Just the Stats, Ma'am

Image credit: xkcd

To paraphrase one of the classic tweets that lives rent free in my head, I'm a modest blogger with modest goals:

• 1. To write a humorous blog on a semi-regular basis.
• 2. drain the world's oceans so we can find and kill god.

Unfortunately I've had to put the second goal on hold as a much, much more serious matter has come to my attention. 

This all started because I was trying to find some statistics from Union Omaha before they played Tormenta last week. "Hmmmm," I thought to myself. "I'll just hop on over to their website and surely they'll have stats galore. A virtual smorgasbord of stats for me to peruse and enjoy at my leisure." 

So I fired up the old internet machine and made my way to the Union Omaha page and.... well it's a nice website. But no stats to be found anywhere. At first, I thought it might be under the "Club" heading. There I was able to find the 2025 roster, but no player or team stats. None of the other headings seemed like good places to look. (Omaha, if you put your player stats under the "Community" tab then I owe you an apology.) 

But wait, what's that in the corner. A magnifying glass. The universal symbol for search. A way to peruse the site. "Eureka" is what I would have thought if I was in a 1940s Looney Toons cartoon. But this is progress. This is the key that will lead me to the holy grail that I seek. 

Alas, it was but fool's gold as a search for player stats only yielded articles on their website with those words. 

No stats were to be found.

That couldn't be. I know I'd seen stats on team pages before. So I went to Tormenta's webpage in search of their stats this season. They'd played two games at that point so surely they'll have those sweet, sweet stats that I crave.

Under the "USL Teams" heading, I found "League One" and in the menu that appeared were those glorious words. "Player Stats." I knew it. I knew stats were there. So I clicked ready with full anticipation for the information that had eluded me on the Omaha page. I would finally have the information that would make the post I was working on worthy of a Pulitzer, or maybe a repost on Bluesky.

But no. This, too, was a cruel disappointment for me as the promised stats turned out to be the 2024 season stats. Not exactly helpful in that moment.

So two of the 14 teams in the league have no player statistics for the 2025 season on their website. Do any teams have them? Could I find them easily? This calls for the first (and quite possibly final) "Stormwatch912 Investigative Report." 

Fine, fine. "Investigative Report" sounds a lot more authoritative than "searching team websites and reporting what I find." Just be cool, ok. Below is each team with a link to their website and a brief description of my efforts to find player stats there.

It's quite possible I missed the stats on the team pages and, if so, please someone alert me and I'll correct it! I didn't do an exhaustive search of each teams' website. Just where I would expect to find the stats. All comments below are valid as of April 3, 2025 at noon, eastern.

AV Alta - The roster page is nice with links to the players social media and a brief bio of each of them. I could not find anywhere that looked like a place for stats. They lack a search function on their website.

Charlotte - If you move your cursor over the player's name on their roster page, it looks like you should be able to click it, but it doesn't do anything. Nothing under the "Club" section indicates you could find statistics there. Like AV Alta, there is no search option on their website.

Chattanooga - The roster page is a bare bones spreadsheet listed in numerical order. Truly no frills at all on that, but also no statistics. The club page can get you to the USLW team and schedule, but no stats anywhere on the page. There is no search function, but they do offer a translation option that uses Google Translate to change whatever page your on to any number of languages. It may not be stats, but that's a useful thing to have. Once again, no search function.

Forward Madison - The roster page is laid out nicely and while the signatures look somewhat realistic, I'm inclined to believe they're not the actual players' signatures. But nowhere are stats to be found. In the place where Chattanooga has a translate option, Madison has a link to their sponsor, Dairyland. Again, no search option on the webpage.  

Greenville - Like Madison, Greenville prominently displays its sponsor in the top right of their website. Another roster page that lists the players' social media accounts (no one seems to be on Bluesky, yet). If you click on the News tab, there's an option for media. Sure, we'll give that a shot. On the media page, there is a link for team stats. Finally, we've found it. We have a team with stats on their webpage. I click and that link simply redirects you to the USL League One Greenville page. Still, it's better than nothing. But would a curious fan looking for Greenville stats think to go to the "News" tab and then select "media" to find the stats? I'm thinking not. Our fifth team, so far, without a search option.

One Knox - Our first team with a search icon on the home page. This is good. More teams should have that. Actually, all teams should have that. But kudos to you, One Knox. Now, to find the elusive player stats. A search for "player stats" leads us to a page for the One Knox Academy dated May 24, 2023. Not what we wanted, but maybe the search function is missing something. The roster page shows us their Instagram account links but our elusive statistics can't be found. 

FC Naples - First thing to notice is no search option. So we are forced to try to figure out where we might find those stats. The team option shows us the standard roster page with photos, but no actual stats anywhere. The News tab again filled with press releases. Our quest continues. 

At this point I'm starting to think no one has stats. We're through  half the league and other than Tormenta's outdated stats page, no one has anything. But we continue our quest.

Portland - I'm greeted with a friendly Hearts of Pine chat prompt when I make my way to Portland's site. It lets me know the chat is monitored from 9-5 eastern time and I need to leave my email address for a timely answer. Helpful, for sure, but an added step that hopefully isn't necessary to get some of those sweet, sweet numbers and statistics that we're looking for. The roster page again links to all the Instagram accounts for the players. There is no search function and, yet again, no stats.

Richmond - Oh, another chat box. This one seems to be automated, unlike Portland, so I type in "stats" and I get the following response. "Interested in stats? We've got you covered! Check our team stats, player stats, and standings below." And then there's a graphic with a button for stats. I click. And it's glorious. 2025 Richmond Kicker Stats. All there for anyone who wants them. They're updated and have everything you could ask for. Richmond, you wonderful, glorious people. If I've said anything bad about you, I take it all back. You... you have stats! Bless you Richmond Kickers, bless you! And if you don't want to go through the chatbot, if you to the "Club" tab and then down to "Roster," there's an option for 2025 stats. It's intuitive, easy to find. You're forgiven for not having a search option other than the chat box.

South Georgia Tormenta - We covered this above, but if you skipped the intro, all we have here are 2024 stats. There is a search icon, so that's good. I'm feeling generous so I'll give Tormenta partial credit for at least having a path to a stats page that can be updated. That's more than everyone but Richmond has.

Spokane Velocity - No search icon, but Spokane combines their USL League One team site with their USL Super League site, so we can get both the Velocity and Zephyr FC info on one page, which is a nice touch. The roster page is fine, featuring photos of each player but no social media info, and more importantly for our purposes, no stats either. 

Texoma FC - Yet another club with no search icon. The roster page is fine, just photos of players, but no indication of stats or social media. The news page is simply press releases as you would expect. 

Union Omaha - We discussed them already above, but I do want to add that where Chattanooga as their translate webpage option and Madison has their sponsor logo, Union Omaha has "2024 USL League One Champions" and the outline of two trophies. A nice touch to their website even as there are no player stats.

Westchester SC - The roster page has a short bio of each player when you hover over it, which is a nice touch. No social media accounts to be found. The "News" tab once again takes me to various team press releases and we have no search option. 

So in total, that leaves us with three teams that have a search function, one team with a translate option and three teams that kinda, maybe, have a way to get to stats, with only Richmond being easy to find and up to date.

Does this mean anything? Probably not. 

Would I have been better off writing a Chattanooga preview rather than trying to shoehorn that in after my explosive reporting? Most definitely. 

Do I need to stop using questions as a crutch in my writing and find a better way to explain what I'm trying to say? Clearly.

Chattanooga Preview:

I should probably mention tomorrow's game for Tormenta. It's the first time they hit the road as they head up to Chattanooga to take on the Red Wolves. Tormenta is coming off a thrilling 3-2 win over FORO SC Tuesday night in US Open Cup play. Forrest Wimberly had a great write up of it. We'll skip by their last League One match when they fell to Omaha 3-1. Chattanooga, meanwhile faced off against cross-city rivals Chattanooga FC for the first time on Wednesday. The two teams played to a 1-1 draw before the Red Wolves came away with a win on penalties. 

In league play, the Red Wolves have two draws, a 1-1 tie against Naples and a scoreless draw against Charlotte. Both of those were on the road so Saturday's matchup is the home opener for Chattanooga. 

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've got for you. Maybe a little less time looking at every USL1 team page for stats and a little more time researching Chattanooga is how I should have spent the week. Not that it helps, but if things break right, I hope to have something even better next week.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. and can be streamed on ESPN+. I'll do my best to have a write up of it here on Monday morning. 

News and Notes:

Thursday was the 50th Anniversary of the release of my all time favorite movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The closest I can relate this to Tormenta is that Ian Cameron was born 33 miles from the Castle where that was filmed. 

Tormenta will face Charleston Battery in the third round of the US Open Cup on Tuesday, April 15 at 7:30. Tormenta defeated Charleston in 2022 and fell to the Battery on a last minute goal in the 120th minute in 2024's Open Cup. The two teams are also slated to meet on Saturday, June 28 in Statesboro in Jagermeister Cup action.

John Morrissey of @USLTactics breaks down Chattanooga and their recent match against Charlotte (and other stuff, like the All-Vibes team for USL for the first month.)

Morrissey also recapped the second round of the Open Cup and had a good segment on Tormenta's Yaniv Bazini

Have a great weekend everyone.