The one where Richmond feels the Elo sting of losing to Revs II.
| Team | Week 12 | Weekly Change | Season Change |
| Greenville Triumph | 1624 | 14 | 93 |
| North Texas | 1557 | 5 | -18 |
| Forward Madison | 1539 | -10 | 11 |
| Chattanooga Red Wolves | 1528 | -10 | 26 |
| Union Omaha | 1516 | 18 | 16 |
| Richmond Kickers | 1503 | -15 | 28 |
| New England II | 1491 | 59 | -9 |
| FC Tucson | 1470 | 1 | -7 |
| South Georgia Tormenta | 1456 | -18 | -32 |
| Fort Lauderdale CDF | 1449 | -22 | -51 |
| Orlando City B | 1350 | -22 | -59 |
A lot of optimism and a little wistful is how I’d describe myself going into the second to last home game of the season. Sure a longer season would be great because we’d have a better shot of making the playoffs, but I’d take more games just to watch this team continue to reach its full potential. Not much we can do about it now besides enjoy it. Enjoying it doesn’t rule out questions that I’m looking to get answered though!
1) Who are we rooting for?
If you regularly read my columns (thank you), you know I can’t resist even the cheesiest gimmick. So the new gimmick is: “Who are we rooting for?” We need help to make the final (a lot of it), and this section aims to focus on who we are asking for help today.
The answer today is: New England Revolutions II. Probably the second hardest team in the the league for a fan of Los Buhos to root for after Madison, of course. After taking five of six points off of us, it is a jagged little pill for us to be begging them to beat the Kickers, but honestly, if anyone can do it is the Revs II. They have three wins this season having beaten OCB, us and the Triumph.
If you are rooting for us to finish above the ‘Mingos of Greater Milwaukee, you’ll be rooting for Tucson. Easy to do since we took all six points off of them this season (and Shak Adams is awesome).
2) Will be get a second heaping serving of Tobias Otieno?
Sweet mercy, I hope so. More sophisticated soccer minds around here loved what they saw on tape, but I was sold when I saw the data. Now I want to see how far this can take us. Toby’s performance deserves an encore. He’s been off for almost 10 months, so he probably can handle two 90 minute games in a week. That said, I’d love for him to get the chance to soak in the applause and adoration of a grateful fanbase as a 89′ substitute.
3) Can we keep the momentum going?
We looked like we’ve been on to something the last two games. Having broken through can we break through again? We gave up two very soft early goals to Tormenta and had that game gone another 5 minutes we would have won. I’d like to think we roll out the current best lineup and give the people the romp we’ve all been waiting for. What lineup might do that?
FWD: Devin Boyce, Evan Conway
MID: Sebas, Toby, TD, EVD
DEF: Crull, Illal, Knutson, Sousa
GK: Nuhu
Where I am mostly likely to be wrong? Miracle recovery from Dami would be nice. I’ll be there on Saturday night to find out. Hope to see you out there!
Hey-oooooooooo! We won! Not only did we beat FtLCF but we beat the ref. I still can’t get over how bad the missed call was on their first goal.
They scored off of this beautifully handled build up. pic.twitter.com/DaI3qVSO4z
— Ben Turner (@Union_Omaha_Ben) October 1, 2020
My favorite part is that all three FtLCF players start walking away since they saw the handball as well. Ok, #refrant completed let’s dive in!
1) Toby in midfield
Gotta love it when Jay calls his shots. On the post game pod after the Richmond game he said that Toby would “feature” on Wednesday. Certain pundits thought this might be 15 to 30 minutes. Instead, ten days after leaving Kenya, Toby made his debut, started for us and went the full 90′ with a yellow card. He picked that card up in the 1st half and Jay made all five subs anyway. I can only imagine how impressive this young man has been in his time with the team. His stats were really impressive too.
Those are eye popping, to be honest. I didn’t include offensive stats since they were all zeros, but in terms of defensive effort, wow. Let’s compare Toby to our three fantastic midfielders.
Another effort like that and Toby could lead the team in tackles won and interceptions. I’m sold. For fun, check out this heatmap.
Maybe the most impressive heat map I’ve seen from a midfielder all year.
2) Devin in Elma’s role
Count me among those who thought adding Toby to the team was adding strength to an area we don’t need strength, our midfield. But the MOST interesting thing that came out of the addition of Toby was putting Devin up top.
I talked to Devin for 70 minutes about his career and he never mentioned if he had ever played forward. But watching him play all, he is honestly the player most similar in style to Elma. Indefatigable, all energy, all action, relentless on the press, the Elma of our midfield. With a legit midfield star on our hands in Toby (see point #1) and a slide that felt endless, Wednesday night was the perfect time to try something crazy.
Except it wasn’t that crazy, in fact, it made so much sense I was mad I didn’t think of it. Not a great sign to be starting two midfielders as your forwards, but hard to argue with the results, amiright? Evan Conway had a goal and an assist and EVD came on to score the game winner (duh, EVD4MVP). Let’s see if Devin looked on paper like Elma.
3) Passing stats
Oh man, I do love a game where we have 30% possession, but it feels like we dominated and only didn’t win in a blowout because of bad refereeing. Look at these numbers.
An all around great performance for us. It’s a lot easy to see our refusal to quit when we score goals and win, but this time has ice in their veins. Can’t wait for Saturday!
“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, floating in the wind, wanting to start again?” Ms. Katy Perry inadvertently summed up where Union Omaha is going into game 12 of a 16 game season. We are floating in the wind, in need of a fresh start.
1) Do we score a goal?
It’s been close to 300 minutes without scoring for Union Omaha. We’ve seen our Halloween plans reduced to trick or treating. But it would be great to close out the season strong. It would be cathartic to watch the ball arrive in the back of the opponents net. I’d like to see Jay roll out the same attacking lineup as Saturday, but…
2) Do we play like it is a midweek game?
We’ve had a two midweek games, but we’ve released lineups for three. (Remember the Lights.) Each one has been slightly different and each one has featured rotation in a few spots. I think Jay makes some changes, but for the most part is going to ride the best available folks. Something like this:
FWD: Elma, Evan
MID: Sebas, TD, Devin, EVD
DEF: Jake, Illal, Aune, Ferrety
GK: Howard
I think we’ll see some rotation in a few spots, but we’ll put out our best offensive lineup in our most successful formation. The bench is another question…
3) Does Toby make his debut?
Jay basically said he would on the pod on Saturday night. So the question is how much do we see him? Given where we are at right now, nothing would surprise me, but I’d think on between the 60th and 75th minute for TD. Can’t wait to see it tonight!
*crying emojis*
| Team | Weekly Change | Season Change | |
| Greenville Triumph | 1619 | 9 | 88 |
| Forward Madison | 1546 | -3 | 18 |
| Richmond Kickers | 1545 | 27 | 70 |
| North Texas | 1544 | -8 | -31 |
| Chattanooga Red Wolves | 1528 | -10 | 26 |
| Fort Lauderdale CDF | 1482 | 11 | -18 |
| Union Omaha | 1480 | -18 | -20 |
| South Georgia Tormenta | 1474 | 0 | -14 |
| FC Tucson | 1463 | -6 | -14 |
| New England II | 1449 | 17 | -51 |
| Orlando City B | 1355 | -17 | -54 |
Well that was a real Kick in the heart, huh? I put all my positive talk on this into the podcast, so if you want me to say reassuring things and add perspective, check in there. I’ll skip that and dive straight in to the data.
1) Was it that bad?
I have not rewatched the game yet, with the midweek game I wanted to get this column out. I am actually excited to watch the way we played in the game since we looked as good as we have in months. But, it was a bad time for a loss.
According to sportsclubstats we have a 0.9% chance of making the final playoffs. Two weeks ago at 11am EST (before kick-off against CRW), we had a 47.4% of making the final.
In the last two weeks, our Elo rankings have fallen by 71 points. Kickers have added 70 points this season.
Ok enough of this. Never say never, but *bleep* that hurt.
2) How about that reshuffled midfield?!
I had no evidence of it, but I was curious if Ethan played right midfield at the end of the Revs II game when we were in the diamond. Ethan’s skillset seems very well suited to a winger, but we have two great wingers. Good thing one of them can also play striker pretty well. I LOVED Jay’s choice of Evan up top, Sebas on the left, and Ethan on the right. LOVED IT. But did they actually play in different spots?
This looks pretty close to what our usual average position chart looks like, perhaps a bit more compressed. Our outside backs are up and wide, our wide midfielders are a bit pinched in, and our forwards are stacked. Here is our formation against OCB.
So, I like the way our average positions look against RVA a little better. One interesting thing to note is that Ethan still managed to be our most advanced player in the average positions.
Man that looks good. Too bad we didn’t score.
3) But we dominated though…
Yeah we did. Using FotMob, we won 30 of 36 categories losing only big chances, shots on target, long balls, tackles both attempted and succeeded, and interceptions. I’m going to build off a stat I saw on FotMob, which was that the Kickers completed 47 (said another way: forty seven) passes in our half.
The full chart looks even worse.
The problem with soccer is that sometimes you dominate the game, you throw everything you’ve got at the goal, and you lose the game on a set piece.
In our three game scoreless streak, we’ve taken 48 shots (41 in the last two games), 19 corners (15 in the last two games), and 71 crosses (59 in the last two games). I’m looking forward to the pendulum swinging back our way and us beating Lauderdale 4-0. See you Wednesday!
Welcome back to 3 Questions. Here, we’ve been nursing our wounds after getting one point from the last nine available. It has been an entire week since our last game which hopefully was good for the squad mentally and physically. Reinforcements arrived from Kenya. Our competitors got some results. And it’s GAMEDAY! Let’s dive in.
1) How badly do we need to win?
Let’s put it this way. If we lose, this will be the last game we need to ask this question. According to SportsClubStats if we lose we have a 1.3% chance of making the final. Win, it is at 18%. And if we can get some help from Madison of all teams by beating Chattanooga today, that would be ideal. We’ve now arrived at a potentially climatic “must-win” game.
2) Where does the spark come from?
We need something to snap us out of our funk. Not allowing a goal in the first 15 minutes is probably a good place to start. The last time we didn’t do that, we kept a clean sheet against Orlando City B.
Offensively, EVD’s rescinded red card is huge for us, he is the straw that stirs our drink offensively. Devin Boyce needs to be on the pitch as well since we are a more dynamic offensive team with him out there. But my hot pick for today is Evan Conway (or someone) hitting a banger. We took a lot more shots outside of the box than usual in the last game. I’d kind of like to see that continue.
3) How do we stop Emiliano Terzaghi?
The current golden boot leader is hot off of a midweek brace, and we’ll be starting a rotated back line. Will it matter? Which version of our defense will show up, the one that switches off every once in a while or the clean sheet machine from the start of the season? Join me at Werner Park tonight to see the answer for yourself!
Pretty painful week for Union Omaha fans in the Elo rankings as our team went from +51 on the season to -2. Plus all the other stuff.
| Team | Week 10 | Weekly Change | Season Change |
| Greenville Triumph | 1610 | 17 | 79 |
| North Texas | 1552 | -8 | -23 |
| Forward Madison | 1549 | 0 | 21 |
| Chattanooga Red Wolves | 1538 | -1 | 36 |
| Richmond Kickers | 1518 | 0 | 43 |
| Union Omaha | 1498 | -53 | -2 |
| South Georgia Tormenta | 1474 | 21 | -14 |
| Fort Lauderdale CDF | 1471 | -20 | -29 |
| FC Tucson | 1469 | 17 | -8 |
| New England II | 1432 | 27 | -68 |
| Orlando City B | 1372 | 0 | -37 |
It’s Wednesday morning and half the nights since the game I’ve had dreams about UO being unable to get a goal while down 1-0. I view this level of personal emotional investment as a good sign and hope that we all are feeling as strongly as ever that simply having the opportunity to be furious at a PRO referee is a pretty good win. Let’s dive in.
1) How did Jake do replacing Dami?
Going into the match one of the biggest questions I had was who is our left back? The answer was Jake Crull. Jake seemed to step into all of Dami’s duties including set pieces. Let’s see how he did:
Dami’s passing accuracy on the season is 73.9% and 58.7% while in the opponents’ half. Jake’s numbers compare favorably there. Let’s look at how Dami did vs. Tormenta in these categories.
What jumps out to me is that Dami won 2/3 of his duels and Jake won none of his. One key thing Dami provides for us is offense. How did Jake do there?
Starting with shots, Jake was 1 for 4 in this match which happens to be what Dami’s season long stats are. As for crosses, Jake’s 33% success rate on crosses compares favorably to Dami’s 36.8% rate for the season.
As for chances Dami is averaging a little more than 2 per game. So 4 chances for Jake is good production from a UO left back.
For good measure here is Jake’s heat map for the game.
If anything Jake looked to get into the final third a bit more than Dami usually does. Overall, it seems like Jake may have offered a smidge more offensive firepower at the expense of some defensive stability.
2) Daltyn in the diamond.
Instead of playing the hits here and looking at the center back play on the game, I want to talk about something I speculated could happen a few weeks ago in a column. Daltyn came on as a holding midfielder!
I was pretty sure from where I was sitting we were playing a midfield diamond, which was an interesting look for us and as a Chelsea fan who loved José Mourinho, I loved it. Dalytn’s touches look to be above the backline and through the middle, as you might expect. Coming on at the 74′ limits the amount of data available, but it was an interesting look.
3) Crosses, crosses everywhere.
If you felt like we had a lot of crosses it is probably because we did.
In case it isn’t clear, we’re the team on the right side. We had 25 crosses in the game, almost double our average of 13.8 crosses per game. We average 3.6 successful crosses per game and have a 26.10% crossing success rate on the season. In this game we completed six crosses or 24% of them.
We also took a lot of shots.
We absolutely peppered their goalmouth. And we had a number of shots from distance that were on target which seemed like a new thing for us, but this is a bangers only league, so probably the right thing for us to be doing. Let’s look at our closets shots though.
I’m always hoping to find that one chart that sums up the whole game, and for this game it is this chart. Above you will see that not one single shot we took inside the Revs II box was on target.
Anyway, Viva Buhos friends! See you Saturday night!
Coming off of their first loss of the season against Chattanooga, Union Omaha looked to bounce back against bottom of the table New England Revolution II. This would not be the case as the Owls came up short in a 2-0 defeat for their second consecutive loss.
The Owls have scored only one point in three matches as the playoff push intensifies.
First team player for the Revolution, Justin Rennicks suited up as striker for the USL One side against the Owls in this match.
Rennicks slipped through the Owl defense to score the opening goal for the Revolution II side in the 11’.
The four defenders for Union Omaha had never played together before in a match this season as usual left back Damia Viader is hurt with a rib injury.
Head Coach Jason Mims is not worried though about the concession of early goals in the past few games including the one against the Revolution II.
“We gave up goals in the first 15 minutes for three or four games this year. We weren’t flat, it was just the moment we were bad on,” Mims said. “It’s hard when you have to mix up the back four, I don’t think they’re playing bad, they are just not in synch.”
The Owls dominated possession the rest of the game earning 54% of the ball by creating chance after chance, but the ball would not find the back of the net. Union Omaha outshot the Revs 19-9.
“The stadium felt like it, we felt like it,” Mims said. “The team felt like it that we were gonna get one.”
The goals never came for the home team as frustration mounted and in the 90’ more aggravation ensued.
Owls forward Ethan Vancore-Decker was called for a straight red card for a tackle near the touchline that caused controversy and anger amongst the players, coaching staff and fans of Union Omaha.
“Its a foul, not a redcard,” Mims said. “He didn’t leave his feet. He didn’t go in with his studs, it was a foul. We will certainly if theres a procedure for that, appeal that [red card].”
Moments later the team from Boston would score a second goal with a man advantage on a breakaway in the closing moments of the game.
Union Omaha will need to bounce back quickly as they face fourth place Richmond Kickers at home on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 7pm.
“Saturday becomes big,” Mims said.
Who Gives A Hoot?