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