Stormwatch912

Is 2025 the year Tormenta makes it to The Good Place?  (Warning: This post contains spoilers for "The Good Place", but that show debuted in 2016 so I don't feel too bad about spoiling the end of Season One. However, if it's on your offseason watch list and you've never seen it, you should probably stop reading now.) In the TV show "The Good Place," when the experiment with the afterlife goes wrong, Michael, a Demon from the Bad Place intent on finding new way to torture humans, simply reboots the experiment and wipes the memories of the four humans who figured out they were actually in the Bad Place. Everything that happened is erased and they just start over in their efforts to get the people to torture each other. While not exactly the same thing, that's kind of the vibe I got when Tormenta announced they were only bringing back five players from the 2024 squad. South Georgia choosing to do almost a complete reboot of the experiment to see if thing...

Hi again everybody. It's good to be back. We're still waiting on an official announcement from Tormenta about who is coming back and who is a free agent from the 2024 squad and I'll have a reaction post on that once it's official from the club, but in the meantime, it's schedule release day. I'm not privy to the details of the contract USL has with CBS and ESPN, but it does not appear to have a clause requiring both networks to simulcast the release of the schedule followed by a one-hour show breaking it down for fans. I'm going to assume that was the last thing the USL gave up in their negotiations with their broadcast partners. Maybe next time.  And to be fair, there's not a lot we can tell from the schedule release other than when teams will be playing where. Like I said, Tormenta hasn't told us who is coming back next year, let alone what the squad will look like. Even if I had the ability to do so coherently, I couldn't say why this or that ...

Hats off to Omaha for their regular season title. "Hats Off" is a weird phrase dating back to when wearing a hat was a sign of status and one would remove their hat as a sign of respect. Somewhere along the way, wearing a hat lost its symbolic attachment to status, but the phrase endures.  But you're not here for Hat Talk. Or if you are here for that, you're about to be very disappointed in the turn this post is about to take.  Quite the accomplishment for the Owls. For a season that started back in March, they had to be dominant for months and did so in such a way that they wrapped up the regular season crown with a game remaining.  But it's playoff time. Omaha's reward for winning the regular season is obviously the Players' Shield, but also the top seed in the playoffs where they'll host Richmond on Sunday.  Several years ago a friend of mine was complaining about the Major League Baseball playoffs, saying he couldn't believe this is how we dete...

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC The Unified Series team Saturday night in Greenville . It was a disappointing end to a disappointing season Saturday night in Greenville as Tormenta fell 5-1 to the Triumph, finishing the year at 10th place and on the outside looking in at the playoffs for a second straight season. Lyam MacKinnon scored two more goals against Tormenta, bringing his total to seven in the four matches between the two if you include Jagermeister Cup games. The man is a menace and I hearby call on the Mayor and City Council of Statesboro to ban him from the city limits. Ok, that's a bit harsh for a guy who is just very good at his job. He scored in the 12th minute on an assist from Leo Castro and then converted a penalty kick in the 29th minute after drawing a foul. (I like when the person fouled in the box is the one to take the penalty and if I could make soccer worse by changing one rule, it would be that the person who is fouled in the penalty area has to be the one to ta...

For the first time since the end of the 2021 season, Tormenta will play a game that doesn't affect their playoff chances when the face Greenville to end the 2024 campaign. By virtue of their 3-2 loss to Omaha on Saturday  combined with Richmond's win over Chattanooga, Tormenta has been eliminated from the playoff hunt. But the season rolls on, as it always does. And Greenville still has a lot to play for as they hope to secure the fourth spot in the standings and at least one home playoff game. From Greenville's perspective, the game isn't meaningless. Nor is it meaningless from Tormenta's point of view either. We've talked before about how the games and teams and the league only means something because we've collectively decided that it does , and if they mean something, then we can expect the players, coaches and staff to put forth their best effort to win even as they will be without the talents of Jake Dengler, Daniel Steedman and Sebastian Vivas who al...

South Georgia vs. Omaha. It's all come down to this. Well, this and next week, depending on how this week goes. But since we can't do two things at once or play two games at once, we're going to focus on the penultimate week of the season and Omaha as Tormenta's opponent and worry about next week, well, next week. There's a lot on the line Saturday night as Tormenta plays their final home match of the 2024 season, taking on an Omaha team that still has a lot to play for despite already clinching a playoff spot and at least a home game for the first two rounds of the playoffs. Lets run through the various possibilities for both teams with just two games remaining. For Omaha, the Owls lead USL1 with 42 points through 20 games, giving them a four point edge over Madison for the Players Shield as the regular season champions. Omaha can clinch the top spot in the regular season with either a win (which Tormenta can not really afford, more on that below) or a draw/loss an...