Having started the season with a relatively light schedule the Legion is now into catch-up mode and will play 6 games in 29 days (one is in the USL Cup). On the plus side, due to the unavailability of Protective Stadium at various points in the spring, 4 of those games will be at home. That’s just one fewer than the Three Sparks have played all season to date. The team has played 10 league games; 7 Eastern Conference teams have played more: 2 on 11, 4 on 12 and 1 on 13. All Eastern teams play this weekend, so the games-in-hand situation will not change until the Legion plays in Oakland Wednesday (2 other Eastern teams are also in action that day). After Wednesday, all of the Legion’s league games in the upcoming schedule are against Eastern teams, meaning this represents a huge opportunity to improve in the standings.
The most important part
First, the Three Sparks have to handle the Las Vegas Lights (Saturday, 7:00pm, ESPN+). The Lights are having a typically mediocre season, with a league record of 3-5-3. On the road they have been very poor, earning just 1 point from 6 games, and that was in Week 1, a 1-1 draw at Orange County SC who themselves struggled early. They also lost their only USL Cup away game, 0-1 to Spokane Velocity.
So they have 12 points from 11 games as compared with the Legion’s 11 from 10 games. The Lights also have -3 goal difference versus the Legion’s -1. All of this suggests a serious home-field advantage.
Two things serve to moderate that. First, Las Vegas did not play a midweek game. Interestingly, their game last weekend was a 0-2 loss to the Oakland Roots. Granted, the Legion did play with a heavily rotated lineup with this game very much in Jay Heaps’ mind, but some of it was not by choice. Significantly, Phanuel Kavita and Ramiz Hamouda were both on international duty and Dawson McCartney was slightly dinged up. That meant a totally recalibrated back line and forced moving Amir Daley to left fullback for 45 minutes. Of the 3 absentees, Dawson should be available. Phanny probably won’t be over jet lag returning from Africa and even if Raz were not also on his way back from Japan he played Wednesday too (Phanny did not). In any event he is likely done in black and gold. Thus the Lights will be relatively rested despite the travel (the Oakland game was a home fixture).
Second, that goal difference starts with 16 goals scored, whereas the Legion has scored only 11. The USL Cup closes that gap to 2 goals; Vegas has just 1 (against AC Boise), the Legion has 4. The goals allowed favors the good guys: 12 v. 19 in the league, 13 v. 23 overall. Thus, they do not have a great deal of trouble scoring (they are joint 8th in the league). They will be up against a solid defense, but as noted that defense does not have a great deal of options right now. That being said, there’s been an ongoing game of musical chairs in front of Jasem Koleilat all season and they seem to be doing OK so far. Jay Heaps does have an ace up his sleeve though: Seth Antwi, who has been a rock as the defensive pivot, was intentionally kept out of the Corpus Christi game expressly to have him 100% for tomorrow.
As far as the players the Legion defense needs to keep locked down are concerned, the primary threat is striker Johnny Rodriguez, who has 6 goals. This is his second season with the Lights after spending 5 years with the Roots, all the way back to their NISA days. He is well on pace to beat his 10 goals in 2025. A distant second is Ghanaian midfielder Abraham Okyere on 3 goals. Also a potential threat is Oalex Anderson. He only has 2 to date this year but his previous scoring production with North Carolina FC was legendary.
Las Vegas generally pays a 4-4-2 or a 4-1-4-1. When there are two forwards the man alongside Rodriguez in Manuel Arteaga. Arteaga’s production has fallen off the past couple of years. He chose to leave the Rowdies this offseason but it hasn’t done any good; he is scoreless this year.
Another former Rowdie is defender Aaron Guillen, who should be a familiar name and likely the only one on the back line. The others are all relative unknowns. In goal the Lights have used 3 different guys already. Jared Amzzola was the regular starter early but has been loaned out to AC Boise. Charlie Lanphier now appears to be the #1. This is his first pro season after playing at Seattle University and Ballard FC last season, going all the way to the League Two final. #2 is Mason Stajduhar, on loan from Real Salt Lake. A career-long backup he has just 36 games in 11 seasons. A third keeper has also appeared on the gameday bench list: Carver Miller, another backup player who made 1 appearance last season.
Finally, the head coaching position has been a revolving door at the club. To date the team has had a staggering 11 gaffers in 8 seasons. None has lasted more than 39 games (Dennis Sanchez, who led the team to its only postseason appearance and now manages New Mexico United). The current man in the hot seat is Devin Rensing, who was an assistant to Ben Pirmann at both Memphis 901 and the Charleston Battery. This is his first pro head coaching job. He obviously has some courage.
Best of the rest
Four games were played Wednesday evening, including Monterey Bay extending its win streak to 3 at the unsurprising expense of Sporting JAX. Louisville City also won for the first time since April 18th, 2-0 over Phoenix Rising. Monterey Bay is the only team idle this weekend, and all Championship games are being played Saturday evening, so they butt up against or overlap with the Legion game. However, there is a rather important game tonight…
USMNT v. Paraguay (Friday, 8:00pm, Fox)
Birmingham’s own Chris Richards is not a lock to start in this game given his recent injury issues. Does that matter? It shouldn’t. The Group D opener is being played in Inglewood, California at the SoFi Stadium (home of the Rams and Chargers), which has apparently been temporarily renamed Los Angeles Stadium for the World Cup. The US will also play Turkey there June 25th. In between they will play Australia June 19th at Lumen Field (fka CenturyLink Field) in Seattle, where the Seahawks, Sounders and Reign all play. The US’ FIFA ranking is 17; Turkey is 23, Australia 27 and Paraguay 40. All told, a pretty tight group.
Loudoun United v. Rhode Island FC (Saturday, 5:00pm, ESPN+)
Loudoun have been less than compelling this season with only one league win, 1-0 over Brooklyn FC and 1 win in the USL Cup, 2-0 over Richmond Kickers. Worse, they lost 1-3 to Greenville Triumph in the Cup this past Wednesday. That means their chances of helping the Legion to climb above Rhode Island in the standings are less than stellar. Rhody have 1 point more than the Three Sparks, so a draw could be enough.
Tampa Bay Rowdies v. Hartford Athletic (Saturday, 6:30pm, ESPN+)
The Rowdies kept their unbeaten season alive Wednesday, playing to a 2-2 draw with the Charleston Battery. Does that mean they will be tired for this game against the Athletic? Hopefully not, because a Hartford loss combined with a Legion win would put the two teams even on points (although Hartford holds the tiebreaker).
Oakland Roots v. The™ Miami FC (Saturday, 9:00pm, ESPN+)
The Legion heads to the Oakland Coliseum this Wednesday and plays Miami at home July 5th. We are of course well acquainted with the South Floridians already, who currently have a 5-point lead on the Three Sparks but with 2 additional games played. Their 16 points are matched by Oakland. This looks like a pretty balanced matchup and should provide some valuable scouting info.
Legion in the Lower Leagues
Legion WFC’s perfect season ended last weekend with a 0-3 loss to Swarm FC in the second of their two visits to that team. That dropped the team to 14th in the Power Rankings. They quickly got back on track, though, beating the Chattanooga Red Wolves 3-1, also away. Annie McBride got a brace and the final goal was scored by Katie Anne Shepherd. With 4 games remaining the ladies have a 5-point lead over Asheville City, who have 5 games to play. The first of those 4 games will be tonight (6:00pm, Dunnavant Valley) against One Knoxville, who have a 1-4-1 record.
Legion FC 2 continues to have a rough time of it. Just 2 points from 5 games, most recently losing 1-3 to Swarm FC in the double-header and 0-2 to division leaders Dothan United on Wednesday. One more dropped point and they are eliminated from the postseason. They will, however, have the privilege of playing as the support act at Protective Stadium tomorrow, hosting Apotheos FC at 3:00pm. This is the first meeting between the two teams; Atlanta-based Apotheos is currently 4th in the division.
