Sacramento Republic stretched their undefeated streak to 13 straight matches Saturday night, relying on a late, late comeback to keep the streak alive, move into 2nd in the West, and win the Hella Cup over Oakland and Monterey. And what a match it was; outside of a disastrous 5 minutes just before half, Republic just flat out controlled the match. We’ll take a look at the tactics in a moment, but I do want fans to keep in mind where this Republic team has come from. Republic finishes the season 2nd in the West, just one point off the leader, and would have taken first but for a 90 + 4’ New Mexico goal. And this is after a fairly poor middle of the season that saw them, at one point, lose 5 out of 7 games and bow out of the USL Cup to lower division newcomer AC Boise. During that stretch, many fans were calling for Neill Collins’ firing. It’s an incredible turn around and I think that needs to be acknowledged. 

Team captain Lee Desmond acknowledged those early season struggles after the match on Saturday, saying: 

Now, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The team is really going to be judged off the next 4 games—this isn’t a club or a fan base that is content with merely qualifying for the playoffs. But credit where credit is due, things have “clicked” at just the right time for Republic to have all the momentum on their side heading into the postseason.

In the last game of the regular season, Republic is finally starting to find real consistency in the starting XI, a few spots notwithstanding. Per usual, the backline is solid. Desmond and Timmer are solidly the starting center backs, and likely will be for the postseason. Ideally Kleemann would be involved here too, but he was in the stands on Friday, likely still recovering from injury. At this point, the presumed hope is for him to be available from the bench for the postseason, and that is a hell of a bench player to have available.

On the outside of the back 4, Benítez fits right back into that left back role now that he’s back from injury, though does seem to be on a minutes limit, as Spaulding has subbed in for him for the last half hour of each of the last 2 matches. Gurr, of course, is a 90-minute staple of the right side.

The midfield seems solid too, with the triangle of Crisostomo, Casas, and Memo holding down the fort. With one lone midweek match exception, where Memo subbed in at half but didn’t start, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of August to find a match where these 3 didn’t form the backbone of Republic’s formation. MAK would probably be rotating in here as well, now that he’s back from injury, but he wasn’t able to start a match before the season closed out so he’ll probably come in off the bench for the postseason unless something changes. 

The wings are where things have been more chaotic. Collins seems content to go with the hot hand any given week out of Malango, Ajago, Midence, Wolff, Arturo, and Willey, with Spaulding also splashing in there occasionally as well. That much competition for 2 positions (left mid and right mid) has meant that several players are struggling to see the pitch. Wolff hasn’t made the bench the last 2 matches, Arturo the last 3, and whoever starts the position is inevitably subbed out during the match—the last time a player played the full 90 at either of those positions was September against New Mexico (Willey), and before that was an August match in Phoenix (also Willey). So who will start here next week in Tulsa is anyone’s guess. For this week, Collins went with Malango and Midence, and was awarded for it with a goal in the 2nd minute from Midence.

Finally, up top has been Cal Jennings, who has started 7 of the last 8 matches up top. We talked about Cal a bit on this week's podcast, but Jennings’ lack of production up top has been concerning—I’m not sure how much Republic paid to bring him in, potentially upsetting the other strikers in the process, but only notching 1 goal (against Monterey at that) in 10 matches is just not good enough up top. On the other hand… who else does Collins start? Edwards has been on fire, but only when he subs into the match, and Ajago’s struggles this season were why Republic brought Jennings in in the first place. To be fair to Jennings, Memo’s goal contribution numbers have been through the roof over the last 13 matches, potentially due in small part to Jennings’ off the ball movement, but you’d still expect more from your star striker. This match was more of the same—just 2 shots, only 1 on target, no goals, and a 72’ sub off for Edwards who comes on and scores the winning goal.

And speaking of Edwards, the performances off the bench have been so good, even Collins is speechless:

Between Kleemann, MAK, Edwards, and the variety of wingers, Republic have an incredibly deep bench to compliment their starting XI.

With the lineup out of the way, how did Republic play against Oakland? Well, much the same way they’ve played most of the rest of the season. They utilized the 4-2-3-1 to press Oakland into their own half, sending at least one of the wings up the sideline to overload one side of the Oakland defense. One noticeable change we did see this match is that Republic opted to spring Gurr up the right side line with regularity while largely holding Benítez back to form the back 3. Here is the starting XI’s average positioning, with Benítez (#22) highlighted to show his heat map:

With him sitting back to form the back 3, Jack Gurr (#2) has been given total freedom to press up the right side—which lets Midence (#19) play more inside on the right wing than Malango (#7) does on the left wing, and shifts Memo (#8) over a touch to play slightly to the left.

What this allows Republic to do is switch from a 4-2-3-1 on paper into a 3-2-5 in practice when they have the ball, while still being wary of the counter attack. If the offensive 5 turn the ball over, the CDM duo of Casas (#24) and Crisostomo (#27) can step up to slow the attack down while Timmer (#5), Desmond (#4), and Benítez (#22) sit on the backline to clean things up. And this worked incredibly for the first ~30 minutes of the match. Republic put in 12 shots in the first half, largely kept the ball out of their 3rd of the pitch, and, really, should have scored more than once during this sequence. Midence’s goal in the 2nd minute, his first for Republic, was a beautifully worked set piece.

Oakland tried to counter this look with a 4-3-3 look that largely relied on long through balls to attempt to punish Republic’s high press. When it worked, it worked spectacularly—we’ll take a look at their 2nd goal in a minute to see where Republic went wrong—but Oakland struggled to finish off the counterattacks they started. After serving the ball through to their attacking players, Oakland often left several players back and relied on 2-3 players up top to go at it on their own, which Republic was able to, mostly, stifle. Given that Oakland needed a win to qualify for the playoffs, it’s a bit of a surprise that they didn’t support their offensive front with more manpower.

This, however, leads us to the disastrous ~5 minutes right before half. Oakland started threatening as Republic let their foot off the gas, and then Republic conceded a free kick. This first goal was a bit unlucky; Oakland puts the ball in the box, it takes several deflections, and it just pokes in. But just 5 minutes later, Republic gets caught out. Looking very much like they are ready for halftime, Republic just let the Roots sit on the ball, where they quickly pass into space and every Republic defender either gets beat or is in no-man’s-land. Look at how Republic are defending when the ball is slipped through:

Gurr gets beat on the sideline, Timmer is sort of mirroring the runner with the ball, Desmond is trying to stay even with his runner, and Benítez is behind the play. And while the Oakland player in the middle of the image, Wilson, ends up scoring, Oakland have another player on the far side totally open as well. Vitiello gets beat through the legs here too, which always hurts as a keeper, but there isn’t much he can do one on one. The most damning thing about this goal is that it isn’t one single player making an individual mistake—it’s multiple players turning off right before half time.

Republic turned things around though. While Oakland pressed Republic back for the last ~20 minutes or so of the second half, they seemingly had no answers for Republic in the 2nd half and merely tried to hold on for the win. We’ve talked about field tilt here before—check out this article on the match against Detroit if you’re unaware of what field tilt is—and notably Oakland’s field tilt went from 61% in the first half to just 37% in the second half as the Roots seemed content to just sit with their lead and hope that was enough for the win.

It was not enough for the Roots. Republic drew level off a set piece in the 81st minute, where Desmond won a fairly free header off a Memo free kick. This pushed Oakland to press more to try and retake the lead and get back into a playoff spot, leading to their only corner of the half… which Republic then countered off of with Willey and Edwards to lead towards the 2nd goal. On both goals, there isn’t really anything tactical to look at—just individual moments of quality off of set pieces that were created due to Republic’s dominance. Willey’s assist is his first of the season.

Other than the 5-minute breakout at the end of the first half, Republic dominated this match in nearly every category. Republic held Oakland to just 0.08xG in the 2nd half, and just 0.82xG overall—in fact, Wilson’s goal of had an xG of 0.29, meaning it accounted for ~35% of the Roots total xG. 

Republic, on the other hand, put up an xG of 2.40, put up 18 shots to Oakland’s 9, and won 56% of the duels. Sixteen of Republic’s shots were from within Oakland’s box. Take out the 5 minutes, and this is as complete of a performance as we’ve seen from Republic this season—the first 20 minutes in particular are the best Republic have looked under Collins, period. Even better, Republic picked up no cards and only committed 9 fouls (avg. of 13 per match). 

Another number to look at is how often the Quails are scoring from set pieces. Adding another 2 set-piece goals tonight, I count 17 of Republic’s 53 goals (all competitions) as coming from corners, free kicks, or throws, good for 32.1% of all goals. That’s a drastic change from what we saw even just earlier this season—Republic’s first set piece goal didn’t occur until 2 months into the season, and their first corner goal wasn’t until August. After that August goal? Half of Republic’s goals since have been from set pieces (not including penalties), 11 out of 22. I’m not sure what Republic changed—maybe a new set piece coach or a new corner routine was finally worked in—but 7 of those were corners. Seven corner goals out of 22 is a higher average rate than the 19 out of 71 that Arsenal put up last year when they broke the Premier League single-season record for corners in a season. Now, the USL-Championship is not the Premier League, but set-piece goals and winning titles certainly seems to go hand in hand! 

54.7%
Republic’s duel win rate over the last 5 matches, meaning they are winning the majority of all 50/50 challenges.

9
Number of goal contributions from Memo Rodriguez in the last 6 matches.

2.4
Republic’s generated xG, their 5th highest on the season and their highest since August 1st.

10 for 11
Ten successful duels out of 11 for the backline duo of Desmond and Timmer. Their season duel win rates are now 66.4% and 66.1% respectively, 2nd and 3rd out of all Republic outfield players behind only Freddy Kleemann.

67.3 Min
Kyle Edwards scores or assists a goal, on average, every 67.3 minutes, despite making just 8 starts. That’s far and away the best goal contribution rate on the team, with Memo Rodriguez’s 132.9 minutes being 2nd.

Over this 13 match streak, Republic have shown heart, grit, and most importantly, determination. Of their last 10 goals scored, 7 of them have been with just 15 minutes left in the game. Just 2 months ago, the team looked rudderless and questionable—now, they’re one of the favorites to win the Western Conference title. 

The turn around has been remarkable. Neill Collins had plenty of praise post-match, stating:

But there is more work to do. Tulsa is not going to be an easy team to beat in the first round of the playoffs this Sunday. Republic is 1-1-1 against them this season, winning 2-0 at home but falling and drawing on the road. And Republic still has questions that need to be answered. Will Cal Jennings start producing? With Edwards on the bench, Republic’s hopes don’t rely solely on Jennings’ shoulders, but things will certainly get easier if he gets hot. And can the club avoid giving up goals late in each half? Four out of the last 6 goals Republic have conceded have come either 5 minutes before or 5 minutes after halftime. Republic will need to avoid taking their foot off the gas in these crucial moments.

But with at least 2 playoff games guaranteed, home field advantage is going to be huge going into the playoffs. Collins had one final message for fans before the post-season:

We’ll see you all out there on Sunday.