Four Tormenta Week One Takeaways (and a bonus)

The result wasn't what Tormenta wanted Saturday night. Two early goals proved to be too much to overcome as a late Gabi Rodriguez goal wasn't enough as Tormenta fell to Central Valley Fuego 2-1 at Tormenta Stadium.

The win for Central Valley is their third straight season opening win for Fuego and the first career win for their new head coach Jermaine Jones. Fuego, in fact, has never lost a season opener in their team's history.

Tormenta, meanwhile, falls to 2-3-1 in season openers all time. I'm not sure what this  actually means. It's possible it means nothing except Tormenta has won twice, lost three times, and drew once in season opening games. Not every statistic tells you something important and certainly they're not predictive. Sometimes a stat is just a stat.

With the turnover teams undergo year to year, it seems unlikely that something that happened even three years ago would affect anything for the 2024 season. I'm inclined to believe statistics like this are fun little notes that fans can look at, but in no way any indication of how the season will play out. Last year North Carolina FC lost their opener (to Tormenta) and went on to win the title. In 2022, Tormenta lost to North Carolina FC in their opener and went on to win the title. Now I'm wishing NCFC was still in the League One this season. The powers that be could have scheduled them for opening night and the loser could just be declared the champion.  

I can't sit here and tell you what happened in the first game is any indication about how the rest of the season will play out. I think we all tend to overreact to the first game because it's all we have to look at so far. We can't see trends yet because there hasn't been enough time, so instead we try to extrapolate from one game and make it mean more than it does. 

Now that I've said all that, let's overreact to 90ish minutes of soccer. (Or as close as I come to overreacting. I really do try to keep a measured approach to life.)

Possession

Tormenta was able to control the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game. That seems good. But possession for possession's sake isn't super helpful. Knocking the ball around the back like while opponents sit back isn't going to create opportunities. Tormenta essentially doubled the number of completed passes as Fuego did and over the course of a season, that could be a good thing, but it's going to matter where that possession is occurring and where those passes are happening.

Passing Accuracy/Crosses

Tormenta completed 67% of their passes in Fuego territory and got off 35 crosses. (For comparison, Fuego only attempted 18 crosses). That, again, seems good. They aren't always going to connect, but the more times you get the ball into the box, the more times you have the opportunity for good things to happen. All crosses aren't created equal, but I'd still rather have 35 chances of my raffle ticket being drawn than 18 chances. That doesn't mean there's not work to be done. 

Tormenta Manager Ian Cameron said the results in the final third of the field weren't good enough. "There's lots of times when we arrived and the attacking players should have done more with the ball," he said. "They had fewer moments to do well and did more with it then the amount of times we arrived and didn't do enough."

Fitness

Cameron regularly praises the training staff for both keeping players healthy and working with players who may have had lingering issues or surgery from last season as they make their way back to playing shape. Without mentioning names, Cameron said some of the substitutes from Saturday night may play a bigger role as Tormenta looks to steady the ship after Week One. "I think there's evidence that some guys who came off the bench are going to add a lot to this group," he said. "They weren't fit enough to start the game. To make sure we rebound, some of those guys might have to start next Saturday. They may be 15 minutes shy of full fitness. They may have to give us 60 to 70 minutes and that's what we're going to have to address."

One would think that one of those he referred to would be Conor Doyle, who was named Captain by Cameron on Friday. The experienced midfielder joins Tormenta from Omaha and in addition to his play on the field, will be looked to for leadership and a calming presence for a team with several young players.

Set Pieces

After last season saw Tormenta surrender far more than it's fair share of goals off set pieces, they gave up their second goal on a set piece Saturday. While several among the defensive unit returned from the 2023 team, it's not fair to draw any conclusions just yet about this year's team's ability to defend free kicks.

Gabriel Rodriguez was quick to point out that those kicks were the difference Saturday night. 

"Set pieces. Set pieces are huge in this league. We can't concede on set pieces. From the first minute, we've got to focus. We gave up cheap set pieces and they punished us."

He was more blunt with how to go about solving that issues.

"Work, and pardon my words, but put our balls in to win ever single battle and, if not, it's going to be a long season," Rodriguez said.

Chris Heckenberg

This isn't an overreaction to anything, but I didn't really have anywhere else to put this, so let's put it here. Heckenberg played for Tormenta 2 in 2021 and the League One team in 2022-2023 before joining Fuego this offseason. I asked Fuego coach Jermaine Jones about Heckenberg and what it was about him that led ones to want him on his squad.

"Chris is someone who brings keys to the game I like to say," Jones said. "He plays smart from his position and I think he played a good game today." 

He want on to say that Fuego's win may have meant a little extra for Heckenberg.

"I would not say he was nervous, but I think he was a little bit in his emotions because he played here. It was an important win for him and we were happy we were able to help him."