Sacramento vs El Paso: Tactical Analysis - Far Too Little, Far Too Late
03/28: Sacramento’s line up, the good, the bad, and what stood out
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:
“As poor of a first half as I’ve had in my time here… we lacked the intensity we need, the quality we need and we got brutally punished for 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.
