys to come off the bench. Those roles will change from thing to thing, but what a great, a great start for him.”

The Bad:

A Still Missing CBA
If USL fans and casuals weren’t aware before, the player protest for the first minute of each game of the Championship this week certainly brought the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations to the forefront of conversation. All players on both sides of the pitch stood in silence for a full minute after the kick off whistle, as fans chanted and whistled in support. The CBA negotiations are complex and multi-faceted, so I won’t get into them here, but I highly recommend you read our very own ’s article on what is going on:

An Isolated Right Side of the Pitch
For Republic tactics, the only thing that seemed to be lacking was the right side of the pitch. It appears that Jack Gurr was potentially a late scratch of some sort. Quail City Soccer’s Alex Tasker snapped this photo during team warmups:

While Gurr is dressed, trademark thigh-high shorts included, he didn’t warm up with the rest of the team and was seen next to Katy Norton, Republic’s Director of Sports Performance. He remained on the bench, but was later seen in sneakers and didn’t warm up with the rest of the subs later in the game. Due to Republic keeping injuries rather quite, we’re not sure if this was a late scratch from an injury picked up on the day of, or if he was 50/50 to be playing coming into the match.

Either way, Gurr being in the 18 at all means it probably isn’t that serious of a knock, and Spaulding started at right back. Spaulding’s positioning was… interesting. Looking at his heat map, he essentially sat pinned in the back right corner of the field the entire game:

The few times he did get up field were for set-pieces - one of which resulted in him perfectly crossing the ball into the box for Kleemann’s goal, an beauty of an assist. That said, I would have liked to have seen Spaulding push up more often. Because Spaulding stayed pinned back most of the game, Arturo operated on a bit of an island and regularly had to drop further back than he seemed to have preferred to try and get a pass. Arturo did get an assist on the night, but beside that play he struggled to get on the ball; outside of Vitiello in goal and Ajago at striker, no starter touched the ball less.

Now, this could purely be a result of Spaulding being a late addition to the starting line up, and Collins opting for more defensive stability over a right side attack with such a late adjustment. On the other hand, this could be the start of a trend, where Republic specifically attacks one side of the field. Look at Republic’s average positioning, by player number:

It’s weighted really heavily to the left. And you can see Spaulding (#3) sitting almost in line with the center backs compared to Benitez (#22), the left back. You can also see how far and to the left Arturo (#10) has to drop to get the ball. We’ll find out next week in Lexington as to whether this was a one-off or a long term plan.

USL Officiating
No one wants to bang on about officiating, least of all me. It’s part of the game and teams need to play to the referee. Complaining about the referee when you lose is even worse though, so I suppose after a win is as good of a time as any to make a comment on it: the officiating of this game was dreadful. Calls were, at best, inconsistent across the board. Republic received one yellow after Ajago became frustrated with the inconsistent officiating, and Republic took two more yellow cards to Kaye and Kleemann for fouls… yet no cards were given to Tulsa. And look at this call in the 64th minute that stopped Republic from putting the first goal on the board. Arturo (#10) even calls for a penalty before he realizes he has an open shot on goal - it’s not even a thought that the foul is against the Quails. Malango completely turns the Tulsa player around before the Tulsa player pushes into him, yet Malango is called for the foul:

These are calls that can and do change games. USL doesn’t yet have VAR - but if the league is serious about its USL-Premier ambitions, it needs to get the officials some help.

What Stood Out:

What a wild opening week, all around USL. Lexington lost 2-1 to Louisville in a battle of the top 2 ranked off-season teams. Two USL teams played their first games; Sporting Jax had a home sellout loss to Hartford, and Brooklyn somewhat surprisingly beat Indy XI. The Roots grabbed a late winner in Monterey and, of course, the first battle of the top of the West went to Sacramento.

Collins' new look is encouraging; after several seasons of Republic being a defense-first team, that looks like it’s shifting a bit and this new-look midfield and offense look poised to break out. Coming up next is a fascinating match up with Lexington, who completely re-tooled this season with several league-record signings. Playing on the road, this will be a difficult test for Republic and we should get to see how Collins plans on adapting his tactic throughout the season. The most difficult thing for Republic from here is going to be chemistry - with so many new guys on the pitch, it’s going to take time for everyone to gel together. But rest assured, Collins seems optimistic:

“...I’ve just seen in front of my eyes the togetherness come off the field and I think that’s starting to transpire on the field. But I’ll tell you, as a player, nothing builds chemistry like winning. It’s amazing the bonds that you get when you start winning games together. So tonight’s a good step.

The Lineup:

Let’s cut to the chase: that was brutal. Republic crashed out of the playoffs after one of their worst penalty shootouts in memory, Roro was sent off in the final match of his career, and once again, the team couldn’t find a single goal when it mattered most. They mustered up just a single shot on goal in 120 minutes. That is just completely unacceptable in a playoff match.

Yes, there were a few bright sides. The defense held strong for 120 minutes. Vitiello continues to be a fantastic goalkeeper. We’ll briefly talk about those—but none of that matters if you can’t win games.

The first issue we have before the game even starts is just by looking at the starting XI. There are so many questions here that it’s hard to figure out where to start. Why is Justin Portillo, who played just seven games this season with only four starts, starting over Nick Ross, Luis Felipe, or Ryan Spaulding? Why are both Russell Cicerone and Khori Bennett, the two top strikers on the team, on the bench? The starting XI looks more like a mid-week match than it does a home game in a single-elimination tournament.

The very real answer to this may be “injuries,” but, because of the clubs refusal to communicate, fans are completely in the dark. Cicerone last played October 4th—from what we hear, he picked up a knock, but there has been no indication how serious it is. We’ve heard no other injury news regarding the rest of the players not chosen to start. But regardless of the potential injuries, this starting XI should have been good enough to win this game. Even then, the typical starters that came off the bench—Ross, Cicerone, Felipe, and Bennett—were given ample time on the pitch to make something happen and failed to do so. So what happened?

There are a lot of trends, both with this starting XI and the stats, that stand out as continuations of issues we’ve seen all season—but we’re not going to go into those today. We’ll have another article out later this offseason to look at this season’s tactics and trends as a whole and see if we can’t figure out what Collins and Co need to change before 2026. But for now, let’s dive into this final match of the 2025 season and see why Republic’s season came to an early close.

The Good:

Solid Defense
The biggest lone positive of the entire night was that Republic’s defense maintained what they’ve done all season—they stifled opposing offenses and nullified opposing threats. Orange County had 11 shots in 120 minutes. None of those shots were on target. Seven of the eleven shots were blocked by defensive players before they even got to goal. The other four missed the target and none of them were really even close. The Republic defense averaged a 7.42 player rating, and Lee Desmond was easily the highest-performing player of the match on either side with an 8.3. Just a totally complete defensive performance.

The Bad:

A Complete Inability to Hit the Target
The first issue that comes up is Republic’s inability to shoot on target. In 120 minutes, Republic managed just 1 shot on target out of 13 total shots. That is unacceptable for a playoff match, especially at home as the favorite. While OC similarly struggled, the majority of their shots (7 of 11) were blocked by Republic players. Republic does not have the same saving grace. Only four of Republic’s off-target shots were blocked—the other eight were simply not at the goal. Not a single shot from outside of the box required a save from the OC goalkeeper.

Ineffective Crossing
Even worse, Republic seems to have simply forgotten how to cross the ball. Only 4 of Republic’s 36 crosses found a Republic player on the end of them. To make matters worse, these were evenly spread throughout the game. So despite this being a clearly failing tactic, no attempt was made to change away from it. That’s completely bewildering. What it says is that Republic ran out of ideas.

A Failure to Generate Chances
So crossing wasn’t working, shooting from distance wasn’t work, what about playing up the middle? Well, Republic was completely ineffective there as well. With possession being basically even, how did Republic compare to Orange County in generating chances?

Republic led by a decent amount in each category, but only managed two extra shots. Orange County actually had more shots inside the box despite having eight fewer touches. Republic have been good all season at getting the ball into an attacking position, but they continue to have almost no ability to actually turn those positions into chances on goal.

The Post
As a final note, Republic hit the woodwork three times this match. This is a win if this ball is 2 inches to the right:

Sometimes the gods of soccer can be cruel—especially in Roro’s last game.

What Stood Out:

If you take just one positive out of this game, it’s this: Republic is not alone in the goal scoring woes. A growing trend in world football over the past few years has been the rise of the low-block, a tactic that sees teams focus on a deep and central defensive structure in their own third. In this tactic, teams rarely look to attack or even control the ball—the lone offensive outlet is usually one or two players up top that try to play quick counterattacks on long passes from their center backs or goalkeeper.

This tactic is typically utilized by the team that’s the underdog—and it was utilized in the first round to great effect. Over the last 10 years of USL playoffs, the total number of goals scored in the first round has never been lower than 19. This year there were just six. Only one game had more than a single goal. Four of the eight games were drawn 0-0 at the end of 90 minutes. Of the top 4 seeds, Louisville, Charleston, Tulsa, and Sacramento, only Tulsa won—and they needed extra time to do so.

Republic faced an Orange County team that utilized a sort of hybrid low-block; they didn’t sit all 11 men behind the ball, but defensively they packed the middle of their own third and were content to let Republic dribble around. Just look at how they’re stacked here in the box:

That’s six defensive players in or on the center of their own box. The wings are almost totally abandoned, and they have just two players ready to move into an attack position—the right most player and the striker off screen.

So how do you score on a low-block? Other than the opposition making a mistake, which is how Republic has scored many of their goals this season, there are really three main ways to do so. You either:

1. Shoot from distance, which becomes easier to execute because the opposition isn’t closing down the space

2. Cross the ball into the box and win it in the air, because you’re given the space to cross more accurately and you can isolate defenders in the air

3. Dribble past defenders on the wings, where you can then move towards goal from the side where the defense is not as compact

Compare those three tactics… and then look at what Republic did poorly, not just this game, but the entire season. They can’t score from range if they can’t shoot on target. They can’t score on crosses if they only have 4 successful crosses in 120 minutes. And Republic does not have the type of winger who is able to successfully dribble past defenders with any sort of regularity. Because Republic lacks the tools to beat a low-block, opposing teams have no incentive to open up their defensive positions, something that would give Sacramento other opportunities and ways to score.

Funny enough, one of Republic’s best chances of the night is immediately following the image of OC’s backline above—and it’s because Spaulding takes the ball outside, drives at goal, and then passes to into the box, one of the few times a Sacramento player is able to do so:

But Republic still can’t put the ball on target, especially when Orange County crashes their own net; there are just too many bodies in the way:

Republic’s season is over and with almost the exact same result as last season: a slow start, a hot summer, and then bounced by PK’s in the first round. Both Mark Briggs and Neill Collins utilized a defensive-heavy tactic, but the lack of goals is increasingly becoming a problem for a team that seeks to win their first trophy in over 10 years. Regularly being competitive is good and all, but fans want more than first round losses - which Republic has done 6 of the 11 times they’ve qualified for playoffs.

Republic need to retool this offseason and a major factor in their retooling must be players that give Republic a way to score goals. The club has had this problem for years; Republic has only had a player be even top 5 in the league in goals scored once - Cicerone in 2023. Even club legend Cameron Iwasa only reached top 6, albeit in back to back seasons. We’ll take a look another time over the offseason at the type of players Republic should bring in, but if the Quails go another season without an offensive overhaul, they’ll be looking at another season of mediocrity.

The Lineup:

Welcome back to Quail City Soccer’s Tactical Analysis! After work commitments kept me from getting an article out last week when Republic fell apart late against Phoenix, this week’s Republic match made my job much easier when they picked up a 2-0 win over Colorado. This match was a perfect example of a classic Republic win under Neill Collins’ system—low possession, two goals on the counter, and a clean sheet. Even better, Sacramento did this with a somewhat rotated squad, with three typical starters out. While Khori Bennett was a known absence due to the double yellow/red he picked up last week against Phoenix, the club has been fairly tight-lipped about injuries to both Sebastián Herrera (hasn’t played since September 6th) and Jared Timmer (hasn’t played since August 20th).

To make matters worse, sources have informed Quail City Soccer that Timmer will likely undergo season-ending surgery. Additionally, Parano was forced off in the 39th minute of this match, further complicating things as the Quails march towards the playoffs. Needless to say, this is not ideal. Players needed to step up and step up they did.

Djedje has stepped up into Timmer’s role at right center back, and is averaging a 6.98 over the last five games. With Cicerone being moved from the wing to the front to cover for Bennett, both Willey and Jamieson stepped into the left wing role, with Jamieson notably coming off the bench and notching a goal and an assist in just 32 minutes. And with Parano going out injured, Felipe stepped into the midfield and pushed Roro up to the right wing mid-game. Despite all these changes, both to the starting XI and mid-game, Republic looked like a cohesive unit throughout. The most noticeable tactical adjustment was just how narrow they played compared to usual; just look at Sacramento’s (left) heat map versus Colorado’s (right):

I think this is the most narrow we’ve seen Republic play all season—but Colorado is spread so wide that it works really well, especially for the counter attack sort of play we’ve come to expect.

The Good:

Collins’ Tactics On Display
This match was probably the best display of Collins tactics that we have seen all season. Republic held just 43.4% possession, had almost half the number of touches inside the opponents box, and had nearly 100 fewer passes. Despite that, they had more shots, double the xG, and won 2-0. Exactly how Sacramento want to play every week.

Vitiello’s Athletics
All that being said, this game is probably a draw if Vitiello doesn’t make two extremely strong and athletic saves. On the first one, the Colorado player takes a great touch to put a strong shot on target:

The first save is a good save from that close, especially with how much pace is on the ball; the follow up play of pushing the ball away is what really saves the goal, and Vitiello draws the foul to boot.

His second save is right at the end of the game and keeps Colorado from getting back into it:

This is one of those saves that looks simple if you’re not a goalkeeper, but reading the shot and getting down that quickly on a point blank shot, without allowing a rebound, is not easy. Sometimes, it’s not the glamorous stuff that saves a game.

Quick Counter Goals
All three times (yes, three) that Republic hit the back of the net came from periods where they didn’t hold possession. Both allowed goals came from quick counters— while they played out a bit longer than those six second goals we’ve talked about all season, the same principle applies. Look at how Republic counter in Jamieson’s goal:

Republic take possession after a missed Colorado header, Gurr makes the run all the way up from his defensive position, and Jamieson takes a lovely touch and then smashes it home to finish the sequence. It’s perfect, despite only six total touches in the entire play, and it’s exactly how Sacramento wants to catch the opposing side napping.

Things play out very similarly in Cicerone’s goal:

It’s a long counter ball over the top, a great first touch, and then Jamieson and Cicerone are off to the races. Jamieson plays a perfect one-tap ball, which is so often misplayed at the USL level, and Cicerone is just too quick for Colorado’s defenders.

Republic also hit the net earlier in the match, on a disallowed goal off a corner:

Unfortunately, Cicerone is just offside, but this is a good sign; Republic actually haven’t scored a single corner goal all season. If they can find a way to make corners work for them heading into the playoffs, they’ll be in even better shape. A Cicerone looked really good on the header; even if he’s a step offside, just having the finishing touch here is a good sign down the stretch.

The Bad:

Dangerous Play From The Back
Other than the two dangerous allowed shots that Vitiello saved that were covered above, Republic only struggled in one other place: playing out from the back. On a few occasions, dangerous and unnecessary giveaways caused the backline to be under immediate pressure that they were out of position to deal with. Look how dangerous one misplaced pass is here in the 55th minute:

Colorado is pushing far enough into Sacramento’s side that winning the ball gives them an instant chance on goal. Fortunately, the shot gets dragged wide, but this is a very different game if it’s on frame, as Vitiello was not going to be able to get to this one. It happens again late in the game too, when poor play around a throw-in to Republic’s own half causes major issues:

This is one of the saves that Vitiello had that we highlighted earlier, but he shouldn’t have had to make it. This is purely the result of tired legs and poor decisions, a recipe that has caused Republic to lose so many points late in games this season. While they come out on the better side of things here, these are the chances that can end playoff runs.

Parano Injured?
Collins was forced to make a sub late in the first half to remove Parano from the game due to injury. While the details of the injury have not been announced by the club, Parano being out for any length of time doesn’t help Republic’s injury situation. If he is out for an extended period, expect to see Roro take over on the right wing while Willey and Ross start in the midfield.

What Stood Out:

This was a confidence boosting win. The Quails played how they wanted despite injuries and rotation and beat the defending champs on their own turf. Even better, Tulsa dropped points this week to Oakland, meaning the three points here moves Republic tantalizingly closer to first in the West. Even if Republic can’t catch Tulsa, which is not entirely in their hands, they still hold on to second place by five points, enough to still be comfortable if they drop a few points down this final stretch.

Republic has six games remaining, and their “magic number” to clinch a playoff spot now sits at seven. The magic number is the total number of points Republic need to go their way to clinch—that seven points can be a combination of points Republic earns and points that the teams behind them drop. Their magic number to guarantee a second-place finish is only 14; that alone shows how tight the playoff race is behind them.

There is still work to be done and Republic can’t coast out these final six games. They’re going to need to have resilience, especially if Herrera and now Parano are going to be out injured for any length of time. But the team’s mentality is there—as Jack Gurr stated post-match:

The Lineup:

Neill Collins couldn’t have asked for a better first return back to Tampa Bay since departing as head coach of the Rowdies back in 2023. Collins left the Rowdies for English League One side Barnsley after eight years in Tampa Bay, which saw him go from player (2016-2018) straight to head coach (2018-2023), making two USL-C finals in his tenure. So it’s safe to say there is a lot of history here—Collins himself commented on it:

“A lot of people have asked me if I was looking forward to this match. And honestly, anyone who coaches knows that you only look forward to nights like this if you win.”

And win Republic did, a two-goal performance that featured really, a tale of two halves. Republic came out strong in the first half, playing a high press that dominated Tampa Bay with high pressure and ball control. The second half saw things fall off a bit—the high humidity, travel, and the looming USL Cup Semi-Final match on Wednesday had Republic transition into a low block that, while nervy at times, held firm.

Collins trotted out a Republic starting XI that was surprisingly strong, especially given the aforementioned Wednesday match. Outside of the traditional starting XI, only two changes were made—Djedje stepped into the back line for Timmer and Willey stepped into the right winger role for Parano. Djedje may be featured more often in the next few weeks; the signing of Cody Baker on loan from Seattle indicates that Timmer’s injury may have him out longer than expected.

I do want to focus on how Republic’s formation actually functioned. While the look of this match was similar to how Republic has played all season under Collins, both halves being so different really gives us a good opportunity to watch how the formation evolves in different situations. On paper, this formation looks like a 5-2-3 - but the beauty of it is that it can quickly transition to a 3-4-3 and then to a 3-2-5 in attack. Let’s look at the average positioning here to see what that means:

The average positioning shows a three at the back, and then kind of a clump in the middle—this is a virtue of both wing backs (#2 and #22) transitioning from defense to attack and back through out the game. You can also see how Ross (#19) sits a tad deeper than Roro (#8), and how both wingers (#20 and #11) are more central than a traditional winger role. Let’s look at that attack first, where you get a five at the front:

Here, you can see how both wing backs have pushed all the way up the field into attacking roles—and this means both wingers have pushed further inside, to allow the wingbacks to overlap. Often, this winger role is called either an “inverted winger” or an “inside forward.” And here is how the defense looks when the wingbacks push up:

You can clearly see how Ross drops into more of a DM position and, while we’ll discuss more of Roro’s role later, you can see him playing as a CM in a role often called a “pivot.” This is also where Republic can play in a 3-4-3 - the two wingbacks simply drop into the midfield to help collect passes from the defensive line when needed.

Now, let’s compare that to what Republic does when they’re on the defense:

Both wingbacks drop all the way back to have five at the back while both Roro (CM) and Ross (DM) drop in to form the second line of defense. An interesting thing we saw with Willey this match was that he often dropped in to the midfield from the winger position when Republic was under pressure—leading to a 5-3-2 formation.

The flexibility of this formation can’t be understated. The downside is that it needs wingbacks who are able to sprint the entire length of the field for the full 90, and midfielders who can link the defense and the attack—fortunately, Republic has both.

The Good:

Dominant 1st Half
Republic completely dominated the first half of the game. Here’s some quick-fire first half stats: 57% possession, 4 shots, only 2 shots allowed, 63 more passes than TB, and 58% of duels won. Just purely on a numbers bases, Republic controlled the half. Tampa Bay didn’t even get a shot off until the 41st minute—and neither shot they had in the half were on target. And Republic did that by playing their usual high press. Look how pressed up they are in the 23rd minute:

Playing a high press while having more possession is something we haven’t really seen out of Republic this season and it clearly worked.

Bend-but-don’t-break 2nd half
The second half was a different story, tactically. With Roro being subbed out at half for Parano, who then swapped positions with Willey, Republic seemed content to try and keep their legs as fresh as possible for Wednesday. The press completely drops off; look how far off the ball the defense is here:

Despite the pressure from the Rowdies, the humidity, and the tired legs, the defense held strong and Republic was able to implement a legitimate counter attacking threat—which they were unable to do when they played a low block against Loudoun and El Paso. This run by Cicerone is exactly the type of play you want when you’re in a low block:

It’s such a shame that this goes wide, but a deep ball over the top to a speedy striker is what Republic want to see more of when they sit back. Cicerone did get his goal though, in a similar counterattack that saw both he and Herrera showing off their speed:

What a run from Cicerone after 90 minutes on the pitch in humid weather—he’s been due for a goal for a while, and the Man of the Match had this to say after his one goal/one assist performance:

“I think I've been playing really, really well for a while now, and I haven't really had the numbers, so getting a goal and assist was really nice. RoRo [Lopez] have played so much together so I knew where he was going to be, and he had a great finish. And then I saw Seba [Herrera] get in behind, and it was heavy legs late in the game, but I knew with my speed I could beat those center backs. And then in the end, it was a tap in. So it was nice.”

Make your own luck
In many ways, Republic made their own luck tonight. While they did dominate the first half, we’ve so often seen that domination result in draws or losses. Republic led the Rowdies in xG 1.22 to 0.56, but 0.95 of that xG was just from Cicerone’s goal at the end. If you take out that goal, Republic had an xG of only 0.27—meaning Tampa had over double the expected amount of goals. A big part of that is Vitiello in goal, who made one punch and four saves, one of which was considered a “big save”:

This shot alone had a higher xG than five of Republic’s seven shots. Roro’s goal had an xG of just 0.02

This season, Republic has often found themselves on the receiving end of bad luck—or at least not good luck. Sometimes, you just need to create some of your own.

Roro is the Lynch Pin
Roro really controls the offensive movement for the team. Unironically, this clip from Ted Lasso shows how Roro plays: “Play through me, not to me.” The formation is different, but the idea is the same—Roro is in the center, where he is constantly directing traffic, stringing together quick 1-2 touch passes, and then finding space to do it all again. The following clip is a great example of this, though there are several more throughout the game

He receives the first pass and then quickly releases the ball, instantly finds more space to receive a pass again, and then gets the ball forward into a dangerous position with another one touch pass—and then he keeps driving forward to find more space. We’ll talk below about what happens when he comes out (spoiler: Republic lose most of their attacking bite), but when he is in, he’s the engine in the middle of the pitch that drives the offense in possession.

The Bad:

Nervy Second Half
That second half was nervy at best; Republic found themselves consistently under pressure from the whistle and didn’t start finding an outlet until after the 70th minute. Two key things happened here: first, Roro was subbed out for Parano, who then swapped positions with Willey. This isn’t actually a bad thing—the half time sub was likely to ensure that Roro is good to go for Wednesday, and Willey has been playing at center midfield all season. But secondly, Republic then coupled that with a significant drop off in pressing, which we highlighted earlier. This gave Tampa Bay much more space on the ball and resulted in Tampa going from two shots (zero on target) in the first half to nine shots (four on target) in the second half. If the Rowdies had been able to finish better on one or two chances, they likely tie the game sometime between the 45th and 70th minute.

Now, the reasons for Republic making both of these changes are pretty clear. There is a Cup semifinal Wednesday, it was hot and humid, and Republic already had a goal in hand while on the road. It very much seems like Republic would have been content with a draw if needed. But this became a very valuable lesson in what can happen if Republic lose both the press and Roro in the midfield at the same time—they can still win games, but the tactical look has to change.

Still Struggling on Corners
For a lack of other concerns (hard to complain about much else in a 2-0 win), one thing to bring up is Sacramento’s struggles on set pieces. While I don’t have the exact numbers, I can’t remember the last time Republic actually scored from a corner—they don’t have a single one in USL league play this season. It doesn’t help that Republic is averaging only 7.41 corners a game this season, the second worst rate in the league. Against Tampa, Republic had six corners—and none of them resulted in even a shot on target.

What Stood Out:

It was a game where many expected Collins and Co to save some legs for Wednesday. While that did eventually happen in the second half, Republic instead came out firing on all cylinders and came away with a 2-0 win in a very tough place to play. To make things even better, nearly every single Western Conference result of the weekend went Sacramento’s way. We covered the best outcomes in our new Western Conference Roundup—you can find last weeks here:

So Republic get the win, mostly save their legs, and are three points closer to chasing down Tulsa in first place, where Sacramento now trails by only six points with a game in hand and six games remaining. First in the West is still very much up for grabs. But, before Republic returns to Western Conference action with their first home match in a month, they will first set their eyes on the USL Cup semifinal this Wednesday the 10th against Rhode Island. Collins has the boys in Old Glory Red set up to win it:

“...the team is really clicking right now, but we're not content. Being in the Semifinal is an extremely massive deal… these three-game weeks are hard but we have the squad, we have the depth, and we have the mentality to get out there and do it.”

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The Lineup:

The full press has made its return, after two matches of Republic playing a low block, and it came back with an emphatic victory. After a busy week of travel and three games in eight days, Republic finally had a week between matches before jetting off to New Mexico on more well-rested legs. And those well-rested legs showed out: a 2-0 win, where Republic pressed the entire game.

Collins made a few adjustments to the starting XI this week - none a bigger surprise than the start of Rayan Djedje, making his first ever league start for the club after signing this off-season. In the midfield, that 3 man rotation of Roro/Ross/Willey continued, with Roro and Ross getting the nods this evening after Willey played all 270+ minutes of the previous three game stretch. Bennett also got the nod up top, which led to his first brace for the club—and could cement his place in the starting XI.

The average positioning for the boys in Old Glory Red also went back to a much more familiar look:

That’s much more what we’re used to seeing than the low-block we saw last week. Republic is back to having 5+ players in the oppositions half, despite having less than 40% of the possession, and Kleemann is back to playing as the deepest player back, instead of the full backs dropping in deeper than they should.

The Good:

Full Press - Effective on Defense
What is so effective about Republic high press is that, when they do it right, it fuels their offense while also stabilizing their defense. The Quails completely neutralized the New Mexico attack: they had zero shots on target, only one shot total from inside the box, and were able to accumulate an xG of only 0.11. And all of this despite New Mexico holding the majority of the possession. Look at New Mexico’s attack map:

The vast majority of New Mexico’s possession is in the center and defensive thirds of the field, and all of that possession doesn’t mean anything when they can’t get the ball forward with regularity.

To see how that high press drives the defense, let’s look at an example in the 50th minute. Right before this image, Republic had pressed hard into New Mexico’s midfield, forcing them to cycle the ball back deep into their own half—and Republic pounces on this by charging up field. Any of the close options to release this pressure for New Mexico are covered up and, on the far side of the pitch, Cicerone and Roro are pressing high enough to make any attempt to switch the ball dangerous, especially in New Mexico’s own third:

Now New Mexico do eventually dribble themselves out of this. But, because most of New Mexico’s offense has had to drop back to help the backline get out of the press, they lose their ability to play a counterattack—all of Sacramento’s players can just drop back with the New Mexico player they’re marking, and the defense doesn’t get overwhelmed by numbers.

Republic received their ninth USL-Championship clean sheet tonight, now the best in the league. Games like this one, where Vitiello didn’t need to make a single save, show how important the defense is to that number.

Full Press - Effective on Offense
On the attacking end of things, how do Republic then score despite only having 39.6% of the possession? The answer is still the full press! Because they push so many numbers forward, when Sacramento does get the ball it’s much more likely to be in the opposing third of the field. Here is Sacramento’s attacking map:

Other than a decent number of touches in the central defensive third, which are largely from goal kicks and defensive clearances, Republic are mostly operating in the middle and opposing thirds of the field, with an emphasis on the wings (specifically, the right wing). In fact, despite controlling just under 40% of possession, Republic outnumbered New Mexico in touches in the opposition's box (17 to 8), passes in the final third (104 to 92), and final third entries (58 to 50).

What causes those goals is, usually, turnovers. I’ve taken to calling them “six second goals”—that is, from turnover to the ball in the net, Republic usually score within six seconds for the majority of their goals this season. Bennett’s second goal is a great example of this. Count the time from Republic gaining possession to the ball in the net:

Really, this is more like 4.5 seconds, but you can really see how the press leads to these goals. The Quails are flying around the pitch, chasing every New Mexico player in their own half, until they force a mistake. And once that mistake is made, Republic’s numbers are already right there to punish the mistake. It takes a great heads up play from Benítez to know where Bennett is, and Bennett does an excellent job anticipating the turn over and staying onside. Watch for these types of goals going forward—they’ve become a staple of the Republic offense this season.

Regularly Shooting on Target
Early in the season, Republic struggled to hit the target. They had one of the worst on-target percentages in the league, and relied on quantity over quality to try and score.

Oh my, how things have changed. About two months ago, Collins made a noticeable and deliberate shift away from quantity and moved to quality. Republic’s shot on target rate has slowly risen ever since then, but tonight was a perfect example of where Collins wants that number to be. As a team, Republic had six of nine shots on target—of the three shots that weren’t on target, two of them were blocked by the New Mexico defense. This is a trend that Republic will want to see continue down the home stretch here, but they’ll have to watch out for not letting perfect be the enemy of good—if the number of shots drops too far, they risk playing things too safe.

Speaking of taking risks, look at that goal from distance by Bennett:

I have no idea why New Mexico gives him so much space here, but this is a wonderful goal, even if it takes a little deflection. Bennett alone accounted for five shots, four of which were on target. On scoring his first brace for the club, Bennett had this to say:

“It feels fantastic. Every time I play I try to give 100%, so I'm just happy to get my first brace with the club tonight. And even happier that it helped us come home with three points.”

Next Man Up
Rayan Djedje’s first league start was a great look at Republic’s offseason signing and what he can contribute down the stretch. Djedje scored himself a 6.7 player rating, and didn’t look out of place in a backline that’s been by far the best in the league. A few other players who haven’t seen as many minutes as of late, such as Chibi, Felipe, and Spaulding, came off the bench to help see out the clean sheet. Collins had this to say about the guys coming in with few minutes:

“Credit to Rayan… He's put himself in a position to put in a great performance tonight by the way he's trained and his attitude. Like I've said to him and Chibi, they've been unfortunate at times not to play more, it has just come down to the other guys that have been playing so well... But the team's with the ‘next man up’ mentality are going to be the ones that have the most success because I don't think I can play only 11 guys between now and the end of the season, especially when you've got a Cup Semifinal to look forward to.”

With performances like tonight, don’t be surprised to see Djedje slotting into the backline more often, especially when Sacramento needs to rotate and keep legs fresh.

The Bad:

Overall… Almost nothing?
Republic did nearly everything correct this match. There’s a few minor things you could nitpick—the subs didn’t perform great (averaged a 6.4 rating), Republic continues to struggle to generate shots directly off of corners (0 shots on 5 corners), and yellow cards (4 of them) could be a concern as yellow card accumulation starts adding up, but those are all inconsequential in a match that Republic largely dominated. Sacramento just did everything right.

What Stood Out:

This was a great pick-me-up after an exhausting week the week prior, and really shows how great Sacramento can play when they’re better rested, even when on the road. Bennett commented on the team bouncing back after last week:

“It says a lot about the character of this group. We were very disappointed to come off of a long stretch of games with a loss, but the reaction was fantastic from every single player. We stuck together today, executed our game plan, and came up with three points. So very, very happy and very thankful.”

And they’ll have to keep the momentum going, as the club returns back to the east coast to play in Tampa Bay next week, in what will be another busy travel week: four days after playing the Rowdies in Florida, Republic will be playing in the USL Cup Semi-final in Rhode Island, a match that will almost certainly take priority. Then, they’ll fly the 2,550 miles back home to host Phoenix in a Western Conference showdown.

The Rowdies aren’t in good shape, sitting at 10th in the East with only 21 points on the season—that makes them worse off than every Western Conference team. But, it could be a trickier match-up than it looks on paper, especially with the expected player rotation, as Collins tries to keep legs fresh for the semi-final match up.

For now though, Neill Collins and Co will use this win as a jumping off point:

“I can't underestimate how much [a win] helps. Next week you get on that plane eager to play. Whereas, if you have back to back difficult results, it can be a little bit of trepidation, although we'd handle it just the same. But this definitely makes it easier, the important thing is that we keep this level of performance and continue to build on it.”

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The Lineup:

It was a night where Republic struggled to get much of anything going against an El Paso side that is now equal to Sacramento in the standings. Republic came into the night fresh off over 4,000 miles of flying during the week—from Sacramento to D.C. and then on to El Paso. Account for the hard fought derby against Oakland, and the match against Loudoun, both of which required the use of all of Republic’s starters, and you get an exhausting week that required Collins to dig deep into his depth chart.

And dig in he did. It’s 20 games in to the regular season, and Jamieson, Chibi, and Spaulding each made just their sixth league start. Also present in the starting XI was Edwards, who made just his second start for the club in the league play. In fact, over the three games last week, only Willey, Kleemann, and Desmond started all three. The trio also played every minute of each match, a significant testament to their fitness.

This left Republic with a starting XI that was not just tired but incohesive. All things considered, only losing this game 1-0 (and having a few chances to equalize) is something of a feat in and of itself. Collins was clearly aware of the tired legs and had the team set up in a very deep low block, similar to what we saw midweek at Loudoun. Here is a look at the average positioning for the starting XI:

Now compare that to the average position of the starting XI in the last 2 league games against Monterey Bay (left) and Oakland (right):

The difference here is fairly clear: against Monterey and Oakland, Republic had seven and five players (respectively) averaging positions in the opposition’s half. Against El Paso, that number dropped to just *two*—and neither of those players were positioned very far forward. Also, take a look at the backline: usually, Kleemann (6) is playing as the furthest back player, anchoring the defensive line, with the RCB and LCB each playing slightly further forward. Not so against El Paso, where both outside centerbacks had to step further back and in to defend deeper on the outside of the pitch. We’ll take a look below at how the subs changed the game, but Sacramento clearly came into this game looking to get a single point on the road.

The Good:

Good Subs and Jack Gurr Changing Games
I have to shout out Collins for his game management in this game. Dealing with tired legs and being forced to heavily rotate the squad, he nearly perfectly managed the substitutes mid-game. Sacramento had four starters with a player rating of 6.5 or lower—and Collins subbed all of them off. A 6.5 rating is bang on average; any lower, and the player is more detrimental to the team than the average player. With the exception of subbing Benítez (6.5 rating) on for Spaulding (6.7 rating), every single sub outperformed the starter they replaced. The one thing I think you can critique here is that Herrera probably needed to come off for Bennett much earlier than the 74th minute, especially given that he was the second-worst player on the pitch. But, I can see the logic in keeping him on to see what he could do with Gurr and Cicerone coming onto the pitch.

Speaking of Jack Gurr, the team shift from him on the bench in the first half to him on the pitch in the second half is incredible. Gurr literally changes games. Not only was he Republic’s third-best player on the night, trailing only Vitiello and Desmond, but he had the most “accurate crosses” of anyone in the match while he also had fifth most touches of any Republic player, created a chance on goal, and had a shot—all despite only playing one half. This shot by him was the closest Sacramento got to goal:

And look at how Republic’s average positioning above differs to how they look after the subs come on:

They go from two players in El Paso’s half to five, and this is a bit more like what we’ve seen throughout the season. It helps, of course, that Republic was chasing the game at this point, but they also did this while not allowing another goal. Collins made all the right moves to try and salvage this game, and it’s a real shame they didn’t pay off.

Won the Duel Battle
Republic won the duel battle in the air and on the ground—which is exactly what Republic relies on when they play their normal high press. As we discussed earlier, Republic didn’t utilize that press today, but they still won 56% of all 50/50 balls. That’s a positive to take away from a game with few of them; if they can continue to win more than 50% of duels, they’ll be in a great position when Collins has the team reimplement the high press.

Vitiello Made it a Close Game
The 1-0 score line doesn’t reflect just how much El Paso peppered the goal. El Paso had more shots on target (7) than Republic had total shots (5), and Vitiello is the only reason Republic had a fighting chance to get back into the match. Vitiello had six total saves, three of which were from shots inside the box, and had one punch. Through league play this season, Vitiello hasn’t allowed a single goal that came from a shot outside of the box, in impressive feat that forces opposing sides to move in on goal before shooting. And inside the box, he’s just as good. This save in the 40th minute to keep things equal is a “Save of the Week” candidate:

What makes this save elite is not the reaction time to get to the ball as it goes the opposite way across goal—instead, it’s where he’s able to push the ball away to. There is an El Paso attacker on the back post just waiting to poach this goal if Vitiello merely pushes this to the side.

The Bad:

Low Block = No Offense
Republic, for all intents and purposes, had no meaningful offense. Sure, there were two to three small chances in there, but Republic only managed one shot on target—and it was a lofted ball that was easily caught by the El Paso keeper. That one shot on target, which was Sacramento’s only shot of the entire first half, came in the 22nd minute and Republic wouldn’t get another shot at all until the 58th minute. It wasn’t until the subs came on a half time and then again in the 65th minute that Republic was finally able to move forward— even then, despite 55% possession in the second half, Republic only managed four shots total in the second half to El Paso’s nine.

The Forwards Have Gone Cold
So why did Republic struggle to get any shots off? Well, the strikers at the very front of the attack have gone complete cold. Since scoring a goal and getting an assist against El Paso a month ago, Herrera has started six of seven games. In that time, he’s averaged a player rating of 6.7 and has produced 0 goal contributions. Bennett has only been a marginal improvement—he’s also averaging a 6.7, but at least has goal to his name despite only starting one of those seven matches. Yet, in this one month time span, Republic scored 11 goals. Both Bennett and Herrera have had off-ball influences in some of those goals, a contribution that is hard to put to a stat, but regardless you would expect at least one of your forwards at the tip of the spear to be able to find the net.

So why was was that a problem tonight, when it hasn’t been an issue over the last month? Well, for the last month, Republic has been playing that high press. Who scores the goals in a high press is more often who the ball falls to when it’s won rather than a result of forward attacking play. Often, this ends up being the wingers or the midfielders who pick up the ball after Herrera or Bennett apply the pressure. But the issue in this match (and against Loudoun) is that Republic has played a low block—which requires the forwards up top to be an outlet instead of a press.

But neither striker was able to be that offensive outlet. Herrera had just 14 touches in 76 minutes and Bennett had just 3 touches in 24 minutes. That’s a single touch roughly every five minutes and eight minutes, respectively. That may work when you’re playing high press, where a single touch can be used to lay off a pass to another player, but that does not work when the striker needs to be the outlet that can take the ball and drive at the opposing defense.

A Lack of Depth
Outside of Republic’s starting XI, the club is struggling for quality. The only place the team seems to have decent depth is in the midfield. The combination of Ross/Willey/Roro has been so good that Felipe, who struggled early in the season, hasn’t started since June 26th. Republic also has Justin Portillo, who has played only 83 minutes this season and hasn’t touched the field since June 7th. Things are also solid at goalkeeper with not only a USL-Championship leading goalkeeper in Vitiello but also one of the best backups in the league in Jared Mazzola. But this game clearly showed the gaps in quality both defensively and on the attacking front.

At the back, Republic have three very strong defenders in Kleemann, Desmond, and Timmer. But, outside of those three, the remaining options are Chibi, Djedje, and Wanner. Wanner and Chibi are averaging performances around 6.7 which is not *bad,* but is a strong step down from the three starters. And Djedje has just 52 minutes played this season and hasn’t been on the pitch since April 19th. Chibi in particular struggled quite a bit in this match. Look at the set up El Paso gets in the 22nd minute, and where he’s lined up:

He seems to stack with Kleemann on top of the same El Paso striker as the defensive line drops back, and then never checks over his back shoulder for any other players until it’s too late. Vitiello comes up with a great save on the shot this leads to, but this is poor situational awareness. Chibi is young though, and has shown signs of being a great player—this should be a learning moment for him.

In the attack, where I’m including wing-backs, Edwards, Spaulding, and Jamieson have struggled to provide adequate performances to supplement Gurr, Benítez, and Roro. Edwards and Spaulding are both averaging just 6.60 player ratings, and have just one goal and zero assists between the two of them despite a combined 808 minutes on the pitch. Jamieson is fairing a bit better, with two goals in 476 minutes, and is returning from injury, but outside of the two Las Vegas games, his performance has only been rated at 6.55. The high quality play that Republic needs when it rotates is just not there.

I will say that usually this lack of quality is not a problem—Republic have just lost for the first time in nine matches and are in second place in the West. But as the minutes rack up throughout the season, Collins is going to need to rotate players in and out to keep the starters healthy and fresh for the playoffs, and the depth players need to step up if Republic want to keep their momentum going.

What Stood Out:

Yeah, this one kind of stunk. Short rest, a lack of quality in depth, and no offensive outlet really set up Sacramento to struggle in this game. It doesn’t help that the road (literally) doesn’t get any easier for Republic over the next few weeks—an away game in New Mexico followed by a cross country trip to Florida is a *lot* of travel back to back. Add in the semi-final USL Cup game in Rhode Island just four days after being in Tampa Bay and the hits keep coming.

To put how insane the travel is in USL in context, Premier League side Liverpool FC traveled a total of ~13,350 miles over the *entire 2024/2025 season* for away games—that’s for Premier League and UEFA Champions League games. Similarly, Manchester City traveled ~14,400 miles, while Arsenal traveled ~11,700 miles. Now let’s compare that to just this road stint that Republic is in the middle of. To travel to Loudoun, El Paso, New Mexico, Tampa Bay, and Rhode Island, Republic will travel just over 13,000 miles—and that’s just over a time period of around four weeks! It’s easy to forget just how rough travel is for American sports compared to their European counterparts.

Given all the travel, and looking ahead, it’s likely that Republic would be content with a draw at New Mexico, a draw while utilizing a second string squad against Tampa Bay, and then starting everyone against Rhode Island to try and make the USL Cup Final. Not ideal perhaps, especially, given the current state of the table, but picking up the points where they can and avoiding injury during this road stretch at the end of summer is key to setting up a good run when they return back to the West Coast on September 13th.

The Lineup:

It was a week that could have gone better. It was also a week that could have gone much, much worse. On one hand, a point in a derby game in front of a sell out crowd followed by a road win on short rest in a quarterfinal is a decent, but not great, week. On the other hand, dropping 2 points at home to one of the worst teams in the league before then getting extremely lucky in not allowing a goal in a knockout game is not exactly ideal.

But, I think any Republic fan can agree, you really have to give the boys credit for the amount of heart they displayed this week. There are certainly some worrying tactical numbers that we’ll look at in a bit here, but as we do, keep in mind that this is a club that has not lost since June. One of the biggest factors in this run has been the consistency in the starting XI. Collins has found his favored line-up and, outside of the occasional swap of the duos of Ross/Roro and Bennett/Herrera, he’s utilized it nearly every game.

Republic’s high intensity press that transforms into quick counter-attacks has resulted in an increase in goals and a more solid backline over the last 6 weeks. But some of that fell apart this week; namely, a lack of defense in one game and a lack of offense in the other. Still, Republic bent but didn’t break - let’s look at why.

The Good:

The Undefeated Streak Continues
Republic are now undefeated in their last 8 matches, picking up 6 wins. In those 8 games, they’re averaging around 47% possession; in halves that they have scored, they’re averaging just 45.5%. They outscored their opponents 13 to 4, won 3 of 4 games on the road, and, incredibly, only trailed their opponents for a total of 7 out of 720+ minutes. This streak has just been completely dominant, and the club is firing on all cylinders.

Blake Willey
The emergence of Blake Willey has been a sight to behold, and has given Republic a teenage player who is an absolute engine. Against Loudoun, Willey led the team in completed passes in the final third with 15, led the teams in xG, and was second on the team in chances created - statistically, Willey essentially organized and led the team's offense despite playing in the middle of the pitch. On top of that, he was the 4th most accurate passer on the field.

Even more impressive, Blake did this while being the only non-defender to play all 90 minutes of both of this week’s matches. And it wasn’t just on the offensive side. On defense, he had 4 clearances and a blocked shot! Look at how he (closest Republic player to the camera) tracks all the way back here, despite it being the 82nd minute:

This is why he’s the only non-defender to play all 180 minutes this week. The kid is an engine in the midfield, which perfectly fits what Republic needs.

The Goals are Coming
While Republic couldn’t get anything going against Loudoun (we’ll discuss that later), the goals have otherwise been pouring in. In their last 6 league matches, Republic is averaging 2 goals a game, while they’re only allowing 0.66 goals a match against. And that includes the Oakland match. Republic’s defense comes as no surprise - they’ve been the best in the league all season - but the offensive numbers improving is why the wins are starting to come through where they couldn’t be found earlier in the season.

One of the biggest reasons for the increase in scoring is how heavily Republic has leaned into the high press. Watch this goal from the Oakland match:

Republic presses all the way forward, forcing Oakland into the corner, and then Oakland doesn’t have an outlet, on either the throw or the clearance. From turn over to goal, it’s 6 seconds. The third goal is very similar; it’s a midfield turn over, and from turn over to goal, it’s 9 seconds:

Cicerone hitting a wonderful strike helps, obviously, but he has the space to do so because the high press allows Sacramento to counter hard whenever they win the ball back. The only down side of a high press is that it is exhausting; and you could see that when Republic played Loudoun, and settled to play for a low-block instead of a high press.

Heart and Grit Under Fire
During the Loudoun game, Republic played nearly the entire second half on the backfoot, and this was by design. With tired heavy legs, Republic needed a way to outlast Loudoun’s offense. Jared Mazzola commented on the low block after the game:

“They were [a] really good side, and at times we had to sit back in a low block and defend deep, but we were able to get the job done because we're just resilient.”

Look at how far back Republic are sitting in just the 60th minute:

Yes, that is Cicerone, playing as a striker, sitting that far into his own half - and that should illustrate just how deep Republic played this. The backline is almost in the goal box. In a normal game, I’d say this was a tactical misstep, but given the travel, heat, humidity, and short turn around, I think Collins adjusted the team to exactly what was needed.

Republic weathered 23 total shots, and Mazzola was called on to make 6 saves - not including the play where he won the ball by charging out of his box. This is high risk goalkeeping, but it needed to be done and Jared gets just enough on this to avoid a foul and a red card:

Loudoun had 56% of the possession, over double the xG, and 17 more passes in the final third. The Republic defense put their bodies on the line, blocking 11 shots. And all of this after a grueling 3-3 derby just 4 days prior, before flying 2,300 miles to Washington, DC to play on a turf field in a quarterfinal. And yet, while the defense certainly bent, it refused to break. This team has grit, something Mazzola also commented on after the game:

“It's really kind of a mentality thing that the coaching staff has helped instill in us… these tough, gritty games, it's all about just doing your job. That's it - working for the man next to you, even if you're tired, keeping to run, setting the press, knowing when to go, recognizing the triggers and just doing everything the right way.”

The Bad:

Defensive Lapses At the End of Games
Republic just can NOT seem to close out close games or halves with regularity. Oakland scored at the end of both halves, and both times Republic just seemed to be turned off. Let’s look at the goal at the end of the first half:

First of all, no one presses. The whole team is sat back, waiting for the half to be over. Then, when the ball does come in, there are 3 Republic players who could make a play on this who are just caught ball watching. Kleemann does eventually press in, and the Oakland’s Wilson does put a great finish on it, but he shouldn’t even be in a position to do so. Now look at the goal at the end of the game:

Oakland’s Damm basically gets a completely free header. This isn’t some wonder-goal; he just out positions and out jumps everyone near him. Not a single Republic player really even challenges him for the ball. It’s either lazy defending or bad tactics during the set up when the defense is man marking.

Republic have now given up 8 goals in the final 5 minutes of either the first or second half - that’s half of the goals they’ve allowed this season. Republic’s defense has been incredible all season, but allowing goals at these crucial moments could become a real problem come playoffs.

Struggling to Shoot
13. That’s how many total shots Republic had in both games combined. While scoring 3 goals on 5 shots against Oakland is impressive, that is a performance that can’t be relied on. Republic has gone back and forth this season with how often they shoot; through the first 5 games, they had the most shots in the entire league. But, that resulted in an abysmal conversion rate and Collins had the club pull back a bit, favoring quality over quantity of shots. One thing Republic needs to be careful of though is letting that number get too low. It’s not a cause for concern yet, especially as the goals keep coming, but it is something to keep an eye on heading into the dog days of summer.

What Stood Out:

Overall, not a bad week. Yes, dropping 2 points to an Oakland squad that is second worst in the West at home stings, but derby games just have a different sort of bite to them, don’t they? Republic hosting away fans doesn’t happen very often, but it does make things a lot of fun. Big shout-out to the Oakland fans that made the trip from the Bay.

Republic also advances in the Jägermeister Cup, a gritty mid-week win after flying 2,340 miles to get there. Unfortunately, they drew Rhode Island away for the semi-final, where they’ll have to fly 2,615 miles. Hopefully, they can host the final to avoid another day of travel.

Looking forward, the next stretch for Sacramento is going to be a difficult one. The next home game isn’t until September 13th. The next two matches in particular are big ones – games at fourth place El Paso and sixth place New Mexico. Both clubs are looking for home revenge after losing to Republic in Sacramento earlier this season, and both teams equally need wins to cement their playoff positions. Even a single point off of each team, especially on the road, could give Republic some breathing room in the table down the stretch.

The Lineup:

A fiery match-up in the Lone Star State really had it all: a weather delay, a physical game with multiple cards, a questionable referee performance, and arguably one of Republic’s best tactical wins of the season made for one hell of a Saturday night match up. The big story in this match, in my opinion, is the shift Sacramento made after halftime—one of the first really, really good halftime adjustments we’ve seen Collins make this season.

Neill Collins’ sent out nearly the same starting XI as he did last week against Spokane, with the only change being Willey coming in for Roro. Sacramento’s look remains a 3-5-2, and thrives off of a high press without holding on to the ball. Look at the average positioning for tonight:

That’s a really interesting look. Republic is playing a really high backline, with Desmond (4), Kleemann (6), and Timmer (5) staying up-field as much as possible. At the same time, Republic’s attacking three are almost level with the midfield, with even Gurr (2) at right wing-back regularly playing further up than every forward other than Parano. This match was definitely a slog through the midfield, but a huge part of this is Republic letting San Antonio control the ball outside of the Republic’s third of the pitch. San Antonio controlled 63% of the possession, yet only had 11 touches in Republic’s box compared to Republic’s 21 touches in San Antonio's box. So how did that midfield slog lead to a 3-1 Republic win? Let’s take a closer look…

The Good:

Sacramento Played Their Game

First, Sacramento is so good when they are able to play the game they want to play. But what is that game? Well, I’ve hammered home the possession point all season, but the reason that Sacramento thrives when they don’t control the ball is because of what they do off the ball. If you look back above at the average positioning, Republic essentially “trap” San Antonio in their half of the field. They press high, which, ideally, forces the opposition to play long balls in the air over the top, and… is exactly where Sacramento excels. They’ve won 56% of all aerial duels this season, which is good for second in the entire USL Championship. Tonight, they won just over 68% of all aerial duels in the second half alone. We talked about this earlier this season too—just look at the quarter season analysis:

On the opposite side of things, one of the reasons Republic’s defense is so good this season is that they just don’t let the opposition anywhere near their goal. Of the 758 total passes in this match, only 167 passes (22%) were attempted in Sacramento’s third of the pitch. That’s for both teams. So even when Republic have control of the ball, they very quickly move it to the other two-thirds of the pitch. That’s why you see the defense’s average positioning so high up the field; the focus is to move the ball forward as quickly as possible and then play high up the pitch.

Half Time Changes

The big story in this match is Collins halftime adjustments. While there were no subs made, Republic went from a fairly nervy ending to the first half, to completely dominating the second half. Let’s compare some numbers:

Republic really just started forcing the issue in the midfield much more firmly in the second half. They get a slight uptick in possession, but most of that possession is a result of a much more aggressive press up top and in the midfield. 15 minutes into the match, Republic sat back into the midfield more than they pressed up:

This is on a goal kick, and it allows SAFC to play the ball from the back on the ground. 20 minutes later, San Antonio’s lone goal comes from a lack of press as well (we’ll look at that later). Compare that to how high Republic press in the second half:

This is also on a goal kick, but this time Republic are pushed way up. SAFC opt to go for a long kick instead of playing it short, and Republic win the aerial duel, which quickly turns into a chance at goal for the Quails.

Both coaches saw this change too. Republic Head Coach Neill Collins had this to say:

“We gave a couple of chances, which we don’t really like to do, but at halftime we knew that we were well in the game. We felt that we just needed a couple of little tweaks to go out and implement the things we worked on, and the players could not have done that any better.”1

And those tweaks were masterfully made and then carried out. On the other side of things, San Antonio Head Coach Carlos Llamosa said this post match:

“What we saw out there, we went from a good first half to a terrible second half,” said Llamosa. “I don’t know why we changed so much. I don’t think Sacramento changed. They kept the same formation. They kept pressing the same way with a 5-2-3 formation…”2

Now, we have the benefit of not being interviewed immediately post match, but in the chess match of tactics, a lot can be said when the winning coach comments on what he changed, and the coach on the losing side says he didn’t see a change at all.

Goals Goals Goals!

The other big positive this match was watching the scoring boots come to life. Desmond and Bennett both netted their first goals of the season (Bennett’s being his first for the club), and Parano put the game away with his finish in stoppage time. Republic has now outscored their opponents 9-1 in the last 5 matches, and brought their goal difference up to +12, good for third in the USL-C. What was fun was how these goals were scored, because we had three different looks. First, Lee scores off of a perfect set piece ball from Gurr:

It’s just a fantastic ball into the box and then a great header. Gurr has been putting perfect crosses in with regularity all season; Sacramento having someone get a head on the receiving end is a great development.

Then, Bennett opens his tally with Republic with a top-class chip of the keeper:

This does come off of a SAFC defensive mistake, but the control and then chip are excellent work. And, despite the defensive miscue, Bennett is able to so easily get to the ball because he has timed this run perfectly through the back line.

And finally, Parano puts the game away after a great read by Roro:

This goal comes about because of Republic’s high press, which allows for both Roro and Parano to be in a perfect position to act on the ball after Sacramento’s midfield wins it. It’s the ideal goal for Collin’s system: an aerial duel wins possession back, while a high press immediately punishes the opposition for losing the ball.

The Bad:

Defensive Lapses

Republic’s defense is good, but they still do need to watch the occasional defensive lapses that have hurt them throughout the season. One thing that Republic struggles with is when they allow goals as a result of mental slips. We’ve spoken before on how Republic has allowed late goals that have cost them valuable points multiple times this season; in my mind, allowing a goal 73 seconds after you score one of your own is in the same ballpark of errors. Republic just don’t press to win the ball nearly at all:

No one presses the SAFC backline, and then no one challenges for the ball in the air, then no one follows the runner off the ball… and then it’s just off to the races for the goal. It’s purely the result of a loss of composure during big moments, and it’s these types of goals that need to be cleaned up before playoffs.

What Stood Out:

Other than one defensive breakdown, this was a really complete match for the Quails. They came out with a game plan, made the half time adjustments they needed, and won on the road and with a weather delay against one of the best teams in the Western Conference. The win puts them tied with San Antonio in points for second, but well above them in goal difference and head to head. After a slow start, Republic have crawled their way back into contention for the Western Conference title, trailing only Tulsa.

I’d be remiss to not shout out John Morrissey’s USL Tactics article this week, where he gave Republic some love; he beat me to the punch on some of these tactics by about a day, and his article is very much worth the read:

USL Tactics

The Back Four: Feelin' 22

Welcome in to The Back Four…

Read more

9 months ago

Republic return home from a two week road trip this coming Saturday to host Monterey Bay, a team reeling after losing four of their last five matches. To make things worse for MBFC, they’ll also be coming off a midweek match against first place FC Tulsa, which should give Republic an advantage on what should be a warm Sacramento night. Sacramento shouldn’t be happy unless they win all three points.

The Lineup:

A draw in football can often feel like either a win or a loss instead. While they count the same, a last gasp goal to equalize on the road feels very different than a controlling 0-0 draw at home against lesser opposition. And this match was a great example of the latter: despite being up a man for 62 minutes at home, Republic walked away with only a point in a night that can only be described as frustrating.

For the lineup, Collins has firmly cemented his backline and midfield. The only change tonight came with the return to the starting XI of Jack Gurr, whom AJ Edwards had been covering for the last 2 matches or so. And it’s really been working; Sacramento has only conceded a single goal in the last 5 matches.

Up top is going to get interesting with the signing of Khori Bennett. While he was not included in the 18 this week, it’s doubtful that Republic signed Bennett to play as purely a bench player. When Las Vegas sold Bennett to Al-Nasr SC, it was a club record sale. He scored 15 goals in the final 24 matches of the 2024 season; last season, Republic’s top goal scorer Kieran Phillips scored just 12 goals in 28 matches. The real question will be who he will replace in the starting XI. This match, like the last few matches, saw Herrera play as a forward striker, while Cicerone played on the left wing and Roro on the right wing. Cicerone and Herrera both have just 4 goals in 14 appearances this season; Roro has just 1 goal in 12 appearances, but is the superior chance creator this season to Cicerone and Herrera. If I had to guess, Bennett probably steps into Herrera’s spot, giving a front 3 of Cicerone, Roro, and Bennett. For tonight though, the goals were completely lacking.

The Good:

Well, on the bright side, Republic created a lot of chances. 20 shots is really positive. Additionally, the backline held firm, and every single starter except Herrera received a match rating of over 7.0. The finishing touch just wasn’t there tonight. There were a few good individual efforts; this run and shot by Cicerone is fantastic:

It’s just really unlucky to be saved. A few weeks ago, I commented how, contrary to Dunivant’s thoughts, Sacramento really hasn’t been unlucky:

Tonight, Republic actually was unlucky. They had an xG of 1.68 to Lexington’s 0.88. And even though they had only 6 shots on target, several point blank shots were blocked by last minute defending from Lexington. 9 times out of 10, Republic win this game.

There isn’t really too much else to break down here; the club played well, but are still missing the final pieces to score goals when they dominate possession. You also have to hand it to Lexington’s goalkeeper, Thompson, who made 5 saves. Overall, the match was a positive showing, but the numbers are a bit inflated from playing against 10 men for most of the match. I wish I had more to break down here, but there just isn’t anything new to look at in a 0-0 match.

The Bad:

On the Reddit match thread, one user commented:

“Predicting a Quail City article this week about how playing up a man is a disadvantage. Too much possession!” - u/UpTheSacTown

And the thing is.. that user is completely correct. Republic’s issues all season have revolved around breaking down opposing teams that sit in a low block and let Republic have the ball. What we saw in this match is just how bad that can be. An early red card is, paradoxically, a net negative for Sacramento right now. It causes the opposition to sit back and put all 10 men behind the ball, and Republic doesn’t have the tools to deal with that. Naturally, Republic’s 60% possession led to nothing.

Let’s look at it this way: Republic has played 133 minutes this season against teams reduced to 10 men due to red cards. They’ve scored just 2 goals in that time, good for a goal every 66.5 minutes. However, one of those goals wasn’t a result of the opposition having 10 men: it was a PK that also resulted in the red card. So when Sacramento are playing against 10 men on the field, they are averaging just one goal every 133 minutes. That’s terrible, especially when you consider that they are averaging one goal every 65 minutes of play otherwise. They actually score roughly half as often when the opposition goes down a man.

Now, the tools to fix this ARE coming. New signing Khori Bennett was at the match but unavailable, presumably due to the wait for either a visa or federation approval. Sacramento’s front office hopes that Bennett can be the one to break games like this open; he has the tactical and physical skill-set to be a target man in the box for all the crosses Collins’ likes to have come in from the wings. Republic was only 8 for 37 on crosses in this match, and even though Republic has been one of the more successful teams this season in cross completion, that’s resulted in only 3 headed goals. If Bennett can provide goals like he did here:

or here:

or here:

Then all of those crosses will finally have a way to find the back of the net.

What Stood Out:

This match was frustrating, yes. The one disallowed goal really shouldn’t have been - but Republic also should have put together more chances while being up a man for 62 minutes. This performance can’t be blamed on the officiating. It’s also hard to be too harsh on the team though. The Front Office has identified a need that we here at Quail City Soccer have been calling for for some time: a tall, physical striker who can put away the chances Republic is good at generating. Assume that it will take some time for Bennett to integrate with the squad, though. He could come off the bench this weekend in Spokane, but it also could be a few weeks before he is consistently contributing.

This next week will be an interesting challenge for the Quails; in the final match day of the USL Cup, and Sacramento has to not just win against 3rd division Spokane, but they need to win by the same amount of goals or more against Spokane than Monterey score against AV Alta to advance.

The Lineup:

Don’t call it a comeback! Republic are now fourth in the Western Conference after a really rocky start, and are only four points off the top with a game or two in hand. While the Player’s Shield is probably out of reach at this point, barring a second-half collapse of both Louisville and Charleston, Republic is squarely in the hunt for that coveted number one seed in the West. Funny how things can change in just a few weeks.

In the last three league games, Republic has outscored their opponents 7-0 while holding an average possession of just 43%. Remember that Sacramento wins ~58% of possible points when they have less than 50% possession, but only ~33% of possible points when they control the ball. A big part of this win streak and consistency is that Collins has seemingly found his core starting XI:

There has been occasional changes to this, such as Parano getting the nod on the wing and bumping Cicerone up to the top position, but this has basically become Collins’ go to look. The only difference this match was the absence of Gurr due to a previous head injury, though he did sub in for Edwards later in the match.

And that is an XI that looks good on paper and on the pitch. Depending on which stage of transition the play is in, this 3-4-3 can shift to either a 5-2-3 when under pressure or a 3-2-5 when on the attack:

Where the wing-back’s end up on the attack depends on if they are cutting outside or inside, but you get the general idea here. Press high and then counter as soon as they win the ball. You’ll notice that Willey and Ross often stagger a bit on the attack; Ross often plays as more of a central defensive midfielder, which gives Willey the freedom to press up a bit more. Compare their heat maps from this match:

This all leads to Republic finally finding their groove on both sides of the ball. Let’s dig in a bit deeper…

The Good:

When this Collins system works, it works really well. The whole idea here is to press the opposition back into their own half, without controlling the ball. Instead, Republic relies on winning the ball off the opposition in their own half, and then quickly turning that high press into a counterattack. Look at how the first goal plays out:

It’s a bit hard to see at the beginning here, but Republic pressed hard on a potential El Paso counter attack—this let them win the ball back, and then they already had numbers forward to turn that possession win into an attack on goal, with a great finish by Herrera. It’s exactly what you want to see—and the 40% possession numbers prove it. What we are also starting to see in the last few games is that chances are actually being finished. Benítez’s banger is exactly the type of chance that Republic should be getting on target - even if they aren’t all this pretty:

He just has so much space on the ball here after his dummy step to the left, and it’s why the wing-backs are so important when Republic is on the attack. Neither player involved with this play is a forward; Willey is a midfielder and Benítez is playing that defensive role on the wing. But in this system, those wing-backs become major parts of the Republic attack—because the opposing defense struggles to mark them as they rush up field.

Oh, and the team goal that I said was missing from last week? We got that too! Herrera is wonderfully unselfish here, and the dummy shot before he dribbles forward is an incredible move:

Parano puts a great finish on it, but Herrera makes this goal happen. And when the setup is every bit as good as the goal, you know the team’s firing on all cylinders. Speaking of Herrera, he has become a physical force up top, a role that Republic was sorely lacking earlier in the season. Despite playing striker, Herrera was involved with the most 50/50 duels of any player in the match (15), and came away with the most wins (10). To put it another way, two out of every three loose balls that Herrera went for, he won possession of. That’s one of the reasons that Republic feels so comfortable when they let the opposition control possession; they’re confident that they’ll be able to win the majority of loose balls. The Quails won 68% of all aerial duels in this match.

The Bad:

On the other side of things, there isn’t a lot to say (again). El Paso had two dangerous chances and both of them came about when Republic wasn’t pressing high. Fortunately for Sacramento, Danny Vitiello is a fantastic goalkeeper. This save should probably win save of the week:

But do you see the problem? The Locomotive player just has way too much time to set this shot up. It’s a world class save, but it’s also one you don’t want Vitiello to have to make. El Paso’s only other big chance came 15 minutes later, where Republic front three backed off considerably, which allowed the opposing center back to put an easy through ball into Republic territory. But, Republic also don’t press the player that receives that ball either…

…so he’s able to easily switch the field. And then you end up with a player wide open on the right side at the end of the clip, who ultimately puts a dangerous cross in. Vitiello comes up big again here, but it’s these little moments, where the defense loses track of one player, that can result in goals. Remember that Republic only has a 1-0 lead during both of these chances; if either of these go in, it’s a whole different ball game.

The only other interesting thing of note in this section was Republic’s struggle to play wide. They were just 4 for 12 on crosses, none of which resulted in goals, and 10 for 41 in the last 3 matches—none of the 7 goals in the last 3 matches have been from headers. They do actually rank seventh in the league in crossing percentage and third in accurate crosses per match, but they only have three headed goals on the season. That’s a bit of a weird outcome, so it’s something to keep an eye on as the season progresses to see if Republic can turn more of those crossing chances into actual goals.

What Stood Out:

This is a great win though, a 3-0 that could have easily been 4-0. I’m still not sure how this didn’t go in:

But the Republic are creating a ton of chances while also keeping things clean on the defensive end of the pitch. El Paso has been sliding the last few weeks, but were still in fourth in the West before this match and are a strong team. If the Quails can keep this momentum going, they have a real shot of taking control of the Western Conference, something that no other Western team has seemed eager to do. It’s taken time, but Collins’ system is finally coming up to speed, and just in time to get USL win #100 of his career.

Republic's next match will be an interesting test; Lexington SC moved up to the Championship from League 1 this season, despite finishing ninth last year in the lower division. And yet, they haven’t lost in almost a month and sit just a point out of a playoff position in the West1. The two clubs have never played before and it’s a home match Sacramento need to win to keep this momentum going.

The Lineup:

Can we play Vegas every week? Sacramento now has just their second league win of the season when they have more than 50% possession, and both have come against the Las Vegas Lights. The Lights aren’t a terrible team, but I would certainly put them in the bottom third of the league at this point. Still, Republic has now outscored them 11-0 in all three matches this season, so what is Republic doing differently against Vegas compared to when they play nearly anyone else?

Well, to start with, let’s look at the starting XI. There are a few changes here after the 1-0 loss to Orange County. The biggest change in my view was Blake Willey returning to the starting XI for just the second time since his return from international duty with the US U-18’s. While he’s played in the midfield at other times throughout the season, this is the first game where he’s taken such a commanding role. The other big change was where Republic positioned themselves up top. Look at the average positioning of the top three, Cicerone, Parano, and Roro, last week against Orange County:

All three guys are pushed way to the right side for most of the game. Obviously this was deliberate; Collins and co. saw a weakness on that side for Orange County, and heavily attempted to exploit it. But what it also resulted in was the center and left attacking thirds of the pitch being vacant for large parts of the game. Compare that to this week at Vegas:

This is a much more even split, with an actual left wing, striker, and right wing in play.

Vegas, on the other hand, just didn’t have a way to break out of Republic’s press. The main reason Republic gives up goals when they hold the majority of possession is on the break: teams sit back, let Republic push forward, and then beat them over the top. Look at Republic’s average positioning this game:

Most of the team is averaging a positioning in the other team's half. This looks identical to games where Republic has lost. The difference here is that Vegas just doesn’t have a difference-maker up top to play the counter to—normally, that would be Johnny Rodriguez, but Republic completely shut him down on the night, and the rest of Vegas’ options couldn’t get anything going.

The Good:

Republic dominated the entire game. Not only did they hold the majority of possession, but when Vegas did get the ball, they struggled to get out of their own half. Republic consistently pushed them back. Look at their average positioning:

This lead to a clean sheet where Vegas has zero shots on target, and only nine *total* touches in Sacramento’s box—Republic had 36 touches in Vegas’ box on the other side of things. And when Vegas did try to counter over the top, Sacramento’s defense did an excellent job setting the offside trap, which caught Vegas offside five times. If Republic is going to continue to play this high press, having an effective offside line is paramount to warding off counterattacks.

One unsung hero in this game for me was Herrera. While he didn’t get on the score sheet, his physical play at the top of Republic’s attack regularly disrupted Vegas’ lines. Look at this moment early in the game, and watch Herrera (#9) in the middle of the box:

He runs at the center back and bodies him out of the play. This clears Benítez to shoot straight on goal instead of having a body in front; it also completely opens up Cicerone in the middle of the box, which Benítez doesn’t see. But the space is entirely created by Herrera and that isn’t something that shows up on the stat line.

You see more of that physicality in Edwards’ first goal in Old Glory Red:

This whole sequence is just... bizarre. Only one Vegas player attempts to close down Edwards, while the other two stand in no man's land, and on the back post Cicerone and Herrera are both completely winning the physical battle against each of their opposing defenders. I’m not sure if Edwards meant to cross or shoot here, but the Vegas keeper getting beat on his near post at that angle is something you don’t see often at the professional level.

Republic’s last goal was a great look from three players. First, you have a great through ball by Willey to net him his first professional assist—and to take the record for the youngest assist in Republic history. The vision here to split the defender and midfielder is fantastic:

Then Cicerone beats both men on him and has a fantastic finish under pressure. One other detail to note is Herrera’s run through the box; he drags a defender with him to the opposite side of the box, pulling the defender out of the play as he vacates the space Cicerone is shooting into. This is another one of those little moments in a game that don’t show on any stat line, but is so important in keeping an offensive engine running.

The Bad:

There isn’t much bad for me to say here. This was, overall, a very good performance.

The real question will be if Republic can replicate this against stronger opposition; both goals Republic scored were, largely if not entirely, caused by a really weak Vegas defense. Edward’s goal beat the keeper on the near post, a spot where a professional goalkeeper should never get beat, and Cicerone’s goal beat two Vegas defenders that confusingly refused to attack the ball. While Republic did have 20 shots, only 6 of them were on target, a rate of only 30%. That’s lower than the already low 42.7% the club is averaging on the season. Republic certainly deserved the win, but a solid team goal would have boosted team confidence going into the second half of the season.

What Stood Out:

A season sweep over a Western Conference foe is always going to be a positive, regardless of how poor that team is performing. There isn’t a ton to say here—Republic executed against a lower-tier team, scored the goals they could grab, and left Vegas with three points. On the other hand, many doubting Republic fans may still lack confidence in Collins’ vision. We didn’t see any new looks, and beating Vegas was expected after the two major wins earlier this season.

The real test will be this weekend against El Paso, where Republic will host the team that is third in the West with a real chance to make some ground in the table.

The Lineup:

Republic played on the road twice this week, suffering an extra time heart-break in Alabama before finally finding their scoring boots in Rhode Island. Collins rolled out two different looks:

In Alabama, he used his typical 3-4-3 that we’ve seen for much of the season, but opted to rest Freddy Kleemann and started Chibi Ukaegbu on the backline. The midfield remained unchanged, but up top saw a front three of Cicerone, Wanner, and Willey. While this look was defensively sound (until the last minute of the match...), the front three were largely useless; we’ll look at that a bit more later on.

After the loss in Birmingham, and after the club had gone 328 minutes without a goal, Collins switched things up against Rhode Island, moving the formation from a 3-4-3 to a 3-4-2-1. While Cicerone still started up top, Parano and Roro took up the two Center Attacking Midfielder (CAM) positions behind him. Meanwhile, a midfield shakeup saw Luis Felipe return to the starting XI for just the second time in a month while Benitez moved out to the left wing-back role.

So a scoreless road loss against a Birmingham team that has allowed a goal in every USL match this season, and then a road win against a Rhode Island team that has won just a single game at home. Before we get into the “why” here, let’s look at the stats of both of these games; before I reveal which game is which, try and guess which of these games was a win, and which was a loss:

In Match #1, Republic was under considerably more pressure; they only held onto the ball for 36% of the match. They had 40 clearances. They had fewer shots. Despite this, Match #1 is actually the match they won against Rhode Island. There are fewer shots, but there are more shots on target. Way less possession… yet nearly double the amount of entries into the opposition's final third. The trend continues to hold: when the Republic dominate the possession, they do not know what to do with it. Match #2 is the loss against Birmingham and is a perfect example; even if Republic does not let in the last gasp goal, they still only get a draw here. When Sacramento holds the ball, they simply do not know what to do.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at why that is…

The Good:

When Republic does not retain possession of the ball, they are able to stage quick counters against opposing defenses. Look at this first shot on target Gurr has against Rhode Island:

This is a quick counter out of the back from Vitiello, and this is where Republic excels. They can use their speed to pull in multiple defenders and then find space in between the opposition's lines. Ideally, Gurr does not shoot here; he pulls the ball back and finds a wide open Roro in the center of the box, having done his job pulling in the center back. However, when Republic does score from open play later in the match, you can see Cicerone do exactly that:

Same situation here - Cicerone gets a quick counter from the midfield and pulls in the center back, except this time he pulls the ball back to a wide open Parano in the box who can put a clean finish on it.

And that’s where a 3-4-2-1 can be so effective. The striker up top, in this case Cicerone, is not necessarily the one scoring the goals. In fact, Cicerone had *0 shots* the entire game—because that’s not his role in this formation. Instead, the striker is supposed to draw attention, run at the defense, and then lay the ball off to one of the CAM’s who are (hopefully) in a space that has been vacated by the defenders the striker pulls in. Cicerone did a fantastic job of this; he had a 95% passing accuracy, won three out of five ground duals on the press, and created two “big chances.” That second big chance (outside of Parano’s goal) was this ball to Gurr:

You can really see here how the striker operates in this formation; if either CAM moves forward, the striker can drop into space to provide an outlet option to move the attack to the opposite side of the pitch. He becomes a chance creator instead of a chance finisher, and I really think this is the role and formation Cicerone can excel in.

Republic held strong defensively over these two games as well; yes, they gave up a late late goal in Birmingham, but it was on the counter at a time where Republic was pushing for the winner. In the 179 other minutes Republic played, the defense looked very solid. And, as seen clearly in the Rhode Island game, Republic’s counter-press just works when they are ok with giving up possession. We’ve talked about this all year in games where Republic has played well, but look again at how far up the field Republic presses:

They essentially pin Rhode Island into their own corner; the only thing the player with the ball can do here is boot it over the top, where Republic won 15/31 aerial duels. That may not seem great, being just around 50%, but it also means that every time the Republic forced their opposition to go over the top, they had a 50/50 chance of taking that possession away.

The Bad:

Now let’s look at the flip side of what can happen when the Republic are not able to run a counter attack on their opponent. First of all, the press just did not really happen in the Birmingham game:

A Legion player is just completely unmarked or pressed at the top of Republic’s attacking third, and no one is going to the ball. Republic’s midfield is way dropped back, and that lets the Legion just stand around on the ball. Yes, it was muggy and warm, but this is 10 minutes into the match. This led directly to an easy shot for the Legion, which really didn’t miss by much. And here’s another one in the 20th minute:

Where is everyone? In the matches where Republic have been successful, this situation has called for the left wing (Willey in this case) charging the ball, Cicerone being higher up the pitch to take out the option of passing to another defender, and then one of the midfielders moving up to cover the extra man, which forces the defender to play the ball over the top where Republic have a good chance to win it. That just… does not happen, and it leads to a very dangerous pass that the Republic has to deal with at the last minute. So far this season, Republic’s best chances on goal have come from turnovers from the press so its no surprise that a lack of press led to fewer chances on goal.

On the other side of things, Sacramento just does not know what to do with the ball when they have it. When they do go forward, the Legion are already entirely behind the ball, so there is nowhere for Sacramento to break:

This chance at the end of the game is a good example. Republic presses forward, but there’s no good outlet options; the Legion do a really good job closing this down. The only potentially positive pass is the red arrow, but even then the Legion center back would have an easy time cutting this out or slowing things down. Sacramento simply does not have the tools to deal with these offensive situations.

When the Republic does just hold possession, they have no forward movement. In the first half of the Birmingham game, Republic held 59% of the possession—which only led to two shots, one of which was blocked and the other was not even close to being on target. They only had 53 final third entries the entire game; in Rhode Island, they had 91, despite commanding 16% less possession. That tells me that, when Republic did have the ball against Birmingham, it was mostly around the center third of the field, where Republic aimlessly passed the ball around with no forward ideas.

What Stood Out:

All in all, this was not a convincing week for a Republic. Yes a road win against Rhode Island is great, and they almost got a point on the road midweek after heavy travel, but as stated earlier… they are the first team to not score on Birmingham in USL play this season, and Rhode Island picked up the nickname “Rhode (Road) Warriors” for a reason. The lack of scoring continues to be a problem. A switch to the 3-4-2-1, as we saw against Rhode Island, could provide some positive momentum but I still do not see it being the long-term solution. Republic desperately needs a mid-season signing that can anchor the attack. If Collins is going to stay at a 3-4-3, it likely needs to be a striker, while Cicerone plays on the left wing. If he is going to keep the look he utilized against Rhode Island, then a CAM who can consistently shoot on target needs to be prioritized.

Either way, this Republic team also needs to figure out its possession problem. We covered the details of that before:

Republic either need to figure out how to give up possession more consistently, or they need to figure out how to score when they have possession.

Teams are going to start to figure out real quick, if they have not already, that simply letting Sacramento have the ball completely neutralizes the Republic offense. Until Sacramento solves that, teams will continue to exploit it.

To leave things on a positive note though, let’s have another look at Roro’s goal. A free kick like this isn’t really something that you can tactically analyze; you just have to admire its brilliance:

The Lineup:

Republic come away with a nil-nil draw. Another one of those games where the general mindset is probably “well, I’ll take the point I guess,” in a season full of games with exactly that attitude. It’s hard to say that Republic’s recent results against teams not based out of Las Vegas are bad, but it’s also impossible to say that Republic is good. This is a team that is the epitome of mediocre: just good enough to keep a playoff spot, but never good enough to rise up the table.

And that’s not what this club strives to be, which is why I, like many of you, are frustrated with the start of this season. In a weird way, it feels like the team is one or two pieces away from being competitive. This starting XI is a perfect example. Republic look very strong at the back; Lee Desmond’s return from injury has resulted in the club only giving up 2 goals in the 5 league games he’s started since his return. Compare that to *8* goals allowed in the 5 league games where he was out injured. Desmond, Kleemann, and Timmer, with Vitiello behind them, continue to anchor Republic’s defensive structure. The midfield is also starting to take shape - Benitez and Ross appear to be the duo of choice, starting their 3rd straight game together in the middle, easily the most consistent streak at midfield that the club has had this season. Add in Gurr and Spaulding on the wings and Republic have a solid midfield structure.

The real problem is up top, where I’m afraid we’ve hit the “see what sticks” phase of tactics. Parano and Herrera continue to dominate starts, but this week Collins tried out Felipe as a sort of holding player in the center attacking mid, shifting the team from a 3-4-3 to a 3-4-1-2. I can see the theory here; Felipe is 6’1”, has some good muscle on him, can be creative, and isn’t afraid to dive in or play physically. Ideally, he can disrupt the defensive line or hold up play long enough for Parano or Herrera to get into space, and his passing can help link the backline and midfield to the strikers. In practice… that didn’t happen. Felipe was actually the top rated player on the night (with a 7.8 rating according to SofaScore), but that 7.8 didn’t lead to any goals. Here is his heat map:

Really solid positioning for playing essentially as a center attacking midfielder (CAM) - but the finishing just wasn’t there from the strikers up top. What is Republic really missing then? Let’s dive in.

The Good:

The defense has been stellar since Desmond returned to fitness. As mentioned previously, Republic has only allowed 2 goals against in the last 5 games against USL competition. I do think a big part of this is Desmond, who not only is averaging a 7.44 player rating over the last 5 matches, but has also had the captain’s armband the last 3 matches. The defensive stiffness has noticeably increased too. As a reminder, Republic play a three in the back that can quickly switch to a five at the back when under pressure, with both the right and left midfielder dropping into the backline. This has given Republic some fits earlier in the season; the Orange County game in particular saw Republic regularly struggle to get all 5 guys into a solid line to set the offside line. But early in this match, Republic set a pretty solid line even while on the run:

It’s not perfect, but both wing-backs have dropped into the line and Republic is able to account for every attacking San Antonio player.

On the other side of things, while the offense was once again unproductive on the night, I still do think this is a penalty; watching it back, I’m shocked this isn’t called:

Full 2 handed push in the box? Parano sells it a bit, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a foul.

The connection between the midfield and the attack wasn’t a problem either. We already touched on Felipe playing that CAM role really well earlier, but to show an example, this build up play happens because he’s playing that CAM role:

This leads to one of Sacramento’s three shots on target on the night. The ability to bring that ball down and then lay off a perfectly weighted pass into Gurr’s path is elite. Speaking of those shots, the numbers are looking better! Just under 43% (3/7) shots on target is a pretty good ratio for Republic to be sitting at. They weren’t *good* shots, but at least they’re at the goal!

And finally, Republic did play this match how they wanted to play it. They only held 38% possession, but as we discussed last week, less possession leads to better numbers in Collins’ system. Despite being out-possessed so heavily, Republic had more shots on target than San Antonio and an equal number of shots in the box. They had almost double the number of touches in the opposition’s box. Most of SAFC’s possession was in the midfield or their own half. So all the build up numbers were there, it was just the final touch that was missing.

If you want to read more about how Republic prefer to not have possession, I discussed that last week:

The Bad:

So the game went according to plan, the defense kept the clean sheet at home, and Republic got a point. So what went wrong? Well, Republic’s offense continues to be woefully inadequate. Unlike early in the season where Republic prioritized quantity over quality in their shot choice, Republic have continued to drop their total number of shots per game to a more reasonable level, trying to make sure the shots they do get are on target. That happened tonight; 3 for 7 for shots on target isn’t bad. The issue is that those shots on target weren’t exactly what I would call quality. San Antonio seemed content to put men behind the ball despite holding onto the possession, likely content to earn a draw on the road, and Republic continued to lack the playmaker to unlock opposing defenses.

There’s nothing for me to really show here, as it’s hard to show a lack of ability, but the quality in the final third just really continues to elude this club. Republic have never been a high scoring team; but how far off the norm is that? Well, USL Championship regularly sees at least 2-3 players a season with 20+ league goals scored. Four of the last five teams to win the USL title had a player that hit this 20 goal mark. The lone exception is San Antonio's 2022 run that saw 16 different players combine to score 54 goals.

Now let’s compare that to Sacramento - who have never had a player break 20 league goals in a season in club history. The closest anyone has gotten was when club legend Cameron Iwasa scored 17 goals and 16 goals in back to back seasons; but even those numbers fall short of the 25 goals and 22 goals scored by the top scorers in those seasons. Republic’s most goals in a season as a team is 51, still under that mark San Antonio set when they won the league. So how does that stack up to this year? Well, currently Herrera and Cicerone lead the club with three goals scored in league play. That puts them each on pace to score eight goals this season. This wouldn’t be the first time that number has been so low; since 2019, Republic has only had a player break double digit league goals in a season three times

I’m not sure if this is a coaching problem, a scouting problem, or a priorities problem. It is no secret that Sacramento under Mark Briggs was a defense-first team. While that did help carry the team to the playoffs, the lack of offensive firepower is what continually led the team to be eliminated from contention year over year. Republic hasn’t had an all-league starting XI forward since Cameron Iwasa in 2019; and, with all respect to Cam, his numbers were great but never league leading.

This club really needs an out and out goal scorer who can come up big week in and week out, and acquiring one should be high on the summer priority list if the club has any hope of continuing to be one of the league’s standout teams. I almost wonder if the Republic front office hasn’t adjusted their priorities, while the rest of the league has - teams with offensive firepower are the one’s winning the league, not the defensive stalwarts.

What Stood Out:

But overall, this 5 game home-stand wasn’t terrible for Sacramento. 2 wins, 2 draws, and a loss, for a total of 8 out of a possible 15 points, is not bad for a middle of the pack team. It is also not great though, either, especially when they end it with 120+ straight minutes without a goal. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence before 4 straight road games, where Sacramento will fly roughly 7000 miles over the course of two and a half weeks. These 4 road games are going to be a major test, one that Republic needs to be ready for if they have any hope of climbing the table. None of the 4 teams are particularly strong, with Rhode Island being the best positioned at 6th in the East, but with 2 more games played than most of the teams behind them. These are all very winnable games, which Sacramento has to take advantage of. With the defense looking solid, the real question is if Republic can find someone to score.

It all starts with a reunion with Mark Briggs in Alabama when Republic play Birmingham tonight.

The Lineup:

Well that was… something. On a warm Sacramento night, a Tulsa team that seemed to always play for a whistle gave Sacramento a second 1-0 loss to Tulsa on the season, this time at home. This drops Republic to eighth in the West, just barely in a playoff spot, though with a game in hand. I do not want to discuss the referee too much in this analysis—while he certainly slowed the game down and certainly caused some headaches, he did not exactly cause Republic to only put a single shot on target.

Republic rolled out a starting XI that was almost identical to last week’s USL Cup match against Las Vegas Lights, a starting XI that had a clean sheet and scored four goals. The lone exception was starting Herrera in place of Jamieson, which moved Cicerone to the left wing instead of up top. Tulsa is a good team, but after scoring nine goals and allowing none against in the last two matches, the offense dried up, the defensive focus dropped off, and we’re back to scratching our heads and wondering what this Republic team under Neill Collins is supposed to look like.

The Good:

Let’s start with looking at what went right this game, even if it’s only a few points. Tulsa is a decent offensive team, and have scored in every game this season outside a loss to North Carolina FC way back in March. Giving up one goal here, while not ideal, is still a manageable result and the defense had a stand out game outside of the one defensive breakdown. Republic also completely controlled the game; their 68% possession is Republic’s second highest on the season. We’ll look at why that could actually be a bad thing a little bit later.

The biggest positive to take away from this game though, is the effort that the boys put in until the very end of the game, and that hasn’t always been the case this season. Look at this play in 93rd minute:

It’s the end of the game, it’s warm, and frustration has been building all game with the officiating, Tulsa’s players, and the lack of successful chances. Still, seven outfield players rush back to stomp out Tulsa’s counterattack, with the remaining three staying up top to spring a counter of their own, so that…

…just 20 seconds later, Republic only has 2 outfield players in their own half, and even those 2 players are pressing up. The boys in Old Glory Red really did put in a solid effort, and probably deserved at least a point out of this match,

The Bad:

Let’s get into the meat of this, because there are a few stats in here that are painful to read. First off, Sacramento absolutely dominated the game. They held 68% possession, had 499 passes to Tulsa’s 238, and had 88 entries into the final third to Tulsa’s 55. They also had 21 free kicks, 8 corners, and 5 shots in Tulsa’s box. They had an average positioning chart that looked like this:

Similar to most of the rest of the season, Republic is averaging seven players in the opposition's half.

And yet… that resulted in nothing. Republic only had six total shots. Of those, five were taken in Tulsa’s box and only one was on target. Despite Tulsa only having 32% of the possession, they matched Republic in total shots and had two more shots on target. A few weeks ago, after a match against Indy XI, Lee Desmond had this to say:

“I think going forward we were probably a little bit toothless. We need to be more creative… We just need to get going.”

That same sentiment held true tonight, and the matches were remarkably similar; in that match against Indy, Republic had 70% of the possession. While they did manage to get a goal (in the 90th + 5 minute), Sacramento dominating the ball appears to do nothing for them offensively.

Those possession numbers in particular are very interesting, so I wanted to calculate the average possession rate this season for when Republic has won, drawn, and lost:

And a trend becomes clear immediately. The more Republic controls the ball, the less they score and the more they concede. Republic has won a single game against a professional team this season when they controlled more than 50% of the possession—and that was the 5-0 drubbing of Las Vegas Lights, a team in free fall who just fired their head coach this week. If you remove that game from the statistics, Republic averages just 46.75% of possession when they win.

Now, let’s take a look at the average possession of the teams Republic has faced in league play this season, through 10 games:

Another interesting trend appears here. seven out of the nine teams Republic has faced so far prefer not to hold on to the ball. Republic’s one win against a team in playoff contention was against New Mexico, who are among the league leaders in possession. The other team that has above 50% possession? A Colorado team that Republic was beating 2-0 until the 86th minute. The only other two wins this season come against Vegas and Oakland, two teams that are several games out of playoff contention.

The main problem appears to be that Republic has no offensive ability to break defenses down when they have possession. When Republic scores, it usually looks something like this:

There’s roughly six seconds from turn over to goal. Or this:

Roughly six seconds again. And one more:

Only three seconds here. What do you notice with all three goals?

Well, none of them are coming from play while Republic has the ball. For all three of these goals (and several others this season), Republic plays a high press that contains the opposition to their own half, without controlling the ball. They then rely on either a forced turnover or an opposing mistake to give them the ball in space to quickly counter.

The reason Republic struggles in games like this week's game against Tulsa is because they have no tools to break opposing defenses down. This high counter press Republic utilizes relies on quick, agile forwards to press players and then quickly break behind opposing lines before the slower defenders can react. But when a team has most of their defenders behind the ball and lets Republic control the game, Sacramento does not know what to do. They do not have a tall or strong forward that can win the ball over opposing defenders on crosses. They don’t have any dribbling maestros that can charge directly at opposing defenders and go through them. So they end up aimlessly passing the ball around without actually being able to do anything with it.

This team either needs to drastically change their tactical approach when playing against teams that force Republic to have possession, or they need a mid season signing who can be that target man or dribbling maestro to break defenses. And the thing is, that hypothetical signing does not even have to be the one that scores; just having that threat would allow players like Jamieson or Cicerone to find more space.

What Stood Out:

It’s hard to tell who is to blame for this slow start. Three wins in 10 games is among the worst in club history, and it’s hard not to put the blame on a new coach coming in with a new system. At the same time, new systems come with growing pains, and this team is not necessarily a team that Collins has constructed. Of the starting XI from this week's game, only two of them had been signed after Collins joined the club; the rest of them, Collins inherited. A few transfers, including the signing of Dominik Wanner and the departure of players like Shane Wiedt and Conor Donovan, occurred this offseason before Collins was even brought on. Much of this team is General Manager Todd Dunivant’s as much as it is Neill Collins’.

On the other hand, Collins signed on mostly knowing the squad he was going to have. He is responsible for utilizing the current players to get results, even if it means he needs to adjust his preferred tactics to better compliment the players he has available to him. Republic has to be able to adjust tactically when playing teams that will sit back like Tulsa; if the are not willing to do so, it’s going to be a long year.

The Lineup:

Another game, another thrashing of the Las Vegas Lights. As far as I can tell, nine goals for and zero against is the best back-to-back match performance in club history in competitive play. You have to go all the way back to 2017 to find back-to-back matches with nine goals scored, but the goal difference in those matches was “only” +5, due to giving up four goals. The next best performance was in 2022 when the club won back-to-back matches 4-0. So this is impressive stuff! Both of these games being against Vegas is where some fans may have some doubt though; is this breakout a result of Vegas being bad, or has Sacramento finally found their momentum? Let’s take a look!

For the starting XI, Collins made a few changes from the last match two weeks ago. Mazzola puts on the gloves in goal, Cicerone returns from injury to play up top, Benítez moves over from left wingback to the middle of the pitch, and Spaulding takes his place. That midfield rotation remains very interesting to watch—Republic has only started the same two players in midfield twice in the last eight matches, and Collins subbed a midfielder out at half in four of those.

To be fair, Collins has a wealth of choices at his disposal: Felipe, Ross, Willey, Roro, and now Benítez have all contributed heavily in the midfield. And that’s without counting Portillo who, despite making 22 starts for the club last season, has only played a single league game this year. This rotation has not been completely without reason; Ross and Roro are returning from injuries and need to manage minutes, and Benítez has been filling in at both center back and left wingback to reinforce injuries in the backline. Still, while the backline and two out of three strikers appear to be cemented in the game day starting XI, the midfield is a total tossup and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future.

But let’s take a look at Vegas real quick. While Republic had a bye week and a full 14 days between matches, the Lights played an additional two games in that span, losing at home to both El Paso and Phoenix. Safe to say, it’s not a good time to be a Lights fan, who have now given up 12 goals and scored 1 in 14 days. To make matters worse for this Vegas side, all these extra minutes required some heavy rotation before playing away in Sacramento in a kick-off temperature of 98 degrees. Vegas only utilized four players who played in the previous matchup against Sacramento: Singer, Nigro, Pickering, and Brewer Jr., all who roughly played the same position. The rest of the squad, including Vegas’s entire midfield, is rotated. Vegas also played wider this game than they did in the first match up, in an attempt to limit Republic’s wing play:

You can really see how Vegas tried to play and defend through the middle in the first match. Then, the tactical response to losing 5-0 was to try and stop Republic’s wide play in the second match. Meanwhile, Republic barely change form:

The Republic front line and midfield play a bit more centrally this week, but there’s no real structural change. Clearly, the system Collins implemented worked well regardless of how Vegas lined up.

The Good:

For the second match in a row, we get to see exactly how Collins wants this team to play. When out of possession, Republic utilize a high press, seeking to suffocate the opposition in their own half. Republic only held 44% of the possession in this game but that largely does not matter, because the vast majority of Vegas’ time on the ball was in their own half. Look at the average positioning for each team above; Vegas has four players spend most of their time outside their own half, but Sacramento has six, and those six are pushed way further up than Vegas’ four. Republic are at their best when they are aggressive on the press—most of Vegas’ chances come when Republic either does not press enough or back off the ball and play more defensively. But that aggression also leads to turnover and control on the opposing side of the field. Benítez’s first goal of the season largely comes about because Republic has Vegas pinned in their own half:

There’s a lot of pinball here, but Vegas just cannot get a good clearance on the ball because Sacramento puts a body on it every chance they get. This leads to Vegas’ line being in disarray when the ball turns over, and an easy breakaway leads to Benítez’s first goal in Old Glory Red. Benítez had a particularly impressive performance this week; to go along with the goal, he had 38 completed passes on 39 attempts, which really helped Sacramento control and distribute from the midfield.

While in possession, Republic have been much pickier about their shots, to great effect. The number of shots from outside of the box has dropped substantially from the beginning of the season, with this match only featuring two—one of which resulted in a goal:

What a finish this is by Cicerone! If you are going to shoot from outside of the box, it needs to at least be on target, and this is perfect. Republic shot just under 50% on target, though Jamieson’s shot that hit the woodwork would have put them just over 50%. Four goals on 13 shots is a conversion rate of ~31%. That is a marked improvement on the second worst in the league rate of ~10% we saw in the first few weeks.

What is even more impressive is the variety of ways the Republic have scored their nine goals in the last two games. All nine goals came from different players, and six different players registered assists. Three of the goals came from set pieces: one from a corner, another from a PK, and another from a throw-in. Four goals were from a right foot, four from a left foot, and one off a header. And where Republic is aiming is just as varied; four goals were shot to the left side of the net, three to the center, and two to the right side. It does not matter how it needs to get done, the Republic find a way to get it done.

Also, a big shout out to Spaulding for also getting his first goal in Old Glory Red this week:

Somehow this corner gets through a mass of bodies, and he does a great job getting it onto his right foot and smashing it home.

The Bad:

Similar to last week, it’s hard to find things to criticize when the club scores four and has a clean sheet. Vegas did have a few dangerous chances though. Fortunately Mazzola had himself a fantastic game, but Republic were beaten over the top a few too many times to be comfortable, especially against a Vegas team that primarily tried to play balls over the top on the counter. Let’s look at this chance in the eighth minute:

No one presses the Vegas player on the ball, Republic gets beat on a pass over the top, and only one defender is back. Ultimately, Vegas only had one striker forward and settled for a poor shot from distance, but it’s an early sign of what's to come. The Lights were 50 for 68 on long balls, good for 58%, compared to Sacramento’s 14 for 42. Vegas also won just over 50% of the aerial duels, one of the few times this season that Republic have not been the more dominant team in the air. Another dangerous chance arises in the 29th minute:

The same thing happens here that happened in the eighth minute—Republic does not press the ball quickly enough, get beat, and Vegas is one key pass away from being in on goal. Fortunately, Mazzola reads this perfectly and comes out at the exact right time to shut this down, but this is a very different game if Las Vegas grabs the first goal. It happens in the second half too:

Just lazy defending on all three of these chances, with no one following the runner. But what a save!! This game could have easily had 2-3 Vegas goals in it, and the only reason the scoreline shows zero is Mazzola; five saves, one punch, several clears, and a great clean sheet.

What Stood Out:

Despite some squad rotation, and some concern that the bye week would kill momentum, Republic came off of 14 days rest firing on all cylinders. The result sends them to the top of the Group A table in the USL Jägermeister Cup, and the goal difference gives them a leg up on the tiebreaker as well.

But the real test is what comes next. Beating Las Vegas Lights twice by so much is impressive, but it still does not fully answer the question: is this Republic team finally ready to start dominating games? While Vegas looked to be a solid team heading into the first match up two weeks ago, and were actually the third-best defense in the league at the time, they have since been in free fall and now sit ninth in the West with a goal difference of -8. A home match up this Saturday with third place Tulsa, who have not lost a league game in over a month, will be the real test of this team's momentum.