It's time for the Maine Event

Photo Credit: Luke Martin
At Tormenta practice Wednesday.

At the beginning of the year, I thought it would be nice for you all reading this if I reached out to others in the USL League One media ecosystem and ask if they'd contribute a short bit on the team they cover whenever they played Tormenta. My initial plan (and still the plan) is to see if someone wouldn't mind writing a paragraph or two about key players, what to watch for and things like that. If you're reading this, you're invested in Tormenta and want to know more about who they're playing when you show up to the stadium or turn on ESPN+. 

The people who are generous enough with their time are doing me a favor and I am grateful for whatever they want to do. 

So when I reached out to this week's guest contributor for a preview of Portland and he asked how much he should write, I basically told him the advice my first newspaper editor gave me in my first job, "Write until you're done." And let me tell you, he did just that. Basically did everything for me so I just have to slap a few paragraphs at the beginning, throw in a concluding paragraph at the end and call it a day.

I do have a little bit of Tormenta news to mention before we into things. Manager Ian Cameron will miss the game Saturday as he's in Wales working on coaching licensing things. Things fall to Assistant Coach Jordan Bell to be the head man in charge for Tormenta Saturday when they take on Portland Hearts of Pine. 

On the injury front, Niall Reid-Stephen and Jonathan Nyandjo both missed last week's game with Chattanooga. On Wednesday they both participated in warmups and then were doing rehab exercises as others on the team were in training. Taylor Gray was injured in the Chattanooga match and sat out practice Wednesday. He said he's not expecting to be ready by this weekend but hopefully next week for either the Open Cup game against Charleston or next Saturday against Charlotte.

Here is where I would talk about what Tormenta is trying to do and then toss it to a preview of Portland, but our guest has taken care of all that. 

This week's guest goes by ShadowWulf on BlueSky (a name that my youngest found absolutely hilarious when I told who I was messaging with). He lives in Germany and previously covered Rio Grande Valley before they folded and has since moved on to join us in the League One ranks covering Portland. Obviously there's a pretty big time difference between Maine and Germany, so he's up late watching games on weekends in addition to his day job. He's the host of the Fallen Leaves Podcast, covering Portland, which you can find here. He's already interviewed their President and their Head Coach on his show. 

Take it away, ShadowWolf:

Hello! Before we get started, I just wanted to say that I'm honored to be making my first guest appearance on the USL L1 scene.

And with the George Carlin of League One, no less. Those are big boots I'm trying to fit in now.

So why am I here? To tell you about Hearts of Pine. That's why!

Introduction

The guys from Portland are currently showing two faces, something that will become apparent throughout this post.

While they caused a sensation in the US Open Cup, they've had two 0-0 draws in the league so far, and both could rightly be described as rather boring.

The highlight of Bobby Murphy's - our coach - team so far, has been their impeccable defense - they've only conceded one goal - and their good pressing and counterattacking.

The players have shown great ability to block the attackers' runs and spoil their fun with good tackling. Sean Vinberg is particularly notable in this regard.

But after four games, it already feels like I've been married to the same woman for sixteen years. Let's call her Peggy.

Just as people tend to overlook each other's weaknesses after 16 years, many Hearts fans seem to be overlooking a glaring problem: Our offense is harmless. Extremely harmless.

While our defense once scored four touchdowns in one game, our offense was just a cheerleader called Jefferson, who wouldn't last one minute in a pub fight, before he breaks one of his nails.

So, out of four games, we haven't scored a goal within the regular ninety minutes in three of them.

Sure, you can be happy with a point after exhausting first games and a 15-hour trip to Spokane, but if you're honest, you didn't contribute much offensively.

And that's exactly where the problem lies!

The attacking highlights come from brilliant individual actions by players like Ollie Wright on the wing but there's been little to no sign of goal-hungry strikers so far. This is also due to the fact that at times we've managed to get less than a third of our crosses to their target and haven't been able to create any good set pieces.

So, what does Tormenta have to do to emerge victorious?

As long as Tormenta manages to defend its own flanks, most of our threat is already prevented, as we rarely attempt to attack through the middle.

Since our set pieces haven't had any hope of success so far, you don't have to worry about that: Our main tactic will be to wait for Tormenta to make mistakes, press and counterattack.

If we do attack, it's through the flanks - Messer in play with Wright or Joney-Riley with Varela. If you take out these four players, most of the problems we could cause are gone.

Since we often advance with these players, the opportunity for Tormenta's own counterattacks with long balls would be a good way to strike at our heart, as Bobby usually does a good job of controlling the middle of the field.

In short: if you prevent our flashes of inspiration and shut down our flanks, you'll pose major problems for Portland.

What does Portland have to do to win?

Let me answer that with a counter question. Why did Marcy cross the Rhoades [see what I did there?] Answer: Because it's nicer there!

What I'm saying is: as nice as defensive stability is, it doesn't do us any good if we don't score up front. Draws might get you to the USL Championship playoff final, but they won't get you to the title. Just ask our little brothers from Rhode Island.

The solution, therefore – in my opinion – would be to give Jake Keegan the starting spot.

The experienced L1 attacker - proved he still has it in his goal against Hartford -  would bring a whole new quality to the forward duo, and would have the experience to lead and manage a very young team.

Liadi is a hotshot who seemed drained against Spokane. Southern and Washington are fresh out of college, but haven't really proven themselves to be goal-hungry attackers at the USL level yet.

So my advice would be: play a 4-2-3-1 with short passes between the lines, set up Keegan, and let Ollie Wright direct the game as a number 10. Also: learn to take damn corners!

Of course, we can also try the same tactics as before, only then we would have as similar success as the Haradrim army at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

We could obviously wait for the Nazghul King to scream Tormenta's Goal down [read the books, kids]. But I wouldn't want to do that to Austin Pack.

My players to watch: Hunter Morse [aka Wet Matt Turner] in goal, Sean Vinberg at CB, and Ollie Wright on the wing.

With that in mind, all I can say is: thank you for this platform and good luck on Saturday!

One love from Germany

PS: Let me end my text with a joke:  What's the difference between Al Bundy and Bolt the Ibis's social media?

At least Al Bundy shows up at work! Go Go Pelicans!

We'll all agree to ignore the "Go Pelicans" part at the end.

Wait, Shirley from Community has something to say.

Thank you ShadowWolf.

I'll have a full recap of the game online at the Statesboro Herald sometime Sunday. As always, I'll post a link on BlueSky. Tormenta has an Open Cup match with Charleston Wednesday, so I hope to have a preview for that up here on Tuesday. 

Kickoff is back to Tormenta's usual 7:30 p.m. time slot and will be on ESPN+ for those who can't make it out to the stadium. 

Have a great weekend everyone.