What's Going Right With Chattanooga: A Red Wolves Success Story
We dive into the defense, chemistry, depth, redemption stories and leadership that have this squad on a shocking run
Picture this: March 15th, 2025, as most USL League One rosters had been set for the upcoming season. Did anyone predict that the Chattanooga Red Wolves would be sitting at 2nd in the table heading into the second half of the season? We pulled our own receipt—the answer is no.
Skip ahead to mid-season: on July 12th, the club blew into Richmond and left with a dominating 2-0 performance. It was the second win in a row, having taken down Knoxville the week before. Then last Wednesday, down two men by late in the second half due to red cards, they still managed to escape with a point against Texoma.
It was a dangerous proposition, facing top of the table Spokane this past weekend without the services of leading goal-scorers Matt Bentley (red card) and Pedro Hernandez (undisclosed) and playmaking wingback Joshua Ramos (red card). But playing with their usual chips on shoulder, the remaining squad put on a dominating performance, taking down their opponents 3-0. It extended the lossless streak to four, with three wins.
So what is it that makes this squad tick? We spoke with Head Coach Scott Mackenzie and a few of the players to find out.
Defense Rules the Day
Chattanooga has become known for its strong defensive posture. Many times, MacKenzie will field a 5-4-1 setup. This typically includes three center backs, two wingbacks and two defensive midfielders. The result is a team that has very low possession, and is happy to let the opponents keep trying to break through.
Mackenzie brought up the fact that USL League One is predominantly a 4-2-3-1 kind of league.
“We weren't going to compete doing the same thing as anyone else,” he said, “so we wanted to come in with a more unique style of football and had to find pieces that fit into that unique style of football.”
The squad leads the league in two defensive workhorse categories: 32.8 clearances per match and 11 tackles per match. Center backs Declan Watters and Eric Kinzner are third and fourth in the league respectively in clearances.
And opponents just aren’t breaking through that much: goalkeepers Jason Smith and Ricardo Jérez have faced only 36 shots on target in regular season play according to league records. It’s tied with Knoxville for the fewest in the league, but when we account for matches played, Chattanooga leads the league with only 2.57 shots faced per match.
When it comes to defense, “we start with that side of the ball” said Mackenzie.
And that’s not to take away from the presence of the keepers in the box, especially Smith. He’s known to break up his fair share of plays and set pieces with smart grabs, punches and clearances that aren’t technically counted as saves. He’s just as much a part of the defense as his back line.
The system also relies on forwards who are “good on both sides of the ball” said Mackenzie, specifically mentioning his off-season recruitment of Bentley. This system has also seen Pedro Hernandez, traditionally a right back, shift to a new role as striker and attacking midfielder. The gamble seems to have paid off.
Mackenzie told us that Herndandez is “another another guy who epitomizes the culture,” and that he “dies on the pitch every Saturday in terms of like non-stop all action type of footballer.”
“He'll run for a brick wall for his teammates and frankly I'd run for a brick wall for him because of what he puts in on the football pitch.”
Vibes Amidst the Chaos
For the first time in a while, the squad seems to be clicking as a whole. Vibes on and off the pitch are good. Fans and observers can tell: this is a squad that has chemistry and appears to be having fun together.
“To me, everything starts with culture and environment,” said Mackenzie, “I’ve always been a big believer in that.”
Mackenzie said he was “very deliberate” on the type of player he wanted to bring to the squad.
When asked what he looked for in a player, he said “hard worker, gritty, determined, ambitious, someone who has a chip on their shoulder” and “personality over players.”
He said this is “one of the best” locker rooms he’s ever had as a coach.
Multiple returning players we spoke to off the record mentioned the same thing - a vastly different locker room than in years’ past. And with expectations low from the start (as we mentioned, a lot of us had this team near the bottom in pre-season rankings), and without stars or egos, everyone seems to be bonding over the need to prove everyone wrong.
While it was never out of the realm of possibilities for Watters and Kinzner to be one of the top center back pairings in the league, did anyone expect that Bentley and Hernandez would be in the thick of the league’s Golden Boot Race at the halfway point? Or that Smith would be tied for regular season clean sheets?
Of course not, but here we are.
Surprising Depth
To harp back to our incorrect assumptions at the start of the season, we had concerns about the depth with this squad. It’s safe to say those concerns no longer exist. On a squad where defense rules the day, there will be plenty of minutes to go around for defenders. While Watters, Kinzner, Knapp, Ramos and Ualefi all hit the 1,000 minute mark and might be considered the defensive core, plenty of other defenders have seamlessly racked up split minutes.
This includes Jordan Ayimbila, who joined the squad on loan from Miami FC, struggling to earn minutes there; Omar Gómez, who came up through Park City, the team’s academy squad; league veteran Owen Green, on his second year with the club; newcomers Yanis Lelin and Alhassan Alhassan; Tobi Jnohope, who along with Knapp, joined midseason in 2024; first-year defensive midfielder Wynand Wessels, providing valuable support and backup for Knapp and Ualefi; Kimball Jackson, a Lexington prospect on loan and returning from injury; and of course, Aaron Lombardi, a left back returning to the team midway through the season after recovering from an off-season surgery.
Offensively, the team has seen its ups and downs. This is expected with a team that foregoes possession in favor of a defensive posture. But midseason, they’re now sitting at fourth in the league with 23 goals. It goes back to that “good on both sides of the ball” concept.
While Bentley and Pedro Hernandez lead the squad with six and five regular season goals respectively, it’s second-year pro Omar Hernandez who is also coming into his own. The 24 year old Chattanooga area native has four goals on the season, and has become known around the league as a set-piece and long-range goal-scoring maestro (seriously, just search up “Omar Hernandez goal” on YouTube).
Hernandez has stepped into an increasingly important role after expected top playmaker Johnny Filipe unfortunately had to miss extended time with an injury. He now leads the team in chances created, with two converting into assists. Only Joshua Ramos has a better rate, with three of his 11 converting.
Zahir Vazquez is another underrated forward on the squad, with three goals at the midway point. He’s now matching his total goals scored in each of the last two seasons with Central Valley Fuego.
First year forward Greyson Mercer is now easing into the lineup after missing the start of the season with injury. He’s now had two regular season starts, apparently earning the confidence of Mackenzie. Given the performance of nearly everyone else on this squad he recruited, it’s likely we’ll see increased contributions moving forward.
Redemption
For many on this squad, signing or re-signing with Chattanooga for 2025 represented a second chance or a final shot, and they’re all taking full advantage.
“I think based on this this season, without singling out too many, there's some guys that maybe were under the radar before, but I know for a fact getting looks from [higher level] clubs,” said Mackenzie, “and we're we're benefiting from their their performances at the same time.”
Bentley had a down year with Richmond in 2023, in which he scored just one goal in 29 appearances. Richmond let him walk, and he went back to England to play for Maidstone United in England’s sixth tier.
He returned to USL League One this year and is proving a point—he wasn’t done with this league yet. Last weekend against his former club, he scored his 6th goal of the season, matching the output of his first season in the league, with half a season to go.
Michael Knapp is another player on a redemption arc. The 25 year old played in 2023 with Rio Grande Valley in the USL Championship, recovering from an injury there to appear in the final two months of the season. However, he was forced to miss the first part of the 2024 season, recovering from another injury, joining Chattanooga in July. He struggled to maintain minutes, but has returned in 2025 with a vengeance. He’s made 19 starts across all competitions, alternating between defensive midfielder and the third center back.
Aaron Lombardi also comes to mind when you think of redemption. After performing well with South Georgia Tormenta in 2024, he faced an injury, surgery and rehab in the off season, and unable to attend professional tryouts. Chattanooga brought him in as a depth option behind Joshua Ramos, with whom he also split duties at Tormenta. Just two matches in, he showcased his fancy footwork to scored goal in the 2-0 win at Richmond. It was a moment that left him feeling “overwhelmed with emotion.”
“It’s hard to put the feeling into words,” he told us, '“it all happened so fast, the first ball I touched after coming into the game ended up in the back of the net.”
“I realized in that moment that every bit of hard work over the last eight months, every rehab session, every doubt, every prayer was worth it,” said Lombardi, “hard work pays off, God is faithful.”
The Captain
On December 13th, 2018, Chattanooga Red Wolves announced a 23 year old Brazilian midfielder as its 10th signing in club history. The league was in full startup mode, and Chattanooga was a founding member, gearing up for its inaugural season.
Ualefi Rodrigues dos Reis, better known as simply Ualefi, joined from a Brazilian lower division club, but it wasn’t his first signing in the United States, having spent the 2016 season with then-USL team Swope Park Rangers, the reserve side of Sporting Kansas City.
Fast forward to 2025, and Ualefi made his 150th appearance for Chattanooga on June 14th, a 2-2 draw at FC Naples. He’s been the primary captain for his squad since the 2023 season.
“We’re very fortunate to be around him,” said Mackenzie, “and I think a lot of his teammates share that appreciation for him.”
“He is an unbelievable human being on top of that,” he said, “one of the best people you'll ever meet.”
Mackenzie returns to the locker room chemistry when talking about Ualefi.
“For our for our locker room, to have someone like that who is the consummate pro every day in terms of the way he trains, the intensity trains, it never drops,” he said, “the quality is always there, the intensity is always there, but then equally just a great human being off it.”
Watch the full interview with Scott Mackenzie:
Special thanks to The USL Show and Jason Jansen Photography for helping make this story happen.
The preseason predictions looked like they were going to be spot on. Who can forget that they had to run out a backup keeper as a field player in the Open Cup? And yet, they kept on trucking, and finally got knocked out in a close 0-1 against Nashville (!). They have really pulled it together
Hopefully the owner will reward this good performance with food and accommodations for the Wolves players! A lot of rumors on Reddit that the players are left on their own to find meals and housing, which must take away substantial time and energy.