Our guest correspondent, Adam Davis, fills us in on what the 2021 USL season might look like for Loudoun United. You can listen to Adam talk about the team on Two Loud Adams.
While the MLS patches together the last pieces to the puzzle for a Collective Bargaining Agreement with its Players Association, the USL Championship and their Player’s Association have already agreed, in principle, on a CBA. While teams don’t know their individual start dates, they do know it will come between the dates of April 24th and May 15th. With that CBA came the announcement of the 2021 USL Championship Season format, and in turn a bunch of folks attempting to determine how this new season’s format will impact their team and their group. So, why shouldn’t we also take a swing at it and try to determine who our opponents would be for the upcoming season (fingers crossed for 12 more trips to Hartford!!). In the USL Championship’s announcement, they stated that it will break its teams up into 4 groups (or Divisions) of 8 teams each. For the mathematicians out there trying to divide 31 by 4; yes, that means one group will only having 7 teams. So first, I took a swing at what I think our group SHOULD look like if this was done solely based on geographic rationale. I don’t actually think the group will look like this but it’s an interesting breakdown nonetheless. I have bold/italicized the teams that will be favorited to take a playoff spot.
- Hartford
- NYRB2
- Loudoun
- Pittsburgh
- Louisville
- Indy 11
- Sporting KC
- Col. Springs (the outlier in this prediction, but someone has to take them)
Yes, that group is a terrifying one and would almost certainly result in a 3rd straight season on the outside looking in on the playoffs. But, there’s hope! The USL doesn’t like to do things rationally and instead you can count on them forcing a ton of rivalries into groups (because that’s what the fans want after all), causing the groups to look a little wonky from a geographic standpoint. The USL Championship also has a number of other factors to consider including attempting to maintain West/East conference alignment and the potential departure of one or two more teams from the League for the upcoming season. After attempting to determine how that kind of a shakeup would play out, this is my “more accurate” prediction of our Division in 2021.
- Hartford
- NYRB2
- Loudoun
- Pittsburgh
- Atlanta 2
- Charlotte Independence
- Charleston
Right off the bat, you might notice that this is a much more manageable group. This is especially true if we find ourselves in the “7-team-group” and 4 teams do in fact make the playoffs. It would offset the bad-luck of being in a 5-team-group last season that only had 2 playoff spots in it. With that being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if they force Tampa Bay Rowdies into this group due to their rivalry with Charleston being more significant than their in-state budding rivalry with The Miami FC. That would certainly hurt our chances and last year’s Eastern Conference Champs would likely edge Charleston out of that “presumed” playoff spot.
It should go without saying that either way, we will have a hill to climb. Coach Martin will need to get points against teams where the opportunities are there (Atlanta2, Charlotte, NYRB2, Indy11, and/or Sporting KC) and potentially hope that his dazzling tactics play out against some of the stronger and more established teams if we’re going to have a shot at reaching his goal of a first playoff berth. After all, we’re always going to be the underdog after an incomplete end (COVID-19 induced) to last season that saw us finishing at the bottom of the entire League.