SNST Newsletter Week 29: Six Past Portland and a Flamingo Invasion

Let’s bounce around to a few good stories that involve our Carolina teams. (First published September 12)

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Soccer 'n' Sweet Tea

6 min readOct 4, 2019

Happy Thursday! We’re doing something a little different this week. Instead of spending a lot of time on one big story, we’re going to bounce around to a few stories that involve our Carolina teams. Think of it as “Extra Time” on steroids. Or like a really extra Extra Time.

Whatever you want to call it, let’s get into it. As always, the schedule is at the bottom of our Thursday email so you know when and where you can see your teams this weekend.

Courage make a statement in Portland

Must … resist … the urge … mwahahahaha.

Late Wednesday night in Portland, the North Carolina Courage put on a show, throttling a team that entered the night in first place in NWSL by the score of SIX TO ZERO. That team, the much-hated rival Thorns, now humbly sit in second place.

The Courage sit in first with two games in hand.

The tweet above tells the tale: a 6–0 win on the road, a Lynn Williams hat trick, three assists for Debinha, and an overall dominating offensive and defensive performance. 17,517 fans witnessed a complete collapse from their home team and a statement game from Paul Riley’s reigning champions who reminded everyone that, after a tumultuous season with World Cup breaks and absences, they’re still the ultimate force to be reckoned with in the NWSL.

With just five games left in the Courage season (and three at home), the club looks poised to claim the NWSL Shield for a third consecutive year. Playoffs will follow the season finale, a match in Cary against 8th place Sky Blue FC. Barring an unlikely collapse, we’ll see the women in blue hosting a home playoff match yet again.

Favorite tweet of the morning? The Uproar’s conversation with Alexa. Well done, y’all.

What the hell is the Irruption Tour?

Love ’em or hate ’em, Forward Madison sure as heck keeps things interesting. This is a team that gave away a 2x4 signed by “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan at a recent match, and offered a “Bro Pack” with a tank top, brat and Naturdays earlier in the year. Hell, the team’s mascot is a big pink flamingo.

So we really shouldn’t be surprised by what they’re doing now.

Apparently inspired by a DM from our friends at Oak City Supporters to former North Carolina FC player and current Mingo Connor “Turbo” Tobin, Forward Madison has decided to bring the Full Mingo experience to eight soccer towns: Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Asheville, Raleigh, Richmond and one mystery location.

You can see the full origin story in this Turbo-illustrated video.

Madison will be hanging with South Slope Blues in Asheville Sept. 13, then with OCS in Raleigh Sept. 14. Gonna be honest: I’m not sure exactly what the heck is happening at these events, other than the fact that they’re bringing a truckload of Wisconsin beer, but it’s sure to be interesting.

Turbo jumped on this week’s Six Point Weekend podcast to talk more about going Full Mingo.

Talkin’ magic numbers

According to USLLeagueOne.com (who, I guess, should probably know), Greenville Triumph has a 77% chance of making the inaugural L1 playoffs. Sitting in third place with 34 points, the Triumph’s magic number to make the playoffs is 13 points with five matches to play. (Yes, that’s still a lot of wins.)

Even though the standings are pretty tight, Greenville stands a good chance of making the postseason, barring a late-season collapse. The good news: Greenville plays Tucson (twice), Toronto FC II and Orlando City B, three bottom-dwelling teams, over the next four matches before facing fifth-place South Georgia Tormenta in the season finale.

If they do the hard work in those first four games, that rivalry match should only matter for bragging rights.

See the full USL League One playoff picture here.

League One expansion?

Speaking of USL League One, friend of SNST Colton Coreschi reported on soctakes.com that the league is expected to add three Western Conference teams and one Eastern Conference team in 2020.

The report says two MLS 2 clubs — Portland Timbers 2 and LA Galaxy II — are set to drop down from USL Championship to be joined by a newly-formed New England Revolution reserve team and an expansion team in Riverside, California, backed by AS Roma.

Now, take this with a grain of salt because USL spokesperson Ryan Madden said that “the 3-MLS2 teams will not be dropping to League One for 2020.” So … we’ll see?

This kind of move seems to make sense, though — letting L1 become more of a developmental league for MLS 2 and independent teams while the Championship focuses on being a stronger independent second division.

Read the full report here.

Fresh threads

USL Championship has been releasing custom jerseys designed by USL Digital designers Angela Zanaglio, Sonjai Persaud, Jaime Austin and Casey Brochhagen. The idea was to use local inspiration to highlight the culture of USLC cities.

After all of the custom jerseys are revealed, fans can vote on their top five and one fan from each of the five winning teams will get a replica jersey.

NCFC was part of the first collection released Thursday (pictured above) and I guess … it’s a tree? Charleston Battery was also part of the first release, and, I gotta say, I like the pineapples.