The Transfer

Fort Wayne Football Club has sold its leading scorer. The club announced on August 14 that it agreed to transfer Lilian Ricol to San Antonio FC of the USL Championship, one division up the American pyramid, for a fee the club characterizes as a near-record sum for a USL League One player. A transfer is one of the three ways players move in professional soccer: the buying club pays the selling club to release a player from his contract, and the player signs a new deal with his new team.

The mechanics are straightforward. San Antonio FC signed Ricol to a multi-year contract, and the deal is pending league and federation approval. Neither club disclosed the fee, which is standard practice at this level. Ricol is the first player Fort Wayne FC has ever sold as a professional club, and he leaves as the co-holder of the franchise goal-scoring record, level with Taig Healy across six seasons of club history. He scored the first goal of the club’s professional era in March, won USL League One Player of the Month in July, and departed within days of collecting that award.

The Defender’s Verdict

Objectively, the sale of Lilian Ricol to the USL Championship’s San Antonio FC improves the club’s status as a development club. And at the same time, it makes Fort Wayne FC less of a threat in the attack. It’s a calculated risk for a club trying to thread the needle of development and selling players, and at the same time pursuing trophies.

From the front office perspective, I think it was a great transfer for both player and the club. It solidifies Fort Wayne FC’s philosophy and approach to the broader market, and for it to happen within six months of the initial roster build bodes well for what Fort Wayne Football Club is trying to build.

From the on-field perspective, Fort Wayne becomes less dynamic in the attack. However, that doesn’t mean the team cannot score goals. The approach on how to score goals does in fact change. Becher is not the same player as Ricol. Let’s look at the data:

What did we get with Lilian Ricol in the attack

Lilian Ricol profiled as a self-creating, ball-striking forward. The rare striker who didn’t need a well-drilled system around him. His 2026 numbers sketch it cleanly: 41 shots with 23 on target, a 56% accuracy rate that’s outlier territory for any forward, and 7 goals on roughly 6.4 xG (expected goals) with positive shot placement, so the output was skill-backed rather than lucky. His average shot came from nearly 21 yards out. Sixteen attempts came from outside the box entirely and he scored three of them, including finishes from 26 and 40 yards, goals the models grade as near-impossible that he made a habit of.

His two above-average categories were dribbling and shooting. He generated value by taking the ball and carrying it at defenders, manufacturing his own shot from anywhere, running the counter alone. In archetype terms: a shot-generator and range threat, a bail-out option in broken games, and a counter-attack outlet. In plain terms, he generated attacks on his own: when the buildup stalled and nothing was on, he could take the ball, drive at a defender, and produce a shot or a chance out of it. That was his value to this squad and the value that left on his transfer.

What do we have with Ryan Becher in the attack

Ryan Becher profiles as a pure box finisher, the kind of striker who lives on the end of build-up play rather than in the build-up itself. His 2026 numbers sketch it just as cleanly: 25 shots, 4 goals on roughly 3.8 xG, finishing almost exactly at expectation. Every one of his goals has come from inside the box, within ten yards of goal, one from inside the six-yard box, half of them headers, and nearly all of them finishing someone else’s delivery: a cross, a set piece, a corner. He’s attempted seven shots from beyond 18 yards and scored none of them. Where Ricol’s goals came from everywhere, Becher’s came from exactly one place, and it happens to be the most valuable real estate on the pitch.

His one elite category in the underlying data is receiving, which measures the value of where a player makes himself available when the ball arrives. In plain English, he has elite off-the-ball movement. It was his best category at Union Omaha last season and it’s his best category here, across two clubs, two coaches, and a position change, which makes it a trait rather than a system effect. Everything with the ball at his feet grades average or worse: he doesn’t carry, doesn’t create his own shot, and adds little by dropping deep to find the game. In archetype terms: an arrival striker and an aerial threat, a finisher of service, a set-piece magnet. In plain terms, he scores when the ball finds him in the box, and he’ll struggle to score when it doesn’t.

What that means is a formation change, a system change. A reversion to where we started the season. The 4-2-3-1 we’ve been playing with Lilian Ricol no longer gets the best from this roster. The shift to a 3-5-2 or a 5-3-2 allows Ryan Becher to pair with Taig Healy, which forms a complementary attacking duo.

Why the 3-5-2 maximizes this attack

Dropping Becher into Ricol’s slot in the 4-2-3-1 asks him to do the job of the player who left: hold the ball alone against two center backs, link play with his back to goal, and press across the front line. That checklist runs straight through his weakest tools. The shape that fits him is the one we opened the season in, the 3-5-2, defending as a 5-3-2. Wing-backs put two dedicated crossers on the byline, doubling the delivery into the zone where Becher scores, and the back three absorbs the defensive work a non-pressing #9 leaves behind. Becher scores off deliveries, so the attack’s first job is to produce deliveries in volume.

The second striker slot is what makes the whole thing dangerous, and it belongs to Taig Healy. He leads our forwards in shot volume by a distance, finishing is the most valuable thing he does in the underlying data, and he’s at his best arriving late into space rather than picking the ball up in traffic, which is exactly what the free role off a big striker offers. The two profiles lock together: Becher’s gravity in the box drags defenders and buys Healy the room underneath, Healy’s motor covers the ground Becher won’t, and on set pieces the pairing becomes a genuine two-threat problem, the big man attacking the delivery with the finisher lurking on everything that falls to the edge. Two of Becher’s four goals already came from dead-ball service with defenses keying on him alone. Becher’s success as the new #9 rides on Healy’s success beside him, and the duo, in the shape built for them, is the clearest path back to our winning ways.

The implication would be that Kabiru Gafar becomes the first sub off the bench for one of our forwards. It also means the right wing-back position would be open for the taking. It lets Hernandez see the pitch at right wing-back, maybe Oyetunde, maybe Jayden Smith. Jack Thomas and Clarence Awoudor rotate between the midfield and a Healy replacement as the second forward. The formation works with the players we have. Let’s see how management approaches it in our next match, away against the Portland Hearts of Pine.

Always FWD

Transactions are the deals that move players between clubs in soccer, or football, and they come in three forms: transfers, loans and free agent signings. Those three terms carry the vocabulary of every roster announcement: transfer fees, parent clubs, options to buy, contract options and free transfers. American sports move players through trades, drafts and waiver wires. Soccer runs nearly all of its player movement through a global market instead, where the rules differ from league to league but the concepts travel across time zones.

What Are Transfers, Loans and Free Agents?

Every transaction rests on one record: the registration. A professional player is registered to one club at a time, and the registration is the sport’s official answer to the question of who they play for. The club that controls a player’s registration controls where they play next. Every transaction, from a headline fee to a quiet one-year deal, moves that registration one of three ways: permanently and for money, temporarily with strings attached, or freely because no club holds it at all. Those are the three doors, and each has its own name.

Transfers

A transfer is a permanent move. One club sells a player’s registration to another, the player signs a new contract with the buying club, and their old deal ends. The transfer fee is the price of the registration itself; the buying club pays it to the selling club, then pays the player’s wages on top under their new contract. American leagues mostly swap players for other players or for draft picks. Soccer clubs pay cash, and the right offer can move a player to any club in the world. Think player-for-cash, as the standard trade mechanism in soccer. Fees range from pocket change to sums that make the global news, and clubs frequently decline to publish the number at all. When an announcement says a player moved “for an undisclosed fee,” money changed hands and the clubs kept the amount private. When it says “free transfer,” the registration moved without a price, which usually means the contract was nearly finished anyway.

Loans

A loan is a temporary move. The player joins a new club for a set time period, often a season or half of one, while their contract stays with the club that owns it, called the parent club. The two clubs negotiate the terms, including who pays what share of their wages, and many loans carry an option to buy, a pre-agreed price at which the borrowing club can make the move permanent. Each side gets something out of it: the parent club finds real minutes for a developing player it cannot play, and the borrowing club fields a player it could not otherwise sign. Nothing in American sports quite matches it. The closest comparison might be a major league baseball team optioning a prospect to the minors. And while that move stays inside one organization, soccer loans move players outside the parent club, to other independent clubs. These could be within the same league, or entirely different leagues. When an announcement says “on loan through the end of the season,” the player wears your colors while another club still owns their future. Watch for the words “with an option to buy.”

Free Agents

A free agent is a player whose contract has expired, which leaves their registration unattached and lets them sign with any club for no fee. Here soccer inverts the American model. In the NFL or the NBA, free agency is a privilege earned through years of service. In soccer it is the default state of a finished contract, settled as a matter of law by the Bosman ruling of 1995, when a European court held that once a contract expires, the old club has no further claim on the player. That single fact shapes club behavior in two directions. A player entering the final months of their deal is free to line up their next club in advance, which is why teams often sell a player a year before their contract ends rather than watch their value walk out the door. And clubs protect themselves with contract options, a right written into the deal that lets the club extend it by another season; decline the option and the player walks as a free agent. When an announcement says a player “signed as a free agent,” no fee changed hands, and the missing price tag is no measure of their quality. Some of the best signings in any league cost nothing at all.

Why It Matters

Some clubs buy stars, at the height of their talent, some clubs identify and develop young players to eventually sell, and some clubs live somewhere between the two. Each club gets to define and implement its own philosophy, creating leagues with diverse viewpoints on how to win.

The Netherlands’ club, Ajax, is famed for developing from within, raising players in its own academy from early ages until they are ready for the first team. The Portuguese club, Benfica, has funded itself in the modern era by developing future stars and selling them to richer leagues. The German Bundesliga club, Borussia Dortmund, is known for identifying young talent and giving them the next stage in their development, often signing players before they are at their peak talent or value. Real Madrid is a club built with the world’s biggest stars, taking pride in breaking its own inbound transfer fee records. Read the history of a club’s transactions and you’ll know its strategy.

Whatever philosophy a club chooses, it still has to operate as a business. Owners need sustainable models or they run the risk of folding. That threat stays remote in the world’s biggest leagues, but it is very real in lower-division American soccer, including USL League One, where balancing spending against revenue is a matter of survival. Transactions sit at the center of that balance, the business of soccer creating value for both the player and the club. The club is improving its squad or its balance sheet. The player is chasing minutes, a wage or the next rung of their career. The best deals serve both sides. But no deal happens in isolation: bring in a star to strengthen your squad, and another club is now searching to replace that star. Get it right often enough and bigger clubs come calling for the people who found the players; sporting directors move up the pyramid the same way their signings do. Miss too often and the questions start to swirl. That accountability rarely lands on ownership or on the players themselves. Transactions define the careers of the management layer in between, the sporting and footballing heads who answer for every deal.

What This Means for Fort Wayne FC

Transactions, whether those are transfers, loans or free agent signings, are the lifeblood of Fort Wayne Football Club. It’s where the combination of majority owner Mark Music, alongside Football Operations personnel like DaMarcus Beasley and Oliver Gage plus head coach Mike Avery, needs to align in order to maximize the effectiveness of each decision. What’s good for the ownership group might be different than what’s good for the head coach. It’s critical that the club communicates clearly inside an organization about both the short term and long term strategy for inbound and outbound player transactions.

Fort Wayne Football Club has been open about developing players and providing these players with a launch pad for their footballing careers. Co-owner and Director of Football Operations, DaMarcus Beasley, responded to our first transfer by saying:

“Grateful for the time Lilian spent with us. This move was important for our club and for Lilian to continue his career at a higher level. Our philosophy will not change. There’s a reason why we have the youngest squad [in] the league. We wish Lil nothing but the best in San Antonio!”

Our philosophy will not change.

That’s a clear statement from ownership that Fort Wayne FC intends to be a selling club, more akin to Benfica in the Portuguese league. The stakes in USL League One are relatively low. There is no promotion or relegation, as of yet, so the risks are nominal. The club could lose every game this season and still show up next season in League One. That also means talent can be sourced opportunistically, from USL League Two, the college ranks, or players whose path closed in other footballing nations. Why spend big on players, if there’s no hope for promotion and no downside with relegation?

By Fort Wayne FC stating its desire to always roster a young lineup, the real upside for the club is identifying raw talent, and turning that talent into a regular pipeline for bigger clubs in bigger leagues. While that might sound like a production factory, in theory, over time, it would give Fort Wayne FC a competitive advantage for recruiting talent, which both improves the current roster and becomes self-serving; access to more talent, selling more players, and ultimately helping players achieve their footballing dreams.

Lilian Ricol’s transfer to San Antonio FC in the USL Championship turns Fort Wayne Football Club’s philosophy into a real, tangible outcome. The promise of playing football in Fort Wayne will lead to bigger and better opportunities. Whether Lilian Ricol goes beyond the division above lies firmly with Lilian Ricol, but now Fort Wayne FC has a stake in the ground and a proof point to confidently claim: Join Fort Wayne Football Club if you want to advance your football career. That’s worth more than any transfer fee.

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC loses 2-1 to Chattanooga Red Wolves SC at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in its first match since the Lilian Ricol transfer. Ryan Becher scored the opener, the Red Wolves needed only two shots on target to answer, and a fourth straight USL League One defeat sends Fort Wayne into a two-week break searching for solutions.

Fort Wayne FC 1 – 2 Chattanooga Red Wolves SC · USL League One 🏟 Ruoff Mortgage Stadium 📅 August 15, 2026 ⚽ Becher (30’), Lelin (49’), Mercer (82’) 📋 FWFC Record: 7-7-6 · 27 pts · Matchday 20

The Match

Saturday was the first match this season without Lilian Ricol on the roster. Replacing near double digit goal scorers in any league is a tall task so the first question on the night was, who replaces his production? After half an hour, we had our answer.

From the first whistle, we took the ball and never really gave it back, holding two thirds of possession and pinning Chattanooga into their own half. The Red Wolves have built a playoff position on smash-and-grab football: give up the ball, defend in numbers, and strike from the few moments a match offers. So we probed, and probed, switching the ball from right to left and back again, and in the 30th min. we found it after earning a corner kick. Javier Armas swung the cross into the area and Ryan Becher met it with a volley for his fourth league goal of the season. The building exhaled. Meet your new starting #9, Fort Wayne, target forward and big man Ryan Becher.

Fort Wayne entered the half 1-0 and it felt like we were back on track. Defend, close out the match and collect three important points at home. But four minutes into the second half, Chattanooga forward, Ropapa Mensah floated an optimistic cross, chipped across the goal line to what looked like empty space, and Yanis Lelin arrived flying to meet it in the 49th min. Maybe Bernd Schipmann could have done better on his positioning but it was a good goal from a tight angle. Tie game. The winning goal came from a set piece opportunity which was initially taken care of, but the Red Wolves cycled it back around, put a cross into the box, which fell awkwardly to Michael Rempel, at which point the ball fell on the six yard box and into Greyson Mercer’s feet. 2-1 in the dying minutes of the match.

In the 91st min, Fort Wayne FC won a free kick at the top and Javier Armas stepped up to take the kick. He hit it with pace and with an ever so slight bend, beating everyone including the keeper, but not the right post. On a ball that was begging to ricochet in, on the night, it didn’t. A match that could have changed the mood of the next two weeks slipped away instead, and it slipped away in the most Chattanooga way possible: two shots on target across 90 minutes, and two goals.

The Defender’s Verdict

A classic smash-and-grab game for Chattanooga, something they have built their identity around, proved to be Fort Wayne FC’s undoing. An effective style of play doesn’t have to mean an entertaining or beautiful way to play. What it does mean is that the Chattanooga Red Wolves leave Fort Wayne with all three points, being only the second team, after Union Omaha, to beat Fort Wayne FC at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in league play this season.

The visitors only had two shots on target all night, and on both of those shots, Bernd Schipmann was in the back of his goal, digging the ball out of the net.

In our Opposition Report II this week, the data pointed towards Chattanooga scoring off “corners, crosses, and dead balls”. Both of their goals came off opportunistic crosses, long balls, hoping to find runners in the box. The Red Wolves thrive on chaos once they put the ball into dangerous areas and they are proving to be ruthless in their 1-v-1 battles in those moments of chaos.

Personally, I wouldn’t call it The Beautiful Game, but Chattanooga doesn’t seem to care.

It was fitting that on a night our Three Rivers Regiment supporters group unveiled their first tifo, the large choreographed banner display supporters raise in the stands before kickoff, with an image of Fort Wayne’s head coach Mike Avery and the words “In Mike We Trust”, we turn to Coach Avery and the coaching staff to right the ship during this upcoming two-week break from football.

The coaching staff and players talk about adversity. They talk about the margins at the professional level which are thin between wins, losses, and draws. We’re at the low point in our first USL League One season, both in terms of recent results, now 6 out of 7 losses across all competitions, and losing our starting forward in Lilian Ricol to his own success. A positive for the club in terms of football operations strategy, but certainly a short term dent to our playoff aspirations.

Ryan Becher is not the same type of forward as Lilian Ricol, however by selling Ricol for a near USL League One transfer record to San Antonio FC this week, we’ve officially cemented what our new attack needs to look like going forward if we are going to make the playoffs. The difficulties of being both a selling club and a club with trophy ambitions are real. And if Fort Wayne FC is going to thread that needle, they will need to look at the top clubs globally who run this business model and copy their homework. After this week, we now have a little more insight into what Fort Wayne Football is about.

Adaptability.

It might be the most important word for this team and this club going forward. And for now, Mike Avery and his coaching staff will need to find new solutions to get back to our winning ways. They have built a culture to survive change, and a way of playing that can survive change. Now it’s about individual roles, and small adaptations that will get this team through the low point. In Mike We Trust.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club hosts Chattanooga Red Wolves SC at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in the second meeting of the season, with the final playoff spot one point away and both teams missing key players.

Saturday, August 15 | 7:30 PM ET | Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, IN | ESPN+

Editor’s note: On August 14th, Fort Wayne Football Club announced the transfer of forward Lilian Ricol to San Antonio FC of the USL Championship for a near-record USL League One fee. We will have a full piece on what the sale means for the club and this season. The report below accounts for a Saturday without him.

Prior Proceedings

All-Time vs Chattanooga (W-D-L): 1-0-0
The Opposition Report
MD4 Recap & Analysis

The first meeting in East Ridge turned on one question: what happens when Fort Wayne, the team that wants the ball, meets the team that enjoys not having the ball. Yet that game plan changed 44 seconds in. Taig Healy scored, we declined possession for the rest of the night, and Chattanooga got a taste of their own medicine; the challenge of breaking down a defensively stout team. The match turned physical, cards flew, and their head coach was sent off. It was a one-goal affair. The first win in Fort Wayne FC’s professional history came from making it difficult to break us down, a similar identity for both these clubs.

Four months later, Chattanooga still holds the ball less than any team in the league. So what has changed? The quick counter-attack that defined them has gone quiet, and the goals now arrive from corners, crosses, and dead balls; only Forward Madison has scored more from set pieces this season. Greyson Mercer, their main striker in the spring, has drifted to the margins, and Ropapa Mensah now leads the line. The constant has been Omar Hernandez, the midfielder with a hand in more of their goals than anyone on the roster, and the rematch happens without him after his red card against Omaha. Through midsummer their defensive shape kept winning at home by the narrowest of margins, consecutive 1-0 wins over AV Alta and One Knoxville SC on nights the visitors held the ball. Forward Madison put five past them at the end of July, and Union Omaha followed with three more in East Ridge to end a home unbeaten run that had stretched for months. Eight conceded in back-to-back matches. For most of this season they have collected points faster than their expected goals numbers support, and the past two weeks are the first time the results have matched their underlying numbers.

The Matchup II

Two teams just provided us the blueprint for getting through their defensive block. Chattanooga defends with position rather than pressure. They will let you shoot from 25 yards all night, and a month ago AV Alta obliged, two dozen attempts in East Ridge without a single moment of real danger. The teams that beat them got closer to goal and came from more directions. Madison scored five times in one evening through five different routes: a counter, a corner, a set piece, a penalty, and open play. Omaha scored inside 2 minutes, the first goal Chattanooga had conceded at home since May. They kept the ball in Chattanooga’s penalty area for the whole match instead of shooting from distance, and their chances came from different players rather than one playmaker. Madison did it at full strength and Omaha did it with a man advantage. Either way, the lesson holds. A block that shifts as one unit copes with a single threat and comes apart when tasked with defending from different directions.

This Chattanooga shape against our current run of form is concerning. Across three straight defeats we have shown exactly the profile the Red Wolves eat: plenty of shooters, not much from inside the area, one goal scored across three matches. Our performance against AV Alta looks uncomfortably similar to what Chattanooga has been feeding on in all those close wins in the middle of their summer schedule. And now our attack loses Ricol, the man tied for the club’s all-time scoring lead, on the eve of the match. If Saturday becomes Healy as the lone creator while everyone else watches, Chattanooga will have their way in Fort Wayne.

So the assignment is width and depth: stretch them wide, then get into the box. Jack Thomas and Kabiru Gafar have been our sharpest attackers through this stretch, and their one-on-one battles out wide are the mechanism that drags a positional block out of its lines. Javier Armas will need to create chances from his deep-lying position, which is his specialty. Michael Rempel returns from red card suspension and will need to keep Chattanooga unbalanced by getting into the attack. When the ball does turn over, nothing cheap around our own box; dead balls are the one weapon Chattanooga still swings hard, however they will be without their dead ball specialist, Omar Hernandez, which is good news for Fort Wayne.

Can Fort Wayne FC break down this Chattanooga side? Is there enough creativeness in our attack, similar to Madison and Omaha? We had a tactical advantage the first time we played the Red Wolves, which was surprise and also the early goal threw out both teams game day plan. I’m skeptical that we have enough creativeness in our attack this time around, however we know what it takes to beat them. Losing a player like Lilian Ricol at this stage in the season is bittersweet. The team could use reinforcements in our attack, not subtractions. While it certainly makes sense for the club and the long term strategy, as a player on a team in a playoff chase, you can’t help but think “so where are the goals going to come from?” Tonight, this Fort Wayne squad gets tasked with answering those questions. From the couch, I’m prepared for a tough test at home, looking for which player steps into the big vacancy left by Lilian Ricol. He was important for this roster build and he will certainly be missed.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne Football Club outshoots AV Alta 22-12 in Lancaster and loses 3-0 anyway, denied again by a goalkeeper who has now saved everything we have put on frame across two meetings this season.

AV Alta FC 3 – 0 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 Lancaster Municipal Stadium 📅 August 8, 2026 ⚽ Desdunes (37’), Ibarra (54’), Acuña (90’) 📋 FWFC Record: 7-6-6 · 27 pts · Matchday 19

The Match

The chances came early and kept coming. Javier Armas forced AV Alta goalkeeper Denzil Smith into a save from distance in the 6th min., and at the other end our captain Tiago Dias produced the play of the half, chasing down a shot from AV Alta’s Nicholas Relerford that had already beaten Bernd Schipmann and clearing it off the goal line and into the stands. Taig Healy made Smith work again from the top of the box in the 20th, and when AV Alta finally answered, Schipmann was equal to it, kicking away a close-range effort from Cesar Bahena in the 26th. For half an hour the trade held, both keepers winning, until the 37th min. brought the goal we knew to avoid. AV Alta’s Jerry Desdunes slipped behind the back line on the counter, carried the ball deep into the box, and beat Schipmann the way he has beaten defenders all season, with pace, balance, and a finish most players in this league do not have.

We reached halftime down a goal while leading the shots on target. The deficit doubled in the 54th when Desdunes slid a pass across the box to Miguel Ibarra, the former U.S. international and MLS player running their attack, for a finish from 10 yards. That was the one true breakdown of our night, with stand-in left back Jayden Smith caught in between defending the player or the goal line. Mike Avery responded in the 65th, sending on Lilian Ricol for Kabiru Gafar and Jeremy Garay for Emerson Nieto to reshape the attack. The pressure built, Denzil Smith kept saving, and in the 89th he made his biggest stop of the night on a Ryan Becher chance from the heart of the box. Sixty seconds later, substitute Joaquín Acuña finished the counter that made it 3-0, shutting out Fort Wayne FC on the night, and across both meetings this season.

The Defender’s Verdict

The scoreline reads like a beating but the numbers read like a coin flip. By expected goals, the stat that measures the quality of chances created rather than who buried them, AV Alta edged the night 2.38 to 2.02. The same model’s expected points, the points each side would average if you replayed the night over and over, scored it 1.61 to 1.16, the profile of a tight match that swings on a save here and a finish there. This one swung on eight saves at one end and three finished chances at the other.

AV Alta’s goalkeeper, Denzil Smith, has now faced Fort Wayne twice this season. He has made 14 saves and conceded 0 goals. By ASA’s goalkeeping model, which weighs every save by how likely the shot was to beat him, his best performance of 2026 came against us at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in May, and his third best came Saturday. Against the rest of the league, the model rates him slightly below average. Against us, he’s a brick wall, and has erased roughly three goals of shooting quality in 180 minutes. Two matches is a small sample size, but something Fort Wayne needs to solve if we meet them again this year.

As much as I would like to chalk this one up to Denzil Smith playing like Goalkeeper of the Year, I also think we could have attacked differently in the second half, especially from the 65th min. when Lilian Ricol came on for Kabiru Gafar. We have now seen Ricol play out wide at times, and while he has the pace and skill to beat his man there, we lose his finishing ability in the box. On a night when we desperately needed to improve the quality of our finishing, I would have liked to see our staff try a new formation, playing both Becher and Ricol up top in a two-man forward system. The match was begging for a goal by any means possible, and sometimes a sloppy goal gets you back in it. We nearly found one in the 89th min. through Becher, but we left our back line too exposed and too high. The third AV Alta goal was the dagger, but I am glad we pushed late into the match.

For portions of this match, Fort Wayne FC frustrated an Alta side that needed the win. The difference was in finishing efficiency, a USL League One star in Jerry Desdunes, and an AV Alta keeper who seems to save his best soccer for us.

We have now lost four of our last five in league play, every defeat coming against a club currently sitting in playoff position. Michael Rempel, one of our best players, returns from suspension Saturday when Chattanooga Red Wolves SC visit Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, the club we beat for our first professional win. Storylines change quickly in sports, and ours right now sounds like the team we just lost to: a team desperate for points.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club travels to Lancaster Municipal Stadium for the second meeting of the season with AV Alta FC, a side that has taken one point from its last three matches while a possible repeat of their 2025 season weighs on their supporters.

Saturday, August 8 | 11:00 PM ET | Lancaster Municipal Stadium, Lancaster, CA | ESPN+

Prior Proceedings

All-Time vs AV Alta (W-D-L): 0-1-0
The Opposition Report
MD10 Recap & Analysis

The last time these two met, AV Alta came to Fort Wayne on a three-match winning streak and left with a scoreless draw. We flagged their wingers as the danger and said our defensive shape would decide the night. It did. Alta left Ruoff Mortgage Stadium with their quietest attacking performance of the league season, 0.30 expected goals, smothered by the same compact block that has carried us all year. The only call we missed was the fireworks. We thought there would be goals. Instead we got zeros.

They stayed unbeaten for another month after they left Fort Wayne. Then July arrived, and July has been cruel. One point from their last three matches, a scoreless home draw with Westchester, then back-to-back road defeats to close the stretch. Their supporters have noticed the calendar. Last year this club surged through May and June, then went winless from the middle of July to October. This season is tracking the same arc, and nobody in Lancaster is pretending otherwise. The team itself has evolved since May: the defense tightened through the middle of the season before springing leaks again these past two weeks, and the attack learned to strike in transition rather than passing opponents to sleep. For the view from the other sideline, the Tumbleweed Times, an independent supporter blog covering AV Alta, broke down that evolution and the road trip that just tested it. Great insight into this team, and worth your time before the match.

The Matchup II

Start with the shape of their week. Alta played Wednesday night in Naples, Florida, then flew home across the country to host us on the back end of their fourth multi-game road trip of the season, a trip they lost twice. In May they were the ones arriving tired, and the match finished scoreless. At least this time they get to be tired at home. Alta is clinging to the playoff race, and the softest stretch of their schedule is finally in front of them. They need this one. So do we. A week removed from the Omaha loss, the best reset available is walking into someone else’s building and taking the points.

The blueprint against them has not changed, because their problem has not changed. No team in this league keeps the ball like Alta, and almost no team uses the width less once they have it. Their control does not frighten an organized defense. Chattanooga sat in disciplined lines three weeks ago, scored early, and let Alta pass in front of them all night. The job Saturday is the same job on the road: stay compact, keep the lines connected, and make them play through a defensive block that does not open. Head coach Kleiban’s usual 4-2-3-1 will have the ball. What it does with the ball is the match.

The player who breaks blueprints is Jerry Desdunes. Alta’s chance creation runs through him at a rate unusual even for this league, nearly double their next most productive player. Around him is Ilias Aoumaich, Adam Aoumaich’s brother, the best dribbler on their roster and the man who carved open Knoxville’s back line off one run. Fort Wayne’s Michael Rempel misses this one for his red card against Omaha, so a new name steps into our back four and inherits the isolation game. The assignment is the same as May: win the wide battles with midfield support so the center backs stay in comfortable positions. And keep the challenges clean in the box. No team in this league has drawn more penalties than Alta, and a cheap foul is the easiest way to hand a fading team its way back.

The short version: a tired, desperate team will have most of the ball, and that suits us fine. Stay organized, keep Desdunes quiet, and give them nothing cheap in the box. Fort Wayne is the type of team built to frustrate this Alta side, and if we stick with our usual Fort Wayne formula, I am expecting to collect road points from this match.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC sees its home unbeaten run in league play end at the hands of first-place Union Omaha, a rain-soaked 2-0 loss in which the visitors created the night’s clearest chances with less possession.

Fort Wayne FC 0 – 2 Union Omaha · USL League One 🏟 Ruoff Mortgage Stadium 📅 August 1, 2026 ⚽ Gavilanes (61’), Ors Navarro (74’) 📋 FWFC Record: 7-6-5 · 27 pts · Matchday 18

The Match

The rain arrived before kickoff and never left. Fort Wayne Football Club entered this night tasked with protecting an impressive home unbeaten run in USL League One play. For long stretches the match followed the familiar Fort Wayne football formula: we controlled the ball, dictated the tempo, and waited for the moment. Union Omaha turned that formula against us. We had the majority of the ball at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium all night. Omaha happily conceded it and attacked the available space, springing Sergio Ors Navarro into the channels twice inside the opening quarter hour and asking Bernd Schipmann to hold the line. He did, repeatedly. One of our best chances came in the 27th min., when Michael Rempel’s cross found Lilian Ricol, who looked to place the ball into the lower left corner. The idea worked, but a kiss off the post pushed the ball wide of goal.

After a scoreless first half, the match turned in the 61st min., and the damage came down our left. Younes Boudadi, Omaha’s overlapping right back, did the work on the wing, drawing Jack Thomas and an out-of-place Rempel toward the ball; the overload created the confusion that left Allen Gavilanes free in the box, and Boudadi picked him out for a strike that looked unsavable the moment it left his left foot. Mike Avery answered immediately, sending Emerson Nieto on for Javier Armas, but Omaha’s second arrived anyway in the 74th min., and this one was simply earned. The visitors built from the back, a 10-pass sequence that cut through us with one-touch passing precision between the attackers, Pato Botello Faz laying off for Ors Navarro, who finished coolly on a wet night, the goal he had been threatening for an hour. A few minutes later, Rempel’s night ended with a professional foul and a red card in the 88th min., Schipmann denied Botello Faz from point-blank range (and a few more shots) and the first home defeat of our USL League One season was on the books.

The Defender’s Verdict

By the numbers, we got beat, fair and simple. Fort Wayne FC held the majority of the ball and Union Omaha still outshot us 18-7, just two of our attempts forced a save, and the expected goals model scored the night roughly three to one in the visitors’ favor. The data and the eye test agree: Omaha was the better team, and I think Mike Avery and his staff know as much. These are the types of matches in which this young team needs to continue to grow and develop.

What Omaha put on the field is the standard for a top USL League One club: a well coached, well structured team full of professional individual contributors. It also shows where the difference lies in team building. Where we are probably a little too light on seasoned soccer veterans, matches like this expose it, and it was the same story against Spokane. Bench depth, seasoned professionals, and a light mix of young players who are still developing looks like the right playoff mix, and back-to-back losses to the division’s top clubs suggest playoff teams require a bit more veteran savvy to win the close matches. It is the fine line that separates playoff teams in this league.

None of that makes youth development the wrong way to build a roster; different clubs simply operate on different philosophies. But with Union Omaha finishing at the top of the division these last few years alongside Spokane, the trophy-and-win-now philosophy is beating the development pathway our initial roster was built on. The back-to-back losses are not necessarily a sign of things to come, but they point to a long USL season, the need for a marathon mentality, and a learning wall we have hit at the moment. Depth matters, seasoned veterans matter, and this is the point in the season where young legs, still gaining professional experience, start to show.

With no new reinforcements on the way, it is hard to think the priority is winning the league or the cup this year; the realistic aim is a playoff spot, with a likelihood of an early exit. Set against every other milestone this club has reached, I would still be hard pressed to call this anything but a successful season of professional soccer in Fort Wayne. But as a fan, I would love nothing more than for Fort Wayne to put its chips in the middle of the table and go for it. Why not? After all, sports is for winning, not learning how to win.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club hosts top-of-the-table Union Omaha at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in the first USL League One meeting between the clubs, a collision of the league’s most prolific attack and a home side yet to lose a league match in its own building.

Saturday, August 1 | 7:30 PM ET | Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, IN | ESPN+

Prior Proceedings

All-Time vs Union Omaha (W-D-L): 0-0-1
The Opposition Report - USL Cup Edition
Prinx Tires USL Cup, Group 4 Recap & Analysis

When Fort Wayne Football Club met Omaha in the USL Cup in June, we called it a glorified friendly and asked Mike Avery to empty the bench. He did. Eight changes, a start for Aurie Echevarría in goal, a debut for Nico Burns, and a first professional goal for Daniel Oyetunde in a 4-2 defeat at Morrison Stadium that stood level at 2-2 entering the second half. The result came from Omaha’s bench, where Kempes Tekiela finished twice. Diego Gutiérrez was the man to watch, but the night belonged to Allen Gavilanes, Pato Botello Faz, and Tekiela. The season has since vindicated the call. Gutiérrez now leads Omaha in both goals and goal contributions. The larger point from our first meeting still stands. We kept our cards face down, and Omaha has never seen a full-strength Fort Wayne FC.

Omaha’s summer since has been a study in split personality. Their USL Cup group stage finished with a 4-3 loss at Forward Madison, and their June road trip produced three straight league defeats without scoring a goal. At home they remain untouched, unbeaten across the entire League One season, still generating chances at a volume no club in this league matches. Omaha is two different teams depending on the venue, and for the first time in this series, the venue is Ruoff Mortgage Stadium.

The Matchup II

Start with the split, because the numbers are stark. At home this season, Omaha creates roughly 2.3 expected goals per match, a measure of the quality of chances a team generates, and allows opponents barely 1.0 by the same measure. That is the profile of a champion. On the road, both numbers flatten to roughly 1.6, the profile of a coin flip. Their away ledger reads four wins and five losses from nine matches without a single draw. Before we get too comfortable: their most recent road match, last week at Portland, was their best away performance of the season, so the traveling version of Omaha may be waking up. Our job Saturday is to keep it asleep, and there is no better building for that work than The Ru, where we remain unbeaten in league play.

Union Omaha leads League One with 51 big chances created as well as 33 big chances missed, a pairing that says the volume is relentless and the wastefulness is a habit. They hold nearly 58 percent of the ball, second in the league, take more touches in the opposition box than anyone, and defend on the front foot, stepping up to intercept rather than dropping deep to clear. That last trait cuts both ways. It is how Gavilanes picked our pocket at midfield for the opening goal in June, and it is also why space lives behind their line for a disciplined side to attack. That is the space for Taig Healy and Jack Thomas on Saturday. We just watched Spokane’s substitutes carve us apart in transition, so the concern would be Gutiérrez, Tekiela, and Gavilanes running at a Fort Wayne side that switches off for ten minutes. Playing against the top clubs in USL League One requires a mentality that is on for the full 90 minutes. It is our defensive shape that has defined us this season. No club in League One has kept more clean sheets than our seven, and Vincenzo Candela’s side has never had to solve our first-choice defensive unit.

This one should feel like a playoff match. The second half of our season depends on the fortress we make of Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, and there is no sterner test of home advantage than the league leaders under the lights. Full strength, no asterisk, and a first league result between two ambitious clubs. The best team in this league has never seen our best hand. On Saturday night, we put our cards on the table.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC led at the break in Spokane, then watched the home side’s veteran bench take the match away, exposing squad depth as the differentiator between the two sides.

Spokane Velocity FC 3 – 1 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 ONE Spokane Stadium, Spokane, Wash. 📅 July 25, 2026 ⚽ SPK: Shavon John-Brown (66’), Shavon John-Brown (81’), Luis Gil (84’) | FWFC: Jack Thomas (15’) 📋 FWFC Record: 7-4-6 · 27 pts · Matchday 17

The Match

Fort Wayne Football Club arrived at ONE Spokane Stadium with its full-strength side restored. Mike Avery set up in a 4-2-3-1, with Jeremy Garay and Javier Armas as the double pivot and Taig Healy underneath Lilian Ricol with Jack Thomas and Kabiru Gafar wide. Spokane Velocity’s head coach, Leigh Veidman, rotated heavily off a midweek win, lining his side up in a 5-3-2 with new signing Ali Elmasnaouy handed his midfield debut, keeping captain Luis Gil on the bench. Elmasnaouy is on loan from USL Championship side Oakland Roots.

The opener came in the 15th min., and it started from a Spokane goal kick. James Musa rose to win the first ball and headed it forward. Thomas collected it 40 yards from goal, dipped past Spokane centerback Camron Miller, and ripped a shot from the top of the penalty area. Sean Lewis, back-to-back USL League One Goalkeeper of the Year winner, got a hand to it but pushed the ball back into traffic, and Thomas ran onto his own rebound and buried it on the half volley from just right of the penalty spot.

Spokane sat in a mid block for the rest of the half and offered little in the attack. It had the same look and feel as the first meeting between the two sides. Fort Wayne FC took the lead into the interval.

The second half was a different story for Spokane Velocity FC. Around the hour mark, head coach Veidman and his coaching staff put their stamp on the match by subbing in Shavon John-Brown. John-Brown would finish the night with two goals and an assist, completely changing the trajectory of a Spokane side that failed to make the right changes back on July 4.

In the 66th min., Spokane midfielder Nil Vinyals lifted a ball over our back line for John-Brown who ran clear of Tiago Dias, and finished through the legs of Bernd Schipmann. In the 77th min., Spokane captain Luis Gil subbed in alongside Jack Denton. Four minutes later, Denton would find John-Brown running at our back line once more, and he would finish his second similar to his first, under Schipmann. The dagger took place in the 84th min., when Fort Wayne FC defender James Musa played a poor pass out of the back. John-Brown collected it and found Gil arriving in the box for the third. Thirty minutes after John-Brown was subbed into the match, Fort Wayne FC would go on to lose 3-1 after leading at the half.

The Defender’s Verdict

For 45 minutes the scoreline said we were the better team, on the road, against a side sitting above us in the table. Credit to Spokane, their coaching staff and players, for showing us why they have played in back-to-back USL League One Finals.

If there is one area to point to, it’s veteran depth. Look at who came off the bench on Saturday for Spokane. Shavon John-Brown. Luis Gil. Derek Waldeck. Add up the professional years among those three and you understand how a home side goes into halftime down a goal and never panics. The Spokane coaching staff trusted their starters to keep the fight close, then let their veterans come in and take the match over. Those coaching decisions proved the difference on the night, and it came down to individual quality that turned a potential home loss into yet another home victory.

Look inward and the picture is just as clear. John-Brown beat us the way he has been beating this league for years, pulling center backs out of position and punishing what is left behind. Tiago Dias is a first-year professional, and a seasoned veteran read him and went past him twice. Schipmann had two go through his legs on arguably his worst night of the season. Gil floated into the box and finished like a man who has done it his whole career. Professional goals, all three of them. Looking at the data, Spokane edged us on expected goals (xG), 1.78 to 1.57. This wasn’t a dismantling, it was a night where their goalkeeper overperformed and ours underperformed. A lopsided scoreline in what was actually a fairly even match.

But we had no answer off our bench, and that is where the second half of the season could be decided. Depth matters. Veterans matter. Both will show up again, and whether we have enough of either is the question this Year One squad needs to ask itself. A strong first half can be outdone by a poor second half. It was true of the match on Saturday. Let’s hope it will not be true of the season.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club travels to ONE Spokane Stadium for the second meeting of the season against Spokane Velocity FC, a two-time USL League One finalist that is nearly unbeatable at home, having won a midweek match Wednesday against third-place Charlotte.

Saturday, July 25 | 9:00 PM ET | ONE Spokane Stadium, Spokane, WA | ESPN+

Prior Proceedings

All-Time vs Spokane (W-D-L): 1-0-0
The Opposition Report
MD14 Recap & Analysis

The last time these two met, Spokane controlled the possession but failed to convert it into goals. They held the ball for long stretches at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium and never forced Bernd Schipmann into a save. Taig Healy took the club scoring record, Jeremy Garay and Lilian Ricol added the rest, and the plan was plain: take a lead, then trust the backline to hold the scoreline. Spokane still created real chances that day, and their inability to finish did part of our work for us. It was a deserved win for Fort Wayne. We had less of the ball and made the better chances anyway, and three goals felt about right. A plan like that gets tested once an opponent has the skill to score from possession.

That opponent may now exist. Anuar Peláez, their leading scorer from a season ago, had not played in nearly two months when the clubs met in July. He is back now, scoring, and Spokane has not lost in any competition since they walked out of Ruoff Mortgage Stadium. The run carried them past Championship opposition to win their USL Cup group, sending them into the knockout stage for the first time in club history and setting up a home quarterfinal in mid-August against Colorado Springs, USL Championship winners two seasons ago. It also brought their first league road win of the year at Richmond last weekend. The front office kept working this week as well, signing midfielder Ali Elmasnaouy on loan from Oakland Roots, and the club says he will debut against us on Saturday. It is not a new team, but with some fresh faces and recent momentum behind them, it is a different version of Spokane than the one that came to Fort Wayne.

The Matchup II

Spokane drew a brutal stretch of schedule this week. This past Wednesday they hosted Charlotte Independence, one of the best teams in the table and the only other League One club still alive in the USL Cup. On Saturday they host us. All three clubs are in the playoff hunt, and Spokane plays both matches on the shortest rest the schedule allows. I went digging into how League One teams handle the Saturday after a midweek league match, expecting the numbers to show tired legs, and they pointed somewhere else entirely. Teams hosting that Saturday match have been fine, even good. The thing the turnaround exposes is state of mind. Sides that win the midweek match tend to carry it into the weekend, while the ones that lose it fail to win the Saturday more often than not. Spokane has lived both halves of that pattern this season. In April they won a Tuesday and Saturday pair at home, and around July Fourth they lost a Wednesday at home before losing to us three days later. This week is tracking with the first version. Spokane beat third-place Charlotte 3-0 on Wednesday, a second straight league shutout with all three goals coming after halftime, so the side waiting for us carries momentum and finishes strong. Any result at their place will take a full 90.

This is a club that reached the USL League One Final in each of its first two seasons, something almost no team has done, and they protect their home ground the way we protect Ruoff Mortgage Stadium. They won every league match in Spokane until late June and have lost there only twice in league play all season. Luis Gil, the former United States international who runs their attack, has his finisher back in Peláez. The possession that looked so harmless in Fort Wayne turns into goals at their place.

Our game plan does not need much tinkering by Avery and Company for Saturday, rather awareness of the new names potentially in Spokane’s lineup. We still play the Fort Wayne way, a defensive unit that is difficult to break down, and as long as we keep our structure and shape, we will frustrate them. It reminds me of the trip to Boise earlier this season. Stay structured and compact, and pick our moments to attack as a unit. This is the away test we thought we were getting at Knoxville before the early red card, a full squad against one of the best teams in USL League One, and a real measure of whether our place in the standings is justified. So grab yourself an early evening coffee, stay up past your bedtime, and see if this Fort Wayne side competes with the best this league has to offer.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC beat Greenville Triumph SC 3-0 on the inaugural John Bellio Tribute Night, finishing a tight match like a great team, giving a Fort Wayne kid his professional debut, and closing the first half of Season One in the playoff hunt.

Fort Wayne FC 3 – 0 Greenville Triumph SC · USL League One 🏟 Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, Ind. 📅 July 18, 2026 ⚽ FWFC: Ryan Becher (16’), Lilian Ricol (35’), Kabiru Gafar (57’) 📋 FWFC Record: 7-3-6 · 27 pts · Matchday 16

The Match

Fort Wayne Football Club returned to Ruoff Mortgage Stadium without the suspended Javier Armas. Mike Avery set up in a 4-1-4-1, with Emerson Nieto screening the back four and Ryan Becher pushed higher ahead of him, against a Greenville Triumph SC side that lined up under head coach Dave Dixon with a five-man back line.

The opening goal came in the 16th min. Michael Rempel struck a free kick with his left foot from just outside the penalty area, and Becher met it with his head near the six-yard box.

Fort Wayne FC doubled the lead in the 35th min. Taig Healy shielded his marker near midfield and released Lilian Ricol into space behind. Ricol saw Greenville goalkeeper Amal Knight off his line and struck from more than 40 yards, beating him as he scrambled back toward his goal.

The third arrived in the 57th min. Ricol won possession inside Fort Wayne FC’s own half and played Kabiru Gafar through down the right. Gafar held off the recovering defender and finished with the outside of his right boot.

Dixon made a triple change in the 64th min., introducing Azaad Liadi, Ivan Agyaakwah and Kimito Fritz for Chapa Herrera, Rodrigo Robles and Muba Nour. Greenville’s best chance followed in the 84th min., when Liadi curled a free kick toward the upper corner and Bernd Schipmann pushed it away. Fort Wayne FC closed out the match 3-0, picking up three points in the League One standings.

The Defender’s Verdict

Three goals on Bellio night was the best possible outcome, and not only for the table. Ruoff Mortgage added $5,000 to Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana for every goal, so Saturday’s finishing was worth $15,000 to a cause this club has now made permanent. On that measure, I will take a flattering scoreline every time.

And it is flattering. Per American Soccer Analysis, we edged the expected goals (xG) battle 1.04 to 0.90, close enough that the model called this near even. On the numbers this was a far tighter match than 3-0 suggests. We were the better side, but not by three goals.

My first instinct was that we were loose at the back and got away with it. Half of that holds up. Greenville put thirteen attempts up and only one of them carried real danger, which is a compact block doing its job rather than a leaky one. The overperformance came at the other end. Ricol’s lob and Gafar’s finish were the kind of shots that go in maybe once in ten tries, and both went in. We did what great teams do and buried our chances. The growth of this team shows up in scoring efficiency. You do not need a pile of shots. You need to hit the target and take the moments that come, and we did that on the night.

Schipmann continues to prove exactly why a young professional club signs a League One veteran. He sits second in the league this season in goals prevented against what the model expected, and Saturday brought another clean sheet, a total no goalkeeper in League One has bettered. He earned this one. Greenville shot from poor positions for most of the night but struck the ball cleanly when the chance came, and Schipmann answered with a handful of heroic stops.

Another positive on the night is that Johnny Aye made his professional debut. Sixteen years old, from Fort Wayne, a Northrop junior in the fall, and the youngest player ever to appear for this club at this level. On the night we honored John Bellio, one of the people who made this possible, a kid from this city took the field. A special moment on a special night.

Saturday closed out the first half of Season One. Greenville Triumph was the last of the sixteen League One clubs we had yet to face, and every fixture from here is a rematch. The league knows Fort Wayne, and now we know the league. Sixteen matches played, sixteen to play. Time to take a breather, regroup, and reset for the second half. The goal now should be to make the playoffs. We are in the hunt. Congrats to this club and this team on a first half worth celebrating.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club returns home for the first time since its 11-match unbeaten run ended, hosting a struggling Greenville Triumph side on the inaugural John Bellio Tribute Night at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium.

Saturday, July 18 | 7:30 PM ET | Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, IN | ESPN+

The Profile

This is the first meeting in the two clubs’ history, and the Greenville Triumph that arrives Saturday is not the one that used to set the standard in this league. Greenville was a founding member of USL League One, and for years it was the team everyone else measured themselves against. They won the title in 2020 and finished near the top for four straight seasons. Then the level slipped. They missed the playoffs for the first time last year, and 2026 has been another hard campaign. The club near the foot of the table now is a long way from the one that spent years at the top of it.

The ambition has not gone anywhere, though. In 2024 the ownership group brought in Ronaldinho, the Brazilian Ballon d’Or winner, as a minority investor. This season they opened a new home, GE Vernova Park in Mauldin, a permanent stadium that locks in the club’s future no matter what the table says today. The building says Greenville is not going anywhere. The results just have not caught up to it yet.

On the pitch, head coach Dave Dixon’s side does not control matches. They sit deep, let opponents have the ball, and try to win it back by simply outworking them. No team in the league tackles more, and none fouls more. When they do get forward, the final third has been a struggle, and they have leaned on their goalkeeping and a handful of clinical finishes to bank more points than their play has earned.

For all that, they still have one man who can hurt you. Azaad Liadi leads Greenville in both goals and assists, and he has scored at every level he has played. There is an MLS run at D.C. United on his resume, and a season at MLS Next Pro side Huntsville City where he put up a dozen goals. Behind him, captain Chapa Herrera is the metronome, the midfielder who plays well even on the nights the team does not. Brandon Fricke, a holdover from the title years and the league’s 2020 Defender of the Year, still anchors the back line. Give this Greenville the ball, though, and they tend to hand it back.

The Matchup

We arrive as the better team, and we arrive on short rest. The red card that started the Knoxville night takes Javier Armas out of this one through suspension. We have played without our regista before, and it does not make us better, but it is not a crisis either. The set-piece threat does not leave with him. Michael Rempel takes a lot of our dead balls, and with Armas out, I expect Taig Healy, our all-time leading scorer, to absorb the rest, the way he did at Knoxville. Against the team that fouls more than anyone in League One, those set pieces matter. Greenville hands out territory in dangerous areas. We need to make them pay for it.

The bigger opportunity is the pitch itself. Greenville wants to squeeze the game into the middle third, make it a scrap, and let their work rate even the odds. That is the fight to stay out of. We are at our best when the field is wide and the ball is moving, dragging a hard-running side from touchline to touchline until they tire and the space opens. Make them chase. Let the ball do the work. Keep possession. The scoring opportunities will come.

The concern is Liadi in transition. A disciplined defensive block protects against the counter, but one lapse in concentration at the back can turn their best player loose in transition. When that happens, Greenville picks up points. Whether those are points earned by Greenville or given up by their opponents is up for debate.

Always FWD

A Note for Saturday

Saturday is a special night for the club. Fort Wayne Football Club honors the late John Bellio, a founding member whose name Fort Wayne soccer supporters know, in the inaugural John Bellio Tribute Night for the Fight Against Cancer. Bellio, one of the original owners, lost his life to the disease in 2025. For every ticket sold the club gives a dollar to Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana, and Ruoff Mortgage adds five thousand more for every goal we score, so every goal Saturday is worth more than three points. Mark Music has said the tribute will return every season from now on, and that feels right. For those unable to attend but still want to contribute to the fight against cancer, give here. We are playing for something bigger than the table. This match is for John.

Match Recap & Analysis

Javier Armas’ three-second foul produced the fastest red card in USL League One history, and one of the fastest red cards in soccer history, as Fort Wayne FC’s 11-match unbeaten run ended 2-1 at defending champion One Knoxville SC.

One Knoxville SC 2 – 1 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 Covenant Health Park, Knoxville, Tenn. 📅 July 15, 2026 ⚽ KNX: Scott McLeod (47’), Abel Caputo (81’) · FWFC: Kabiru Gafar (73’) 📋 FWFC Record: 6-3-6 · 24 pts · Matchday 15

The Match

Three seconds into Matchday 15, Fort Wayne Football Club’s night changed. One Knoxville’s leading goalscorer Denis Krioutchenkov bumped Javier Armas to the ground off the opening kickoff, and Armas answered with a studs-up, high kick that referee Corbyn May punished with a straight red, shown at 1:04, the earliest in USL League One history. Only one red card in the history of professional USL soccer has come faster, Paul Nicholson’s 14-second dismissal in the USL Championship in 2013, and the foul itself, three seconds after the opening whistle, sits alongside the fastest ever recorded in the professional game. Krioutchenkov was booked for the initial contact. James Musa left injured in the 15th min., replaced by Juan Solís.

Neither side put a shot on target in a first half of ten against eleven, and the numbers evened a minute into first-half stoppage time when Krioutchenkov collected a second yellow for a hard foul on Michael Rempel. Both teams’ stars were off the pitch before the second half kicked off.

Two minutes into the second half, Knoxville struck. Real Gill, the Trinidad and Tobago international coming back from injury, won a corner on the left, and Teddy Baker’s delivery found the head of defender Scott McLeod, who out-jumped the scrum in the 47th min. for the match’s first shot on target and its first goal. Later in the match, Taig Healy rattled the crossbar from outside the area in the 53rd min., but it was in the 73rd min. where Kabiru Gafar leveled, splitting the back line onto a Healy pass and finishing low for the first goal of his professional career. Eight minutes later, One Knoxville’s Abel Caputo met a cleared corner with a first-time volley from outside the box, the ball glancing off a stretching Healy and looping over Bernd Schipmann’s reach. The champions survived a late push and closed out the 2-1 win.

The Defender’s Verdict

I was hoping this match would tell us exactly where we stand. The best eleven this club can field, at full strength, away at the defending champions, with a piece of unbeaten league history on the line, but we never got that answer. Instead, we picked up some new history, the fastest red card in USL League One, ever, and maybe the fastest red-card-worthy foul in the history of football. Everything after that, all the midweek prep, was thrown out the door.

Javier Armas was bumped hard off the kickoff, had a rush of blood to the head, which was answered with studs high, and at this level that gets punished every time. One of our most important midfield players spent the night watching ten teammates fight the best team in the league, and a suspension now looms with Greenville arriving Saturday. He will need to own up to that foul with his teammates. He is too important to be missing meaningful matches. Add in James Musa’s early injury departure to a squad already missing Jayden Smith and Anthony Hernandez, and the depth behind this back line is suddenly a real question.

For nearly the entirety of the first half, Knoxville played up a man and produced zero shots on target. That is a credit to Fort Wayne, that Fort Wayne grit. And once Krioutchenkov picked up his second yellow right before the half, I thought we would have a good opportunity to keep the unbeaten streak alive. From there it seemed like a fair fight, and the numbers agree. Per American Soccer Analysis, we edged the expected goals battle, 1.18 to 1.11, with ten men on the road against the best team in the league, and the model handed us 1.37 expected points to their 1.34. A coin flip, recorded as a loss. Kabiru Gafar’s equalizer was the best chance either side created all night, a shot the model valued at nearly half a goal, and he buried it for the first goal of his professional career. Caputo’s winner had a three percent chance of going in when it left his boot. The deflection did the rest. By the numbers, Fort Wayne was not really outplayed on the night, but that is not how it works. We lost on a night that was a bit odd seconds into the match. Let’s just say the soccer gods had their eyes stuck on the upcoming World Cup Final…

One note from the road: Watching a 90-minute soccer match, behind the foul netting of a minor league baseball stadium, is not what I would call ideal for the soccer purist. Knoxville certainly has some quirks to their home-field advantage that I don’t believe will play well at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium when they visit later this season. Soccer on baseball fields, similar to New York City Football Club playing in Yankee Stadium in MLS, tends to play quite narrow and really compact in the middle of the pitch. That home advantage flips on its head on a proper soccer pitch, where Fort Wayne FC is used to playing wide, with space, making the ball do the work instead of tiki-taka midfield play. Imagine watching a soccer match on the TinCaps’ field, and you will have a good idea of what that experience is like for both players and fans. Suboptimal. That is a credit to Mark Music and the ownership group for jumping in with both feet, and not dipping their toes into the world’s sport.

On a night where the storylines pointed to one record, Fort Wayne picked up a new record. And while I am not terribly upset our unbeaten streak is now beaten, I am looking forward to our next match against One Knoxville SC, at home this time, to see how the game plays out in a soccer-specific stadium, on a wide pitch, with both clubs at full starting XI strength. It was a great first meeting, and I would expect our next encounter to be equally enjoyable. After all, soccer is designed for 11 vs 11. I’m sure both the fans and the players would enjoy a proper rematch.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne Football Club carries an 11-match league unbeaten run into Covenant Health Park to face defending champion One Knoxville SC in a meeting of two of the stingiest defenses in USL League One.

Wednesday, July 15 | 6:30 PM ET | Covenant Health Park, Knoxville, TN | ESPN+

The Profile

We talk a lot about what Fort Wayne Football Club could become. Today, we get to measure ourselves by another best-in-class USL club. One Knoxville was founded five years ago today, on July 15, 2021. They entered League One as an expansion side in 2023, spent two seasons building their club, and won everything in year three: the Players’ Shield, then the title itself, sealed in front of a league-record crowd at Covenant Health Park, where they went the entire 2025 season without a home defeat. Three years from first kick to the double.

The champions do not chase the ball. Head coach Ian Fuller’s side sits mid-pack by possession metrics, lets opponents hold the ball for long stretches, and selects the right moment to attack. Only Charlotte puts more shots on target, and almost nobody is harder to score on. Reigning Defender of the Year Jordan Skelton anchors the back line alongside Finn McRobb, who has barely left the pitch all season.

Denis Krioutchenkov is the finisher. His goals lead the team, and the underlying numbers say he earns every one, arriving in scoring positions relentlessly rather than riding a hot streak. Teddy Baker is the supply line and their best performer this season, the passer who turns a quiet match into a dangerous one.

One Knoxville has been historically difficult to beat at home. This year is a bit different, as both of their defeats came at home, against Madison and Omaha. While 2025 was impossible to win away at Knoxville, 2026 is proving otherwise. One note: they closed out their Prinx Tires USL Cup campaign Saturday with a heavily rotated squad at Corpus Christi, so the first-choice eleven arrives rested.

The Matchup

The two best defenses in League One share a pitch tonight. Fewest goals allowed, most clean sheets, dead level in both, and each built on an organized block in front of a goalkeeper in form. The difference is what each side has done with all that defending. Knoxville turns those nights into three points more often than we do, and that habit is nearly the entire gap between third place and sixth. A match this tight gets decided by one moment, probably a set piece or a transition. Knoxville has been finding exactly those moments lately, with McRobb stepping up from the back line to score in each of their last two league matches. We will need to be clinical in front of their goal tonight. I do not suspect we will have many good looks, so the few we will have, we need to capitalize on.

Krioutchenkov against our back line is the contest that worries me most. One lapse between the center backs and a half-yard in the box is all he needs. Bernd Schipmann has been a wall all season, but the plan starts further up the pitch: cut the supply from Baker, make Krioutchenkov receive facing his own goal, and force the champions to beat us from distance. The one thing we cannot allow is him running at our line in transition.

Then there is what a result would mean. A draw ties the longest league unbeaten run by a first-year club in League One history, the 12 matches Lansing Ignite strung together in 2019. A win does that and pulls us within three points of the champions with more than half the season still to play. The measure tonight is simple: points away at Knoxville keep the streak alive, but a win puts the league on notice. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne Football Club closes its first Prinx Tires USL Cup campaign with a 2-1 loss at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium to a Detroit City FC side that won the night and was still eliminated from the competition.

Fort Wayne FC 1 – 2 Detroit City FC · Prinx Tires USL Cup 🏟 Ruoff Mortgage Stadium 📅 Saturday, July 11, 2026 ⚽ Ricol (86’); Smith (62’), Mentzingen (71’) 📋 FWFC USL Cup Record: 0-3-1 · Group 4 (Match 4 of 4) · 1 pt

The Match

Detroit City FC arrived needing goals in bulk and started its most dangerous forwards. Darren Smith, the USL Championship’s leading scorer, led the line, and for an hour our rotated back four kept him quiet. Jayden Smith, Juan Solís, Reid Sproat, and Anthony Hernandez kept the first half scoreless in front of Aurie Echevarría, who was busy from the opening whistle and equal to everything on target.

The hour mark broke it. Ryan Williams provided the service and Detroit City’s Smith finished in the 62nd min. Detroit made three changes five minutes later, and one of them, Haruki Yamazaki, needed four minutes on the field to pick out Rafa Mentzingen, whose driving run and finish in the 71st doubled the lead. It was Mentzingen’s first goal for Le Rouge, scored against his old college coach: he played for Mike Avery at Valparaiso.

Our bench answered in kind. Clarence Awoudor found Lilian Ricol in the 86th min, and Ricol, on as a substitute, buried it. The push for an equalizer ran out of night. Echevarría finished with seven saves, and the crowd of 4,214 gave the cup campaign a loud goodbye.

The Defender’s Verdict

Detroit City FC is a good team. Le Rouge finished second in a group that packed four of the Midwest Mighty into seven clubs, went the full slate without losing a match in regulation, and still exited the 2026 USL Cup on Saturday night, in a fixture that meant close to nothing for either side by kickoff. We arrived already eliminated. Detroit needed a scoring avalanche plus help from around the bracket. The indictment here lands on the tournament design, and it deserves a red card.

Start with the shape of the thing. Our group held seven clubs, and each played only four of them, so the table ranked teams that never faced the same schedule. Seven group winners and one wildcard advance, which means a club can bank eight points, avoid defeat across the entire group stage, finish second, and pack up. The group stage is wedged into the middle of the league season, so coaches rotate, which is rational, and the matches drift toward exhibitions, which is lethal for a competition asking supporters to care. And all of it wrapped up this weekend while the World Cup, arguably the best tournament humans have designed, plays out its final week on this continent. Nobody needs a diagram to understand what a World Cup group match is worth. Saturday required a calculator and somebody else’s box score.

Strip the storylines off the night and what is left is a friendly, one with real value as a measurement. Twenty-five shots to six is what a Championship attack does to our second team when it gives the night an honest effort, and pretending otherwise would waste the whole point of the exercise. What the count does not show is that our second-choice back line kept the Golden Boot leader off the scoresheet for an hour, or how much of the margin Echevarría personally erased. The cup handed us four measurements of the level above: a point taken off Indy Eleven, a lead briefly held at Louisville City, and now sixty minutes of genuine resistance against the best striker in the division above. The ledger reads 0-3-1, and the education was worth more than the points ever were.

And quietly, the best subplot of the season became a race. Ricol came off the bench and scored his eighth of the season in all competitions, tying the mark that stood as the club’s career record until Taig Healy passed it last week. Healy sits at nine. The record holder and his closest active challenger are both in their first professional season, chasing each other in real time.

The cup is over, and the part of the season that counts resumes Wednesday at defending champion One Knoxville SC, where the eleven-match unbeaten streak lives.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne FC closes the Prinx Tires USL Cup group stage against Detroit City FC in a match with almost nothing on the line, which is exactly what makes it worth watching: rotated lineups, players auditioning for bigger roles, and two fan bases that built what the other one wants.

Saturday, July 11 | 7:30 PM ET | Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, IN | ESPN+

The Profile

Detroit City FC is the club every lower-division owner points at when explaining what is possible. Founded in 2012, Le Rouge climbed from the amateur NPSL through NISA to the USL Championship in 2022, and built the most famous supporter culture in American lower-division soccer along the way. The Northern Guard march through Hamtramck to Keyworth Stadium with drums and smoke, the supporters themselves financed the revival of that Depression-era ground in 2016, and when an MLS ownership group circled Detroit that same year, the resistance was loud enough that the league’s commissioner personally called the club to ask why. The ambition keeps climbing. A privately financed, 15,000-seat stadium, AlumniFi Field, is scheduled to open in Corktown in spring 2028, sized deliberately for the top division the USL is building.

On the field, they are a genuinely good team. Head coach Danny Dichio has Le Rouge third in the Eastern Conference in his third season, after playoff runs in each of his first two, including an upset of Louisville City last fall. The headline is Darren Smith. The South African striker leads the Championship’s Golden Boot race, has scored more than half of Detroit’s league goals himself, and in June became just the second player in league history with five goals in a single match. Around him, Kobe Hernández-Foster is the creative engine from wide areas, and Haruki Yamazaki, a defender who rarely comes off the field, scored the winner in their only cup victory.

The vulnerability is the dependence. When Smith doesn’t score, Detroit rarely does, and the cup campaign proves it: two goals in three matches, both from defenders.

The Matchup

We are eliminated, playing for our first cup win and nothing else. Detroit is technically alive for the wild card, but the math asks a lot: a win with goals piled high, plus help from other groups. Our back line has become a known problem for opponents, one clean sheet after another through this unbeaten run, and nothing about that profile invites a four-goal chase. I expect Mike Avery to spread minutes to the players who have earned a longer look, and I expect the opening 20-30 minutes to answer whether Detroit believes its chase is real. If the goals don’t arrive early, the wild card quietly leaves the building. If they do, remember that few in the Championship finish matches better; the 92nd minute is where Le Rouge have been living lately.

Here is the strange part, straight from the lineup sheets: Detroit has sent something close to its first-choice side to every match in this competition and still scored twice in three games. The bluntness has come with the first team on the field. The league version of Le Rouge is legitimate, a top-three side in the East whose results match its underlying performance almost exactly, and the cup version has most of the same names on the sheet. Whether Dichio commits his best eleven one more time, for a long shot, is the first question Saturday answers.

The sharpest signal on that team sheet is Smith. He started Detroit’s first two group matches, then sat the third with Ben Morris leading the line instead, and his name on Saturday’s sheet tells us how seriously Le Rouge are chasing this. If the Golden Boot leader starts, containing him becomes the defensive assignment of our season. If he rests or plays a half, the night belongs to the understudies. Either way, watch how our center backs handle whoever leads their line. The level above is the level above, whatever the name on the shirt.

Which leaves the real story of the night. A match with nothing on the line is a friendly in everything but the paperwork, and friendlies belong to individuals: players on both sides who need minutes, fringe names auditioning for bigger roles, the young player who treats a nothing match like a final. Somebody always shines in these games, precisely because nothing is supposed to happen. And in the stands, the two best arguments in lower-division soccer share a building: Detroit built a supporter culture our young fanbase should envy, and we built a stadium their supporters deserve and won’t have until 2028. Both sets of fans will spend the evening looking at what the other one wants.

So no, this match doesn’t matter. Except to the player fighting for a place, the group chasing an unlikely wild card, a club chasing its first cup win, and two fan bases sizing each other up for a rivalry that is one promotion away from existing. It doesn’t matter, kind of.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC marks the formal opening of Ruoff Mortgage Stadium with a 3-0 Independence Day win over Spokane Velocity FC, as Taig Healy becomes the club’s all-time leading scorer and the unbeaten run reaches 11 matches.

Fort Wayne FC 3 – 0 Spokane Velocity FC · USL League One 🏟 Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, Ind. 📅 July 4, 2026 ⚽ Taig Healy (14’), Jeremy Garay (44’), Lilian Ricol (48’ pen.) 📋 FWFC Record: 6-2-6 · 24 pts · Matchday 14

The Match

The Fourth of July at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium began with a ribbon-cutting to mark the ground’s formal opening and ended with fireworks over Bass Road. In between, a season-high crowd of 4,493 watched Fort Wayne Football Club deliver the most complete ninety of its professional era.

Michael Rempel, ever-present through the club’s first professional season, was missing from the squad, and Jayden Smith replaced him at left back. Spokane, on two days’ rest after a midweek home loss, unveiled a back three that struggled to find its new defensive shape.

The opener came in the 14th min. from a sequence that started at Fort Wayne’s own corner flag. Eight passes later, Jack Thomas slipped the final ball to Taig Healy, whose finish, his 9th of the season in all competitions, made him the club’s all-time leading scorer across its League Two and League One eras. In the 44th min., Javier Armas stripped the ball from Spokane midfielder Collin Fernandez near the half, carried it to the top of the box, and fed Lilian Ricol wide. Ricol’s cross popped up off Kabiru Gafar’s boot, and Jeremy Garay finished the bouncing ball for his first goal in a Fort Wayne FC shirt.

Spokane opened the second half with a triple substitution and a new shape, but the reset lasted three minutes: a handball in the area let Ricol make it 3-0 from the spot in the 48th min. From there Spokane held most of the ball and never put a shot on target. Bernd Schipmann’s clean sheet, his 6th of the season and the 33rd of his USL League One career, came without a save to make. The unbeaten run now stands at 11 matches, the second-longest by a first-year club in League One history and one short of the record Lansing Ignite set in 2019.

The Defender’s Verdict

The break did what a break should. Two weeks off can dull a team’s edge, and there was none of that rust on Saturday. What I saw instead was a starting XI coming into focus: Jack Thomas wide left, Kabiru Gafar wide right, and Taig Healy pulling the creative strings at the #10. Behind them, Javier Armas and Jeremy Garay are finding a rhythm as a pairing, and that’s a good sign for the months ahead. We missed Michael Rempel, but Jayden Smith stepped in and looked settled in the left back role he originally joined the club to play. His development is best served exactly like this: learning behind Rempel and focusing on the defensive side of the game first. We already know he can get forward.

I have less tactical analysis to offer this week, and that’s a compliment. It was a good performance, start to finish. The honest caveat is that this gets tested once opponents have the skill to score from possession. Spokane couldn’t break us down, and that’s proving to be a winning recipe: get a lead, then let the backline frustrate the opposition.

It was a night of unveilings. A new mascot. A new nickname, with the broadcast calling Fort Wayne FC “The Bees” for the first time I’ve heard. And I was hopeful a big announcement would be Fort Wayne native Akil Watts, but I suppose we’ll have to wait for that one. Around the league, the top League One clubs are solidifying their second-half runs with loan deals from upper-division sides, and so far there’s been nothing from the Fort Wayne FC camp. One or two additions would put us over the top. But it’s feeling like an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” halfway point, and the second half will tell us whether that was wisdom or a missed window.

Saturday felt like a club growing into itself. The ribbon got cut, the seats are finally in, and the place looks every bit the best stadium in this league. On the pitch, we have a team playing football worthy of all of it. It was a good night.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne FC hosts Spokane Velocity FC on the Fourth of July, a possession-first side that controls matches but can’t finish them and hasn’t won on the road all season. Both clubs are fighting for USL League One playoff places.

Saturday, July 4 | 7:30 PM ET | Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, IN | ESPN+

The Profile

Head coach Leigh Veidman’s team knows exactly what it wants to be. Spokane builds patiently from the back, rotates its attackers through the middle of the pitch, pushes its fullbacks forward to deliver, and piles up corners when the first wave breaks down. The pattern holds even in defeat. In Wednesday’s home loss to Forward Madison, Spokane controlled the ball, camped in the attacking third, and lost anyway, undone by an own goal and a finishing drought that has spread through the entire forward line. One league win from the last five has the results looking grim. The performances underneath say otherwise, and that team is the more dangerous side.

Shavon John-Brown is where their attack starts. The winger’s whole game is movement; he drifts off the flank into the pockets between the lines, and once he finds that space, Spokane has its foothold. Luis Gil, the veteran captain with MLS experience, sets the tempo and takes the set pieces, and his corners keep finding bodies in the box even while nobody converts them. Fullback Derek Waldeck has quietly become the busiest supply line on the roster, overlapping and delivering from wide.

The soft spot is the moment of turnover. When Spokane loses the ball high and its back line has to turn and run, opponents create the best chances this team gives up. That has been true all season, and it has only sharpened lately.

The Matchup

Both of these teams want the ball. On Saturday, we’ll find out who imposes their identity better across 90 minutes. It reminds me a bit of facing Charlotte Independence in our home opener. Both clubs with a strong identity, looking to enforce their style of play on the other. This is a dangerous match against a good team, but the setting and variables lean our way. Fort Wayne is rested, both physically and mentally, having last played a competitive match on June 20th. Spokane, on the other hand, have played two matches within that span, most recently just this last Wednesday, a home loss to Forward Madison. Now they have to travel across the country on travel legs and 2 days’ rest. A holiday crowd, hours after the ribbon-cutting ceremony to formally open Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, is exactly the type of road environment Spokane does not want to be facing with their existing road woes. They haven’t won away from home in league play all year.

Shifting to on-field tactics, when we win the ball back, the first few seconds decide everything. Spokane defend well when they’re set and struggle most when they’re backpedaling, and the best chances anyone generates against this team come on the break, before the shape resets. The moment Taig Healy, our chief creator, turns upfield with runners ahead of him is the moment this match opens up.

Out of possession, the job is compactness. John-Brown hurts teams by finding space, and I’d rather force him deep or wide to touch the ball than let him receive it between our lines. Deny him that receiving space and he starts to look ordinary. But a gameplan built purely to stop John-Brown ignores the plot. Spokane can hurt you from multiple positions if you let them, and keying on one man is how the others get free.

Their control is real, and control doesn’t slump the way finishing does. Let them settle into rhythm and they’ll pin us back the way they pin everyone back. Cold streaks in front of goal tend to end at the worst possible moment. If we play our game, the Fort Wayne Way, I like the balance of power shifted toward the home side. It’s the kind of match that will have real playoff consequences. Not a bad match for fireworks.

Always FWD

Match Recap & Analysis

Fort Wayne FC beat the Richmond Kickers 2-0 in USL League One to extend its unbeaten run to 10 matches, a road win that vindicated the coaching staff’s lineup decisions and opened a real competition up front.

Richmond Kickers 0 – 2 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 City Stadium, Richmond, Va. 📅 June 20, 2026 ⚽ Jack Thomas (17’), Taig Healy (39’) 📋 FWFC Record: 5-2-6 · 21 pts · Matchday 13

The Match

This had the makings of a tired road night. Fort Wayne came to Virginia three days after a draw in Madison, Wisconsin, legs heavy from travel, and gave up the ball for long stretches. Taig Healy and Jack Thomas were the difference makers on the night, while Fort Wayne’s defense continues to pose problems for this league.

In the 17th min., a long ranged shot from Taig Healy found the boot of Jack Thomas, who deflected the shot into the back of the net, his first USL League One goal of the season. The pair traded places before the break. In the 39th min., Thomas turned provider for Healy who put the ball past Richmond’s goalkeeper, his 7th goal in League One and 8th in all competitions. The 2-0 scoreline held the rest of the night.

Richmond, in its first match under interim coach Brian Ownby, controlled the ball and long stretches of the match, but failed to create chances. Fort Wayne’s goalkeeper, Bernd Schipmann, was rarely tested across the ninety. He finished with five saves and a clean sheet, the 32nd of his League One career, which now stands alone in third place in league history.

The Defender’s Verdict

This was the lineup I was hoping to see. Collecting points across a season is how you win trophies. In most leagues around the world, points are the only thing that decides the title, with the trophy going to whoever collects the most. Turning draws into wins, and of course not getting beat, is the fastest path to glory. That’s why coaching staffs study opponents, train their players weekly, and prepare the team to execute on matchday; to win. Yes, of course, it’s about the sport, but it’s a results business, and winning matters.

I was excited when I saw the lineup card on Saturday against the Richmond Kickers. We took a decision to keep Ryan Becher on the bench, and start Lilian Ricol as our lone forward, not because Ryan Becher doesn’t deserve to start, but because that decision improved how this team functions. This was similar to the decision made earlier this season to play JP Jordan at right back instead of Anthony Hernandez. JP Jordan is not a traditional wingback, whereas Anthony Hernandez is. While we gave up an attacking dimension from the right back position, we locked down that side of the defense. JP Jordan settled into his Fort Wayne role, and now his name is written in pen on the lineup card every week.

The answer to “where does Ryan Becher play?” was addressed last Saturday. He’s built to hold up the ball, to play with his back to goal, to connect with Taig Healy, Jack Thomas and the attacking midfielders with a quick 1-2 touch. He won’t beat you off the dribble, or be able to run the channels like Lilian Ricol, but can give you a different look. And like we saw recently with the US Men’s National Team against Australia in the World Cup, Fort Wayne FC could now legitimately play with two forwards for when the matchup demands it. That’s a strike partnership that will take some time to develop, but I absolutely love the options this gives the coaching staff.

Lilian Ricol has had a recent dip in form, which comes with the ebbs and flow of a long professional season. He missed our biggest chance on the night in the 12th min.; earlier in the season, he would have buried it. His position has been uncontested all season. Having healthy competition at all positions is important. And it’s the emergence of a healthy Ryan Becher who can finally create the type of competition at this position that will make this team better for the second half of this season. And as mentioned, it allows us to deploy two forwards, which can be a handful for centerbacks. For this to work, training sessions are important, so each knows their role in a two-forward system. How to open up space for each other, how to drag a CB out of position or occupy one. I would not want to play against a Ricol and Becher card, especially with Taig Healy free to roam. But, Ricol and Becher must learn how to form that partnership and that takes time. In the meantime, Mike Avery and staff can ride the hot hand whenever they go with one forward. And for as many times as I’ve seen Lilian Ricol pulling up with a hamstring cramp in the late stages of the match, it finally gives him a late match sub that keeps the tempo through the final whistle.

There’s definitely more we could break down from this match and with a win under our belt heading into a two-week break, we finally have some time to get healthy, rested and focused for the remainder of the season. The winning energy that Saturday night provided should give us confidence and clarity on what the best version of ourselves looks like from here. With a shutdown defense and an attack on the rise, Fort Wayne will be tough to beat. July is ready for fireworks.

Always FWD

Fort Wayne FC travels to City Stadium to face a Richmond side winless in six across all competitions, and reeling from the sudden exit of the winningest coach in League One history, handed an advantage of rest and home soil against a traveling team.

Saturday, June 20 | 7:00 PM ET | City Stadium, Richmond, VA | ESPN+

The Profile

The Richmond Kickers carry more history than almost anyone at this level. Founded in 1993, now in their 34th consecutive season, they are the rare lower-division club with a U.S. Open Cup to their name, an amateur side that lifted the oldest trophy in American soccer in 1995, beating professional teams along the way. The giant-killing did not stop there. They beat the LA Galaxy in the 2007 Open Cup, and in 2011 they knocked off Columbus Crew and Sporting Kansas City on a Cinderella run all the way to the semifinals. City Stadium has been home since 1995, and Richmond remains one of the best-attended clubs in League One. Respect Richmond.

The club has seen better days. Richmond is in a tough stretch, with a dip in form, and a major change on the coaching staff. Head coach Darren Sawatzky left for Sporting Cascades FC, a USL League One expansion club joining in 2027, after six-plus years in charge, departing as the winningest coach in league history. Assistant Brian Ownby steps up as interim, and Saturday is his first match in charge. Ownby grew up in these stands, a Glen Allen native who played two spells for the club and has been on staff since January. He knows the building and the group, and he knows USL, having played more than 200 matches in it. What he does not have is a head-coaching resume, and he is inheriting a group in a genuine slump.

Richmond has not won since early May. The run now reaches six matches across League One and the USL Cup, and the scorelines have been ugly, including a 5-0 loss at Chattanooga and a 4-0 home defeat to Charleston on national television. The comforting read on a streak like this is that the goals are about to come and the results will follow. Usually, teams in poor form expect a bounce back as their underlying numbers are still solid. That is not the case for Richmond. By expected points, the metric that turns the chances a team creates and concedes into a result, Richmond is getting roughly what it deserves on the pitch, one point from their last four in the league. That is a problem Ownby will have a harder time fixing in a single week in charge.

The trouble is at the back, and it has been for over a month. Goalkeeper Yann Fillion leads all of League One in saves, which is the surest sign of a keeper under near-constant fire. In front of him, captain Dakota Barnathan organizes the defense in his fifth season at the club, an experienced head trying to hold together a group that keeps getting overrun. Going forward, the threat is thin and scattered. Darwin Espinal and Tarik Pannholzer, Richmond’s attacking wingers, have been their most dangerous players. During this slump, three different players have scored, which makes Richmond difficult to plan around. Expect the danger to vary on the night rather than come from any single forward.

The Matchup

Richmond has been giving up good chances in volume for over a month. Move the ball quickly, get at the back line before it sets, and the looks will be there, because every team Richmond has faced lately has found them. A defense that keeps getting overrun against an attack that can punish it is how you beat Richmond. The work lives in the first phase: getting through midfield fast enough to reach a backpedaling back four. Fillion has been racking up saves all season for a reason, and enough of those chances go in.

The calendar is the catch, and it cuts against us. Richmond has been home all week, rested, preparing for a single opponent. Fort Wayne played Wednesday night in Madison, bused home Thursday, and flies to the East Coast to face that rested side on Saturday. The team in better shape to exploit Richmond’s defending might be the one with a full week to plan, not the one stepping off a flight. Legs matter, and a tired side does not always finish the chances it creates.

With Ownby in charge, I’m not sure how Richmond lines up on Saturday, and I’m not sure anyone outside that locker room does either. He has less than a week, no preseason, and for the first time a free hand to pick the team as he sees it. He could run exactly what Sawatzky ran, a 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1, since that is what he and the players know best, or he could change the shape to stamp the job as his own. His own playing days came as an attacking winger, which could be a breadcrumb. We are preparing for a team whose Saturday identity is still half a question mark.

A result at City Stadium would say something about this Fort Wayne side, with tired legs on short rest, away, at the end of a long stretch of matches in their first USL League One season. 90 more minutes, to enter a two-week break on a high note, ready to reset mentally and physically for the back half of Season One. Dig in, boys. Fort Wayne is watching.

Always FWD