Dan Watches NISA: Week Two

Each week, I’ll be writing a recap of the NISA matches, give my thoughts on the matches and give a short power ranking of the clubs at the end. All matches were watched on Mycujoo, because I don’t live within 500 miles of any NISA clubs. Matches will be in random order.

Week 2 in the books. Two draws and a win, there’s going to be weeks like this in any league. Certainly hard to match the intensity and excitement of week 1, especially with Chattanooga and DCFC on bye weeks. But we’ll soldier on! Time to look at the matches of week 2.

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LA Force 1 - Stumptown 1

• A note on officials - Has anyone noticed how many women officials there have been in these matches? Three matches tonight and two of them had head officials that were women and (at least) one had a woman as a side judge. I haven’t heard any specific talk about this from the league and maybe it’s just a coincidence, but this is a great move on the part of the league. Honestly, they should be trumpeting it. And, as my podcast cohost John would say “if you aren’t noticing the officials, they’re doing a good job.” So far so good!

• It’s clear to me that Stumptown is taking the “fire at will” approach early in matches. Long shots, yards outside of the box, are flying in both their matches so far this season. Funny enough their goal this match was more build up play, but they are definitely trying to test the keeper early and often AND from distance.

• Pitch notes - this match had the best looking rug of the evening. Oakland has that patchwork abomination they bought and 1904 FC is playing on a football field. Yikes.

1904 FC 0 - Cal United Strikers FC 0

• There are different kinds of draws. There are the kind where both teams score goals and end up even at the end of the match. There are the kind where the keepers stone their opponents and it ends in a stalemate. Then there are the kind where the viewers are bored out of their minds the entire match…

• Cal United looked flat this match, especially compared to Week 1. Not sure if the hour commute really wore them out, but they looked disinterested and slow, almost as bored as I was watching the match. I kept waiting to see the slick passes and smooth interchange between players of Week 1 and the club looked zombie-like instead. Just not there in the way I expected. They could have won this match and left one on the table. Hope it doesn’t bite them in the ass at the end of the season.

• Oh, but 1904 woke up in extra time. Suddenly all the pressure in the world was coming from San Diego. I guess they were well rested from being so slow and disengaged all match? They looked dangerous and aggressive in the few minutes of extra time, in a way they hadn’t looked the entire match. More of that please, 1904!

Oakland Roots 2 - Michigan Stars 1

• I’ve said it multiple times already, but Stars deserve more points than the goose egg they are sitting on right now. They’ve played long stretches of punishing, patient defense, and each match they’ve conceded and lost the match. You work that hard, you deserve more credit and certainly a point or two.

• Jack McInerney continues to be the most dangerous man in NISA. 8 goals in 8 matches. He could have gotten two more than his lone goal in this match. He had one called back for offsides (debatable) and a second went off the crossbar. I’ll predict it now, barring some crazy matches from another player, JackMac will end the season as the golden boot winner.

• First win for Oakland. Big deal. Glad they didn’t blow it in the final minutes.

• Michigan Stars looked downright threatening in the second half. Scoring chances, good passing, and all without their defense falling apart. I think it might be time to rethink their bunkering strategy and look for something more balanced. They have the attacking talent on the roster, let those horses run.

That’s it for this week. Check out our Protagonist Podcast feed on almost every major podcast outlet, brand new episode of Knights Who Say NISA out Monday night. Every match recapped and broken down by Dan Vaughn and John Howard-Fusco.

- Dan Vaughn

Dan Watches NISA: Week One

Each week, I’ll be writing a recap of the NISA matches, give my thoughts on the matches and give a short power ranking of the clubs at the end. All matches were watched on Mycujoo, because I don’t live within 500 miles of any NISA clubs. Matches will be in random order.

What a week 1! Great rollout for the league with solid attendance in two of four matches and close to 15,000 views of the matches through their online platform partner, Mycujoo. For the most part the broadcasts looked and sounded professional, offering a great connecting point for potential fans of the league. The matches were exciting and delivered goals, cards, and some late minute heroics. I, for one, enjoyed every second of this week’s matches, so let’s get into them.

Oakland 1 - Chattanooga 1

• Several production points and a general point about the pitch. First, Roots (as I guess I should have expected) had the best production of the week. The broadcast also featured the only REAL advertising I spotted this weekend. Even the opening lineups were sponsored. In the end, to survive you have to make money, Roots appear to be in the groove on that part. Laney looked good in the broadcast, with a large crowd, over 5k. But the FIELD. Ugliest field in the history of soccer. Just looked like trash. Gotta find a way to get onto a better rug.

• The match itself was a banger. Hella enjoyable. Both sides looked aggressive and hungry, so early in the season, with all the issues Chatta faced in the preseason, that’s exceptional.

• The goal for Chatta, how was McGrath THAT open? Defenders fell asleep on that one.

• The red card to Hines was the softest red I’ve seen. Yes, he tried to pull the ball from McGrath, but that happens 10 times a match. Defender was stalling to let his defense get into shape and the attacking player was trying to get the ball rolling. And that’s when the ref reaches into his back pocket, so the resulting bump between the players wan’t the trigger, it was the original struggle for the ball. I don’t get it. Shaped the entire rest of the match. Sucks.

• Jack McInerney is a bad man. Dangerous the entire match, multiple scoring chances. He will be a handful all season and I bet his kit will be a hot item for Oakland. The equalizer was a thing of beauty and was the best moment of Week one. If you haven’t seen it, skip to 5:40 and you’re welcome.

Stumptown Athletic 2 - San Diego 1904 2

• Didn’t expect this match to be as good as it was, but Stumptown looked better than I expected, especially considering their disappointing Fall campaign.

• On the production side, went with a solo announcer and dude seemed a little lonely. He was fine, but could have used someone to bounce conversation off. The camera angle was poorly chosen, with an empty field beyond the sideline, fans are part of the match, SHOW them - though it sounded pretty poorly attended on the feed.

• Stumptown kits look good. I like that pattern/gradient combo look. Solid. And SD1904 has maybe the blandest uniforms in NISA. White. Neat. Ok.

• Tate Robertson’s goal, what a banger. That was easily 30 yards out. Crushed it. 

• That first goal for San Diego was ugly. Just a ball in the scrum happening to fall into the net.

LA Force 0 - Detroit City FC 2

• Definitely the match everyone wanted to see on Mycujoo, drawing close to 6,000 views. Easily dwarfing the number of people there to see the match. LA needs to get things together and connect with their market. They are SLOW on social media and the shots posted on twitter of their stands showed a basically empty stadium. Some claimed it was close to a thousand and to those people I say, you’re nuts. I’d guess 400 max. And that included the guys from Michigan Stars who played the next day. If you can’t draw a crowd to see Detroit City come to town, I don’t understand.

• This match was a tale of two halves, with Detroit dominating possession in the first half and LA becoming the aggressor in the second half. The difference, DCFC converted their chances. The first goal resulted from a set piece, when a deflected ball was passed to Matt Lewis, who buried the shot.

• Both clubs pressed this entire match. It was FUN to watch.

• Roddy Green’s goal, which made little difference in the result, was beautiful. The result of Detroit’s press, he could have passed once in the box, but finished confidently. Dude signed his pro contract 5 days earlier. Ice cold.

• One player that caught my eye for Detroit was Tendai Jirira who is listed as a defender on the roster. He is silky smooth on the ball. He has a touch that won’t quit. I was very impressed with his play the entire match.

• Detroit is going to be very good this season.

California United 1 - 0 Michigan Stars

• So the announcer has European charm and gravitas, that’s fine. But did he have to constantly refer to the Michigan Stars as “the red men” the ENTIRE match. The red men sounds vaguely racist, though that wasn’t his intent. If anything, it just sounded dumb. What also sounds dumb is the other announcer calling NISA “N-I-S-A” the entire match. Everyone calls it NISA (nee-suh), get with it, dude.

• Crowd at the match looked legit, filled most of the stands, but would have loved to see a little more “soccer” things - flags, smoke, drums. Maybe there are bans at the stadium?

• Michigan Stars play HARD ASS defense. Aggressive tackles, studs up, teeth clattering challenges, two early yellow cards didn’t stop them from beating up Cal United the rest of the match. The stacked their lines most of the match, bunker style, 9 players against their own box, with a single roving attacking player trying to pick off a pass. I suspect they will end the season with the most cards AND give up the fewest goals.

• The goal for Cal United was interesting because the shot from Michael Bryant was from so far out. Far enough out that, if he was off target he would have been WAAAAYYYY off target. Instead he smashed it and the keeper couldn’t cleanly handle it, spilling the ball into the path of Kevin Jeon, who finished it off.

• Two Cal United players caught my eye. First, Gustavo Viallobos’ footwork and ball handling were a thing of beauty the entire match. The other was 15 year old Shane Kaemerie, who came on as a sub. He’s a product of Cal United’s academy and an exciting prospect for the club. You love to see the next generation.

Dan’s NISA Week 1 Power Rankings

1. Detroit City FC

2. Cal United

3. Stumptown Athletic

4. Chattanooga FC

5. SD 1904

6. Oakland Roots

7. Michigan Stars

8. LA Force

Editor’s Note: There was a point about who owns the rights to DCFC’s Matt Lewis. This was deleted when a twitter user corrected us.

A SoCal Friendly: NISA vs. NPSL

Southern California side Temecula FC of the NPSL, considered to be in what most agree is the 4th tier of US Soccer, are taking on brand new SoCal club 1904 FC from NISA - a league who, just this year, was granted 3rd division status by US Soccer. In other parts of the world, a non-competitive match on the fixture list might go unnoticed, but it's mostly out of place in the modern day US Soccer scene. Under normal circumstances, these two clubs would only face each other in a potential US Open Cup regional match-up. The Quails and 1904 FC kick off at Chaparral High School in Temecula, California at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 26th. Our curiosity was piqued, so we reached out to the owner and co-founder Brandon Jantz to find out more about the culture of the club, how this match fit into that, and just what it means to them.

After returning to the United States from playing and coaching in England, Brandon was more than uninspired by the state of soccer here, "I was falling out of love with soccer. Being back here in Temecula and seeing how making money off the kids was really what all the clubs were about. Even the recreational programs were the same way, worried about losing customers." The way youth soccer is run in this country is a huge sore point for many; a lot of fingers point to the pay-to-play system as out of touch with the socio-economic needs of most of the kids and families who love the sport. So, not only was Brandon dealing with the disappointing state of the sport in this country, but he and his wife were dealing with the painful loss of her younger brother as well.

“My brother-in-law was such a great kid and was all about helping people and making this world a better, safer place.” So Brandon, with the support of his wife, decided to start the club - he reached out to ex-teammate and good friend, Vince Paccione, to found Temecula FC. Motivated by his brother-in-law's joy for life and armed with the mission to "Grow a football culture in our community and provide professional coaching and opportunities for the lowest price possible," Brandon convinced Vince to split the cost of joining NPSL, which was relatively costly even back in 2013-14. "A football club can be a great place for people to make friends and support their community," said Brandon - so he and Vince decided to use the passion of soccer and community to combat the toxicity of the youth sports hustle.

Six seasons later and Temecula FC are still going strong, having finished their 2019 season in early summer, they seemed all but done playing for the calendar year. The Quails aren't part of NPSL's inaugural Members Cup and they’re not participating in the US Open Cup qualifying rounds. Also, considering a good majority of clubs at this level pull their squads together from college student-athletes, how were they fielding an 18? "We have never been a club that relies on college players. We have a few from time to time but we have a much more European approach and look to use our top youth players ages 15 and up to try and fill out our team, " said Brandon. It turns out, this squad of local talent are in the middle of their Riverside Cup - where they're topping the table over heated rival Riverside Coras. According to Brandon "The Cup means everything to the club and supporters. You just have to go on twitter to see how much the rivalry between Riverside and Temecula is! Hate is a very strong word so id say very strong dislike of Coras, but we both respect each other on and off the pitch and want to see the game grow in our respective communities."

So Brandon and Head Coach Austin Levins have already got this club's squad in shape for a match - practically mid-season form and with players drawn from their youth ranks who are already used to playing all year round - especially in that fairly comfortable year-round Southern California climate. Of course there's a friendly scheduled, but how did it come about? "Well we have a former player from last season Brent Reis who plays for 1904 FC now and I know Khoki from a few years ago who is the GM and I reached out through Brent to see if they could give us a match so we could try and raise some money to help support our club and funding our program," he said "1904 FC has been great in helping set up the match and we can’t thank them enough for the opportunity to showcase our players."

Brandon does admit that this is a bit out of the norm, "for our community I think it is historical really. No one of 1904 FC’s level has come to play in Temecula and it’s a great opportunity for the youth in our community to see this level of play in their own city." Through hosting the friendly, the club adheres to its principals to use soccer to build relationships and inspire the youth to pursue greatness. "The importance in youth development to watch professional level matches in priceless and it’s great that our youth club are connected with the first team and can be involved on match day with the players and get a real feel of what it is like being in a club in Europe where you have a direct path to the top."

To learn more about Temecula FC

To learn more about San Diego 1904 FC