Flipping the switch, dynamic wing-backs, squad planning and diminishing opportunities
My Birmingham Legion FC talking points following their 4-4 draw with Orange County SC in Saturday's USL Championship game
Saturday was unhinged.
In a game that saw eight goals, including a penalty and an absurd own goal, Birmingham Legion took the lead on no less than four occasions, only to let it slip each time.
With such an insane game it can be hard to know what to take from it, but here are some elements that stood out.
Legion’s on/off switch
For months now, Mark Briggs has spoken in his press conferences about his team “switching it on and off.”
Originally, this was because of the team’s repeated slow starts. For the first half of the campaign, the Three Sparks had the nasty habit of going behind early and only then coming to life.
Then, it became the opposite. The team came out firing and were on the front foot the first 30 minutes, before falling off and letting their opponent back in it.
Each time, Briggs referred to it as a switch his players were, subconsciously, switching on and off during the game. He made it clear he needed to get them to be “on” for a full 90 minute if they were to start getting results.
On Saturday, we saw the wildest iteration of that on/off mentality to date.
Birmingham came out guns blazing and scored in the 3rd minute. They dominated the first 20 minuets and could potentially have gotten a second. But they did not, Orange County eventually equalised, and it was if the Three Sparks short-circuited.
From there on out, Birmingham put in one of the most frustratingly inconsistent performances you are ever likely to see.
“We scored and then switched off,” Briggs said. “Every time we scored, they would score again almost immediately. We’ve got to be focused and locked in for 90 minutes.”
It wasn’t even that Legion were going from good to okay, it was going from dominant to straight up bad. All four goals were not just preventable, but quite poor ones to concede.
The first, off a corner, bounced in the box and made it all the way to the backpost. One of the very first rules you learn when defending set pieces is to not let the ball bounce. Legion had three players surrounding the ball, and it fell perfectly between them before continuing its way to a completely unmarked Ashton Miles.
The second was a silly penalty. Bryce Jamison is running away from goal and posing no imminent threat when Phanuel Kavita brings him down. While OC’s youngster deserves some credit for his quick feet to draw the foul, a centerback as experienced as the Rwanda international should do better.
The third was way too easy. A simple pass from the left side squeezes between a number of Birmingham bodies to find a once again unmarked OC player, this time Pedro Guimaraes.
Finally, the fourth sees a bad pass intercepted by Chris Hegardt, and nobody challenges the midfielder as he strides forward and lasers one into the bottom corner.
If you’ve ever played EA Sports’ FIFA/FC franchise, you might be familiar with their commentary when you concede right after scoring. The video game usually refers to it as “schoolboy defending.” The description feels very apt for what we saw from Birmingham on four separate occasions Saturday night.
As Briggs put it, “When you score four goals away from home, you should be able to come away with three points.”
So what went wrong?
Clearly, there is a mentality problem in this Birmingham team that is preventing them from putting out a complete performance over 90 minutes. How that gets resolved is anyone’s guess.
But on Saturday, there was something else too.
Let’s take a look at the lineup: Fernando Delgado turned 19 just over a month ago. Ramiz Hamouda turned 17 just two months before that. Tiago Suárez and Jackson Travis are both 21. Amir Daley is 23.
That’s an incredibly youthful backline.
Add in that though Sam McIllhatton is 27, this is is first year as a full professional, there was a clear lack of experience outside of the veteran Kavita.
Mark Briggs has usually done a good job of mixing youth and experience to give talented youngsters a chance, balancing out their inexperience with veterans of the game such as Matt van Oekel, Jake Rufe and AJ Paterson. Saturday showed exactly why such presences are needed, and 20/20 hindsight vision can lead us to wonder why neither Paterson nor Rufe was in the starting lineup (MVO is injured).
Wing-back archetypes
One of the other noticeable elements from that backline was the two wingbacks.
Both Jackson Travis, announced a day before the game, and Amir Daley, signed the previous week, are young loaned-in players to cover the wing-back slots. In a 3-4-3, those are crucial positions to making the system work, and it looks like Briggs finally has the type of player he wants on both those wings.
With their very recent arrivals, we have limited sample size, but one thing is clear so far. Both are very dynamic players who want to get on the ball and have the pace to bomb forward and contribute to the attack. While Moses Mensah, Dawson McCartney, Stephen Turnbull and Erik Centeno all have their own qualities, Daley and Travis seem to indicate that Briggs is after a very specific player in those positions.
“[My strenghths are] energy, speed, my athleticism,” Daley said prior to the game. “I never stop running, doesn’t matter when, if I’m tired, if I’m cramping. And I also bring quality on the ball.”
Travis (62) and Daley (57) had the second- and third-most touches of the ball Saturday, respectively. Only Shashoua, once again pulling the strings in his new central midfield role, had more with 85. Both also completed 17 final-third passes, third to only Shashoua (30) and Sebastian Tregarthen (19).
The same four players also led the team for crosses, with Daley and Shashoua coming top on four and Tregarthen and Travis getting two each, while Travis attempted twice as many dribbles (5) as any of his teammate, completing four. You probably guessed it, Daley, Shashoua and Tregarthen were the other dribblers on the night, all three attempting two and completing one.
What all this points to is that Legion’s loan wing-backs are putting up numbers that rival or exceed the attacking returns of the team’s starring forwards.
While there is a concern that maybe the defensive side of their game was lacking given the four goals conceded (though Travis did also lead the team in possession recoveries with six), there is a clear plan to get the wing-backs forward and have them involved in attacking phases of play.
When this works, it can be incredibly efficient.
The young wing-backs stretch the pitch and allow for the wingers, forwards and attacking midfielders to roam into half-spaces created by the defense’s need to spread itself thin. It’s no surprise Daley combined with Tregarthen for two goals, each assisting the other in turn.
After struggling for goals in recent games, this should be an exciting turn of events for the Three Sparks, who will need that extra attacking impetus for the run-in, especially with their forward options currently limited due to injury (Pasher, Saucedo).
But as fun as a 4-4 draw is for neutrals, its all about finding that balance now.
Shortly after switching to the 3-4-3 formation, Birmingham became much more defensively stout than they had been in the first part of the campaign. But with the switch, goals dried up. Now, they seem to have found some attacking form, but also conceded 12 goals in their last four league games.
If Briggs can strike the right balance between the two, there is still hope for a late season run of form and playoff spot. But if not, it’s going to be a rough final two months for the Black and Gold.
Loan moves, and thinking ahead
Continuing to look at the backline, one final thing stands out. Of the five defenders in Saturday’s starting lineup, three of them are here on loan (Daley, Travis and Tiago Suárez).
Add in Samuel Shashoua and Ronaldo Damus (the latter with an option to buy), and half of Legion’s outfield on Saturday was made up of loan players.
While roster turnover is the bread and butter of most USL Championship clubs, that stat should still raise some red flags. Because the players who form the end of season exodus are usually the backups and fringe players, not the starters.
I think most people expect significant turnover come the end of the season, both because of the subpar performances and because a lot of these player were hired for a Tom Soehn system, not a Mark Briggs team. That second part has led to already nine new arrivals since the Englishman took over, which has resulted in more Legion debuts in 2025 than in any other season since the inaugural 2019 campaign.
But if not even the starters are going to be there, what exactly can be accomplished these next two months?
Sure, there’s still an outside chance at a playoff spot. But with that window getting smaller each week, some thought should be going towards preparing for a 2026 campaign.
Ideally, you would want to start figuring out partnerships, developing chemistry and having at least the skeleton of a team you can build around with new recruits. But as things stand, Fernando Delgado, Ramiz Hamouda and Sebastian Tregarthen feel like the only players from Saturday’s starters you could feel confident to see stick around for 2026.
Relying as heavily on loan players as Birmingham seems set to do in the run-in feels very much like putting all the team’s eggs in the postseason basket. And don’t get me wrong, it is important the Three Sparks make as strong a push for the playoffs as they can, as consecutive years without a postseason could do serious harm to a brand that is still struggling to attract fans to Protective Stadium.
But the loan signing of Daley in particular, essentially replacing another 23-year-old right back in Erik Centeno who had been brought in just a few months prior as one of Briggs’ first signing, point to a short-sightedness that could be worrisome.
Loan players are great to fill gaps, add depth or bring in a caliber of player you likely couldn’t get permanently. But they come with the downside that they are stunting the development of the team’s permanent assets.
When half the team is there on loan, that becomes an issue.
If there is a plan to make some of these moves permanent, that’s a different story. Damus’ purchase option will hopefully be taken up, though the club will still have to agree to terms with the Haitian forward, which might prove harder if he attracts other suitors thanks to his displays this season. And maybe one of the other loanees can be convinced they’d be better off making a permanent switch to the Magic City. I personally would love to see Shashoua stick around, though I also believe his ceiling his higher than the USL.
But if they all depart, it could leave the Legion with an even greater rebuild come the offseason, one that could lead to another slow start in the next campaign.
A good week for rivals means a bad week for Legion
With eight games left in the USL Championship calendar for Birmingham Legion, the picture gets clearer by the minute.
That means the rivalry watch takes on increased intensity each week, and Matchday 22 was a bad one for the Legion faithful.
With all five of Birmingham’s closest rivals playing the East’s top five teams, it felt like there was a real shot at gaining some points on the competition. Instead, three of those five teams pulled off upsets to go even further clear.
Hartford Athletic stunned North Carolina FC with a very late combeack. Though the Connecticut team’s win may not be an upset on form, their sale of star-forward Mamadou Dieng did lead to hope they might slow down. Instead, with 29 points to Legion’s 21, it feels like they could well be out of reach.
The biggest surprise, meanwhile, went to Rhode Island FC. Unlike their “El Clamico” rivals, RIFC have been struggling for form. Yet they defeated a Charleston Battery side still vying for the Players’ Shield.
The result moved Rhode Island to 24 points, above Indy Eleven (who lost to the other Players’ Shield contender, Louisville City) and into the final playoff spot. However, Indy still have a game in hand on RIFC, as well as on Legion.
Tampa Bay Rowdies, the other team to pull of a shock result by defeating the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, also have a game in hand and leapfrogged Birmingham into 10th by virtue of their weekend result. If the Rowdies’ trip to the Magic City in two weeks wasn’t already a must win, it sure is now.
Indy Eleven’s game in hand takes place tomorrow at Hartford Athletic, which will crystalize the bottom five even more. But what is clear is that Legion’s room for slip up is growing smaller by the game.
Hartford have shown that a run of form can still lift anyone into a comfortable midtable spot, but the opportunity to kickstart that run is getting more limited with every passing result. With a trip to FC Tulsa, the leading team in the West who lost for the first time in 15 games last weekend, up next, Birmingham could well lose more ground before long.
The Three Sparks then head into a bye week before their midweek, midday game with Tampa on September 17. If things don’t go their way in the matchups before then, things could be looking pretty drastic before that one even gets underway.
It's tough to see the season ending on a high note. And the collapse of the defense has really been hard to stomach. I know I've harped on the fact that Rufe isn't getting minutes, but it's too easy to see a correlation to his lack of playing time, and the dramatic decline of the defense.