Charlotte FC’s Depth Had Its Night Against Pumas
The 3–0 win was a reminder that Pep Biel cannot be Charlotte’s entire attack.
The lineup worried me.
When Charlotte FC released its starting eleven against Pumas, I thought Dean Smith might be taking too much of a risk. Tyler Miller was in goal. Will Cleary started at right back. Rodolfo Aloko was on the left, Archie Goodwin started through the middle and Brandt Bronico returned to the midfield. Tim Ream and Henry Kessler had never started together.
This was the opening match of Leagues Cup, and only four of the 18 MLS teams will advance. Charlotte lost its first game in each of the previous two tournaments. Pumas had scored five goals against Juárez a few days earlier.
Rotation made sense with three matches in eight days. I just wasn’t sure this was the right game for so much of it.
My opinion aged badly.
Charlotte won 3–0. Bronico scored the first goal, Goodwin added the second and Tyger Smalls converted a penalty after coming off the bench. I didn’t have any of those three on my imaginary list of potential scorers.
Pep Biel played 71 minutes. He didn’t score, and he wasn’t credited with an assist. Charlotte was fine.
That’s where this game connects to what I wrote after the loss in Chicago. I argued that Charlotte was missing another star. I still believe the roster needs a player who can take control when a match starts slipping away. Chicago had Robert Lewandowski. When Charlotte’s early control disappeared, Lewandowski decided the game.
Pumas was a different experience. Charlotte didn’t find a new star overnight, but the burden moved around the team. Pep was still involved. He occupied defenders and helped Charlotte combine in the attacking half. He wasn’t responsible for every dangerous moment.
There’s a difference between building an attack around your best player and expecting him to rescue it every week. Charlotte has crossed that line too often.
Against Pumas, other players gave Pep some help.
Aloko was the first one who stood out to me. He wasn’t clean with every touch, and a couple of his attacks went nowhere. I didn’t mind. He continued asking for the ball and running at his defender.
I’ve watched too many Charlotte possessions slow down when a winger receives the ball. The player stops, looks inside and sends it backward. Aloko usually tried to go somewhere.
“I felt like every time I got the ball, I could do more,” he said after the match.
You could see that belief in him. Aloko stayed wide enough to stretch the back line, which gave David Schnegg more room to move forward. When Pumas stepped up, Charlotte played into the space behind it. When the defenders began dropping sooner, Charlotte found shorter passes through midfield.
Smith said Aloko was a constant threat. That was probably the best description of his performance. The end product will need to improve, but Pumas had to keep paying attention to him.
Charlotte also used its direct passes better than it has in some MLS matches.
I’ve complained plenty about the hopeful long ball that gives possession away and forces Charlotte to defend again. The passes against Pumas had a purpose. Goodwin was already moving. Aloko was trying to get behind the fullback. Charlotte was attacking a specific weakness rather than clearing the ball and calling it an attack.
Bronico’s goal wasn’t nearly that organized.
I had to watch the replay again to understand how it went in. The ball rebounded into Bronico and ended up behind Keylor Navas. Bronico knew very little about the final touch.
If the same goal had gone against Charlotte, I would have called it unlucky. It went in Charlotte’s favor, so I’ll call it lucky and move on.
There was still something worth examining before the bounce.
I asked Smith about the goal afterward. My question was about the mix of luck, preparation and the effort Bronico brings when he plays.
“You can say there was luck about it, but he’s in the right area,” Smith said.
Charlotte’s midfielders had been told to enter the penalty area when the ball was attacked from their side. One midfielder could make the run while the others stayed behind the play. Bronico got beyond the Pumas midfield and kept following the attack.
He couldn’t plan that finish. He did put himself close enough to benefit from it.
Charlotte has needed more of that from its midfield. There have been matches when the striker enters the box and everyone else waits outside it. If the initial cross is cleared, the possession is basically over. Bronico gave Pumas another runner to account for.
The second goal was easier to understand. Five minutes after halftime, Schnegg found room on the left and crossed toward Goodwin. Goodwin got between the defenders and headed the ball past Navas.
The timing relieved me as much as the finish did.
Charlotte has played good first halves before and come back looking disconnected after halftime. Pumas only trailed by one and had enough attacking talent to make the missed opportunities hurt.
Goodwin scored before that kind of game could develop.
I asked Pumas coach Esteban Solari what he told his players during the break. He said he wanted them to forget the first half, correct the problems Charlotte caused on the counterattack and keep attacking. Solari thought Pumas improved afterward, although he admitted his players weren’t clinical.
Pumas did create more pressure. The score makes that easy to forget.
Tyler Miller finished with six saves. Pumas put six of its 13 shots on target, and Miller stopped everything. Charlotte created seven big chances to Pumas’ one, so I don’t think the result was misleading. I also don’t think this was 90 minutes of complete control.
Smith wasn’t satisfied with Charlotte’s use of the ball in the second half. He said the team gave possession away too easily. That happened several times after Charlotte defended well. Someone would win the ball, Charlotte would attempt the first pass forward and Pumas would have it back almost immediately.
Miller kept those mistakes from affecting the score.
Starting him over Kristijan Kahlina was one of the decisions I questioned before the game. Miller made Smith look right. He dealt with the shots cleanly and started the move that led to the third goal.
Charlotte had also done its homework defensively.
Pumas scored several times against Juárez by sending deep crosses toward the far post. I asked Smith about that at the end of his press conference because Charlotte looked ready for the same ball.
Smith said the coaches had focused on it during their preparation. Cleary handled those situations in the first half. Kessler took on more of that responsibility later.
It’s the kind of work that disappears when it’s done correctly. A defender follows the runner, heads the cross away and the game continues. If he switches off once, everyone notices.
Cleary had some difficult moments when Pumas attacked him directly, but his positioning on those crosses was good. Ream and Kessler were steady in the middle. Smith said they didn’t put a foot wrong in their first start together.
Djibril Diani helped them.
I didn’t leave the game thinking Diani had been the obvious player of the match. FotMob and Charlotte FC gave him that honor, so I went back through his numbers. He recorded eight defensive contributions and created two chances.
His job was easy to miss. When Bronico went forward, Diani covered the space. He helped stop Pedro Vite and Coco Carrasquilla from settling into the game. Pumas had possession, but its best midfielders never really controlled the night.
Diani can still frustrate me. Sometimes he takes an extra touch or plays a pass without enough pace. Against Pumas, Charlotte needed his size and defensive range. He gave the midfield some balance.
Then Smalls came on for Pep in the 71st minute.
Seven minutes later, Pumas sent players forward for a set piece. Miller collected the ball and threw it into the open field. Smalls saw the space and ran.
The defender couldn’t recover without fouling him inside the box. Smalls took the penalty himself and beat Navas.
He said afterward that Charlotte practices those situations. Once the first danger from a set piece is cleared, the players look for a quick attack before the opponent can recover.
“Maybe if I didn’t fall over, he could have got an assist,” Smalls joked about Miller’s throw.
I liked seeing that confidence from him. Smalls hasn’t played much this season. There have been times when his speed has gotten him into a promising position and his final decision has wasted it.
This time he forced the defender into a decision, won the penalty and wanted the ball afterward.
Nathan Richmond made his first-team debut a few minutes later. He called it a proud moment and said he had dreamed about playing for Charlotte since joining Crown Legacy.
He didn’t play long enough for me to judge the performance. I was glad Smith used the situation to give him the opportunity.
Aloko started and caused problems. Smalls changed the game after coming on. Richmond received his first minutes. That’s a productive night for the development side of the organization, especially because Charlotte still won comfortably.
I’m trying not to overreact to one game.
Charlotte’s larger roster questions haven’t disappeared. There will be nights when the team doesn’t create seven big chances. A ball won’t conveniently bounce off Bronico. Miller won’t save every shot. Charlotte will need someone who can change a game when the plan stops working.
Pep has done that repeatedly. The problem comes when he’s the only realistic option.
The Pumas match gave me a different version of Charlotte. Aloko carried the ball forward without looking for Pep first. Bronico entered the box. Goodwin finished a cross. Smalls created his own moment from the bench.
I’m not ready to say the depth is suddenly fixed. This was one match against a Pumas team that made plenty of mistakes.
It was still a good answer after Chicago.
Charlotte faces Atlas next. Atlas lost 3–1 to Columbus but had 56 percent of the possession, so Charlotte will probably spend parts of the game defending and waiting for the same transition opportunities it found against Pumas.
I want to see how this group responds if Atlas takes those spaces away. I want to see whether Charlotte can keep the ball better after halftime. Mostly, I want to know if the players around Pep can do this again.
The Pumas game made me reconsider the lineup. It made me feel better about the depth too.
I’m still waiting on the rest.