One Knox comes calling

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC

So, I'm sorry for the absence lately here. If you missed it, my recap of Tormenta's 4-0 win over Madison was posted at the Statesboro Herald. I'd had plans to write earlier this week, but the covid got me and let me tell you that trying to power your way through that is a bad idea. If and when it hits, just take the nyquil, sleep as much as you can and don't, whatever you do, try to caffeinate your way through the day.

But I'm feeling slightly better after spending the better part of three days asleep and I've been symptom free for 24 hours as of this posting, so one more day of rest and I'll be good as new. 

Editor: Well that's just not true. Dude, you're 46 years old, you'll never be good as new. The best you can hope for is gently used and that's only if you get two straight nights of good sleep and take a couple of walks on those days to get the blood moving.  

Fine, fine, I'll be as good as I can reasonably expect to be come Saturday, just in time for Tormenta's matchup with Knoxville.

Before we get to that, there were a few things interim Manager Mark McKeever said after Saturday's win that didn't make it in to my story with the Herald that I wanted to write about.

The first is the offensive explosion that's taken place since McKeever took over for Tormenta. South Georgia has scored 10 goals in McKeever's four games, with the lone time they were shut out being when Gabriel Alves was red carded and Tormenta played down a man for 70 minutes of the game. 

McKeever knows he's got a talented offensive unit to work with and I think that he thinks they're going to score. I asked him the key to scoring four against Madison and he was a little self-deprecating in his answer.

"A little bit of luck. I think we got four lucky goals. I'm just joking, but yeah, we talked a lot during the week that these guys are going to score goals, right," McKeever said. And then he turned the discussion to the defensive issues Tormenta has had and the work done to fix that.

I tried, again, to get McKeever to talk about the offense, asking him the key to unlocking the offense.

"I'm going to leave that for the opinions of the people on the outside," he said. "The guys are scoring the goals and the guys there are keeping the clean sheet. So we work with the tools that we have, and we have the tools to score goals and it's quite evident." 

Whether it's the new formation, a more direct style of play, games against teams in the lower portion of the standings or some combination of all that, it's certainly been fun over the last month with all the goals scored. 

The second thing McKeever said that I wanted to highlight was his appreciation for Ian Cameron giving him the opportunity, short as it was as an assistant, before taking over as the interim Manager.

"I'm here because of Ian Cameron, all these boys are here because of Ian Cameron so from the coaching staff and the players, this win's for Ian Cameron and we wish him all the best."

I don't have a smooth transition to tomorrow's Knoxville game so we're just going to jump in. Knoxville comes in to Saturday with a 10-3-8 record (38 points) and are in third place in USL League One. They've won three of their last five, including most recently a 1-0 win over Spokane last week to bring them into a tie with Spokane on points (they have one fewer win than the Velocity have).

Tormenta is tied for second with 33 goals through 22 games on the year while Knoxville is tied for ninth in goals scored. That may sound like a big difference, but Knoxville has 28  goals in their 21 games this season. That works out to a difference of 0.16 goals per game. So not much. 

Knoxville has a diverse attack, with four players coring three or more goals in league play, led by Babacar Diene's five goals, followed by Mikkel Goling (4), Mark Doyle (4) and Kempes Tekela (3). 

Tormenta's top three scorers remain Mason Tunbridge (8), followed by Niall Reid-Stephen (7) and Yaniv Bazini (5).

Defensively, meanwhile, Knoxville has only given up 17 goals in 21 games, for an average of 0.81 goals allowed per match. South Georgia, in contrast, has surrendered 40 goals in their 22 games, for a 1.81 goals allowed per match. One Knox is tied with Charlotte with nine clean sheets on the year.

And, of course, no preview would be complete without mentioning that McKeever served as Knoxville's first coach and led their transition from League Two to League One. In his three seasons at the helm, he was 32-23-16 before he and the club mutually agreed to part ways in August of last season.

Finally, don't get covid kids. It's not fun. Stay safe out there and get the vaccine. 

News and Notes:

Tormenta put three players on the Team of the Week.

Handwalla Bwana called up to Somali National Team. 

Mason Tunbridge is nominated for August Player of the Month 

Davide Corti named as New York Cosmos Head Coach

Tim Howerton over at Who Gives a Hoot has a look at how Omaha's interim manager Vincenzo Candela is doing 10 games into his tenure.