Sacramento Republic: Tactical Analysis - Quickfire Three-Week Overlook
Sacramento’s line up, the good, the bad, and what stood out - Rhode Island, Boise, and Charleston
The Lineup:
It’s been a few weeks since our last tactical look, where we asked a very important question: Where are all the goals? Since then, Republic has won, lost, and drawn in their last 3 matches, and the goals haven’t been much better, scoring just 3 goals in that time period. The results have been mixed. On one hand, Republic took 4 points from 2 league games, including an away game in Charleston, one of the hottest teams in the league. On the other hand, an ugly, ugly loss to USL-1 side AC Boise knocked Republic out of the USL Cup, and the Charleston match felt like more points were there for the taking. So while there are some positives, especially in the league, the general feelings around the club have been… poor. We discussed part of that on this week’s Quail Call:
But just how did each of these games go? Let’s rapid fire take a look at all three:
Home vs Rhode Island:
Due to the World Cup, a bye, and a stormy day in Tulsa, Republic’s match at home against Rhode Island was their first in 18 days. It appeared that Collins had given the boys one of the prior weeks off—multiple players were spotted on social media traveling far and wide to attend World Cup games. Nonetheless, with one mistake withstanding, Republic turned in a fairly complete performance. Four players, Kaye, Edwards, Malango, and Arturo, put in player ratings 7.3 or higher, and Kaye’s 2-assist game was his first for the club—and capped probably his best performance of the season.
Realistically, this game should have ended 1-0, still in Republic’s favor. Edward’s goal in the 19th minute was off a terrible mistake from the Rhode Island keeper, and Rhode Island’s goal just 5 minutes later was off a cross that alluded 4 different Republic players in the area. Even so, this was a good performance for Republic to come back to. Collins shone a spotlight on the players who played well:
“We need consistency in our team selection, and that’s obviously down to injuries at times and performances. But when they perform like how they did tonight, it’s much easier to pick them again… ”
However, this Collins’ quote is a bit baffling, especially when we look at the following match…
Away at AC Boise:
…where Collins rotates the squad. Timmer, who was one of the few players to play poorly against Rhode Island, was completely dropped from the squad. That’s fair. But Casas, Arturo, and Spaulding were dropped in favor of Crisostomo, Wolff, and Willey, and it just didn’t work. Keep in mind that to advance, the Quails just simply needed a draw. A single point had them advancing through to the knockout rounds. Meanwhile, AC Boise had already been eliminated before the match even started and had nothing to play for!
The most confounding thing to me is the positions. First of all, Mark-Anthony Kaye started at left back over Spaulding. As far as I can tell, MAK has never played left back in a club match. He’s done so just 3 times in his entire professional career—all for the Canadian National Team and most recently in 2019. Why put him in at left back in a game where you need a point? His lack of experience at the position showed with a 6.2 player rating, especially jarring coming off of his 7.8 and a 2-assist performance against Rhode Island.
It very much feels like Collins has reached the “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” stage of things. He can’t find a striker who can stay hot—Edwards showed out against Rhode Island, and then struggled against Boise, leading to Collins to sub in Ajago on for him in the 60th minute… only for Ajago to not record a single shot over 30 minutes while Republic had the vast majority of the possession. The rest of the attackers aren’t much better; Wolff hasn’t scored a goal or made an assist since the goal in his debut, and currently has the lowest-average player rating on the team out of players who have made more than one appearance. Willey is averaging 3rd worst on the team, and Ajago is just ahead of him. In fact, if you break down the average rating per positional group for the season, it’s really easy to see that Republic gets worse the further up the field you look:
To rub salt in the wound for the loss, Spaulding was hurt after just subbing on, and only 2 Republic players came and thanked the traveling fans for visiting. No player or coach talked to the media either—Republic’s post match quote sheet was completely missing, the first time I’ve seen that following a loss. Just terrible optics for the club on every single front.
Away at Charleston Battery:
If you had offered me a draw going into the Charleston game on the road, I would have happily taken it. In Charleston’s last 5 league games, they have 16 goals for, 8 goals against, and they haven’t lost a home league game since last year’s USL Quarterfinals, where they lost on penalties. You have to go back even further to find their last league loss in regulation—all the way back to March 8th of *2025*, a streak of 23 matches. Patriots Point has been an absolutely stronghold.
So a draw on the road in Charleston is yes, fine, at least on paper. What stung is that this was a match Republic could have easily won. In typical Republic fashion, they had just one (1) shot on target the entire match, Ajago’s bicycle kick goal. That goal is actually up for goal of the week, by the way, and you can vote on it HERE.
Republic had 5 shots in Charleston’s box alone, but only one of those being on target led to a game where Republic frustratingly just couldn’t convert their chances despite largely made Charleston look like a mid-table team and not a team second in the USL Power Rankings. As we’ve come to expect from this club, Republic’s build up and defense were fantastic—and the finishing couldn’t reward them.
That being said, the product on the field was not an appealing one. Charleston Battery were founded in 1993, making them older than MLS, and apparently plays on a field that is in this state in multiple locations:
With a camera pointing directly at the sun:
Multiple sequences in the far corner were just completely impossible to see.
All this is made even worse with 2 major missed calls. First off, Memo Rodriguez fairly clearly hits a Charleston player in the face in 31’ of the match—which the ref completely misses. His solution was to reward a yellow card instead, but I’m pretty confident that would have been turned into a red card if USL had VAR. Second, Blake Willey had a fantastic goal disallowed in the first half for a handball, due to the ball jumping off the erratic playing surface, despite the ball quite clearly hitting his shoulder. Again, probably overturned with VAR.
Add in Ajago’s red card in the 75th minute for 2 hand punching at a Charleston player for, what I can tell, nothing, and you really get the true USL experience. This is… not the product that USL will want to launch into USL Premier with. Republic will take the point, but missing out on the 3 points that were there for the taking after the dreadful Boise match leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
So What’s Next?
Republic at least gets to come back to the west coast for a few weeks, first for a showdown with old rivals Oakland. With the Roots moving stadiums next season, this is likely Republic’s last ever match in the Oakland Coliseum, and with both teams vying for playoff positioning in the West it should be a fun one. They follow that up by hosting one of USL-C’s newest teams, Sporting Jax, who are absolutely dreadful. Their 13 straight matches without a win to start club history is the 4th longest winless start in USL-C history. They finally had their first win this last weekend at home against Pittsburgh, but make no mistake: a loss to them would be more embarrassing than losing to Boise.
But going into these West Coast matches, Republic has far more questions than answers on the field. The team is suddenly looking very shallow in depth. The most glaring question is who is going to play left back? Benítez is MIA, with no report from the club that he’s injured, on personal leave, or something else, and the natural backup there would be Spaulding… who ended up hurt off the ball just 6 minutes into subbing on in Boise, and hasn’t been seen since. In the mean time, we’ve seen both MAK and Essel start there, and both have put up below average numbers at best.
Striker doesn’t look much better. Ajago will be missing at least one match due to this red card—but likely more due to it being for violent conduct. That leaves Edwards to start, but Edwards has only played a full 90 minutes once this season, against amateur-side Valley 559. If he needs a sub, who will fill in at that role?
The roster in general has been slowly trimmed down. Already just this season, Republic have lost Wanner, Reedy, Kimbrough, Cambridge, and Rivas to either releases, sales, or retirement, and have replaced them with just 2 signings. The first was Joshua Moya, a goalkeeper on a 30 day contract, who hasn’t made an appearance. The assumption is he was signed because Randolph, who also hasn’t made an appearance, was injured, but as with most Republic injuries, all we can do is shrug our shoulders. The second is Midence, who was just signed and made his debut as a late sub in Charleston. But look at how the roster sits at the moment:
Goalkeeper - 4 (1 on 30 day contract, 1 on youth contract, only Vitiello has played)
Defenders - 11 (Benítez, Kleemann, and Spaulding injured, 4 other players on youth contracts with a combined 3 appearances and 57 minutes of play)
Midfielders - 7
Strikers - 2 (Ajago suspended)
So going into the Oakland match, you have just 4 non-injured, non-youth defenders to fill 4 spots, 7 midfielders to fill 5 spots, and 1 striker to fill 1 spot. That doesn’t leave much room for injuries, tactical adjustments, or subs, does it? Barring an injury return, the Starting XI practically writes itself. Republic desperately needs quality depth, especially if they are going to keep getting injured, and the injuries haven’t seemed to slow down.
We’ll have to see what the front office does over the next few weeks, but a lack of movement could lead to a very ugly end of the season. There is still time for the Republic to get back into the fight for the top of the West though, especially with so many teams dropping points, so I’d call myself “cautiously optimistic”—and hoping for a strong second half.
