SNST Newsletter Week 32: A season lost in CLT

If we don’t talk about the Jacks now, we definitely won’t in the next few weeks as the postseason cranks up.

Published in

Soccer 'n' Sweet Tea

5 min readOct 11, 2019

Happy Friday! The North Carolina Courage won the NWSL Shield and will host a playoff semifinal match Oct. 20. North Carolina FC clinched a USL Championship playoff spot, and the Charleston Battery are in the hunt for one of the last two playoff spots. And this weekend, Greenville Triumph SC travels to Lansing to play in the semifinals of the first USL League One playoffs.

Those are all great stories, and we will cover them in future editions of this here electronic mail communication. But this week, we’re focused on Charlotte. Yes, the Independence. Buckle up.

A season lost

By Corey Inscoe

I know what you’re thinking: Why in the hell are we talking about the Charlotte Independence — the only active Carolina team that doesn’t have a chance to make the playoffs — this week?

It’s a fair question. But it also answers itself. We’re talking about them because their season is effectively over. Charlotte sits in 15th place with 32 points and two matches to play. They can’t make the playoffs. If we don’t talk about them now, we definitely won’t in the next few weeks as the postseason cranks up.

And the Independence season was a wild one, to put it lightly. So we should probably talk about it.

The Independence’s roller coaster ride has been well documented in this space, but to recap:

The team hired Jim McGuinness, a Gaelic football (that’s not soccer) star, in the offseason to replace the club’s only coach, Mike Jeffries, who was moved to general manager.
Things went bad. Like, one win in 14 games and a U.S. Open Cup loss to a UPSL team bad.
McGuinness got fired and Jeffries returned to the sidelines.
Things got better! Like, won four of their next seven matches and got back into the playoff race better.
Then the new coach shine wore off, and things got bad again — like, didn’t win a game between July 14 and Sept. 27 bad.

The bad to good to bad again whiplash was pretty jarring for fans in Charlotte. At first, it seemed like the early season woes could be placed solely at the feet of McGuinness. But that 10-game winless streak late in the season — just when the Independence were getting back into playoff contention — shows there were deeper problems.

The season was doomed from the beginning, and there was nothing that could save it.

It should be noted that this brand of poor form late in the season is not unheard of for a Jeffries-led Independence team. Just last year, Charlotte won only one game in July and August, dropping out of playoff position and ultimately finishing 11th in the Eastern Conference.

To get some perspective on this season, I asked our Charlotte channel on Slack to reflect on the season. Some of the answers:

“The Charlotte Independence season was ruined by Gaelic football.” — Jay Landskroener
“Longest preseason in USL history.” — Alex Warren
“Late signings. Slow start. Momentum. Morale. Snowball. Player mutiny? Never settling on CB pairing. Benching Kevan. Failed loans. Failed experiment. Swallow pride. New Manager Bounce. Team mostly constructed for one style. Too big of hole. Lack of quality depth. Why use many words when few words do trick. Old legs. Veterans on way down/don’t care vs. youngsters on way up/hungry. Did Rapids break Enzo? Is Enzo a tactical problem? Off-field decisions wasted season.” — Jason Bailey

Here’s where I think I’ve landed on this season: Good ideas, worst possible execution.

Replacing Jeffries wasn’t in itself a bad decision, but maybe they should have replaced him with an experienced soccer coach? Grabbing some intriguing young transfers — like Celtic’s Andrew Gutman and Manchester City’s Curtis Anderson — seemed promising but never panned out. And, yeah, that defense had some issues.

It seems like something big needs to change, though. The Independence are expected to move into a renovated Memorial Stadium outside of Uptown in 2021. Fans see it as the team’s chance to reintroduce itself to the city after a bungled launch and a few years wandering around the suburbs. So, the front office has less than two years to figure out how to rebuild this team.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Independence try those ideas again this offseason. The top three scorers on this year’s team are 34 years old (Dominic Oduro with seven), 39 (Jorge Herrera, six) and 29 (Enzo Martinez, five), so an infusion of young talent is needed. Niki Jackson, 24, has been a bright spot at times this season with four goals in 21 appearances.

And no one would be surprised to see another coaching change before the start of the 2020 campaign.

I do have one piece of advice for the Independence braintrust, though: This time, hire a soccer coach.

This weekend’s schedule

NWSL

North Carolina Courage vs. Sky Blue FC, 7 p.m. Oct. 12 at WakeMed Soccer Park

USL Championship

Charlotte Independence at Memphis 901 FC, 8 p.m. Oct. 12 on ESPN+
North Carolina FC at Nashville SC, 8 p.m. Oct. 12 on ESPN+
Charleston Battery vs. Loudoun United FC, 2 p.m. Oct. 13 at MUSC Health Stadium