Charlotte FC coach shaking up strategy

Dean Smith experiments with more offensive-oriented formation as team returns home on club-worst losing streak; who's hot and who's not as Charlotte hosts Chicago to break up long road swing

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Coach Dean Smith takes a defensive gamble to get Wilfried Zaha and Charlotte FC’s offense rolling, as defensive woes continue

Dean Smith chatting with star player Wilfried Zaha before the 2-1 loss in Nashville last Saturday. (Photo courtesy of Charlotte FC.)

After a year and a third of playing Charlotte FC in a rigid, defensive-minded structure, you get the feeling that Dean Smith just shook the Etch A Sketch.

On Wednesday night in Orlando, with his team on a freefall in the Eastern Conference standings and searching for answers, the “gaffer” changed the formation — or the way his 11 players line up on the field.

Rather than playing with four across the defensive line in a traditional 4-3-3 set [four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards] he switched to a 3-4-3 with three defenders, four midfielders and three forwards.

You don’t have to be a soccer guru to raise some eyebrows at the change for a team mired in a defensive slump. Charlotte has given up a whopping 10 goals during a four-game MLS losing streak — after allowing seven in the first eight games and more than one in a game once. This is when Smith chooses to move a player higher up on the field? Of all the times to take a bigger defensive gamble, why now?

Smith’s short answer after Wednesday’s 3-1 loss was that Orlando had seen a lot from Charlotte last year, and he wanted to give them a new look. The two teams played five times in 2024, including three times in a first-round playoff series which Charlotte lost.

Here’s the longer, two-part answer:

1. Nathan Byrne, the rock-solid veteran right back, is out for several months following neck surgery. Charlotte’s fullback options without him include the more offensive-minded Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty, an injured Souleyman Doumbia (hamstring) and an inexperienced Nick Scardina, up from Crown Legacy. With this formation, Smith puts the onus on three center backs he feels are his most capable defenders in Adilson Malanda, Tim Ream and Andrew Privett. (He’d been having to choose between Ream and Privett in recent games.)

2. This is a chance to “unlock” Wilfried Zaha.

By letting the extra defender, in this case Marshall-Rutty, man the left sideline, Zaha can play more centrally. The result Wednesday in Orlando was Zaha scoring from the top of the box, on a short pass from Ashley Westwood, for his first goal in open play since March 1. He’d scored twice since then, both via penalty kick.

From the looks of it, this could be Charlotte FC’s Zaha moment. On what was mostly a somber night, after the team allowed some uncharacteristic goals, Zaha joined the postgame press conference like a breath of fresh air. He was calling the losing streak a “rough patch,” saying the defense needed to “plug some holes,” but mostly drew excitement from the new offensive look.

“It gives me more freedom to roam a bit and get into pockets and be in higher up dangerous areas,” Zaha said. “Because usually I feel like I can be marked out of games. At Inter Miami away, I was having to dribble against three, four players. They all stood in a row over there.”

Charlotte FC’s most dynamic scorer, a designated player who once starred for Crystal Palace in the English Premier league, had spent much of the first three months triple teamed and scored just one goal in open play in his first of 10 games with the team.

The talk about him acclimating to a new league and new city, or wondering about his fitness levels, is wearing thin. The Englishman is a regular at Chick-fil-A, he’s got a closet full of his clothes now, his family is settling in and he was still not scoring.

In this formation, Zaha gets the ball with more options. And it gives attacking midfielder Pep Biel, who’s been Charlotte’s best playmaker this season (six assists and three goals), better access to the ball, too.

“I wanted to get Pep and Wilf on the ball in the pockets,” Smith said. “And that worked really well.”

The three forward players in the formation are striker Patrick Agyemang, with Zaha and Biel flanked a little behind and wide of him. The sidelines are covered by Marshall-Rutty and Liel Abada, who serve as wingbacks. Marshall-Rutty and Abada can also drop back into the backline to help on defense.

Smith said Orlando’s second goal Wednesday was a result of the wingbacks not dropping into the back five, something they’re still adjusting to doing.

“We’ve only had a couple of days to work on that, so it has been tough,” Smith said. “But I’m really pleased with how the lads took to it and some of the lessons we’ll learn from it as well. It gave us a lot more options on the ball offensively.”

Smith said he was glad to see some offensive results come of it Wednesday or he might have been tempted to change out of it hastily. As it is, expect to see the formation again.

“I think it will be on the menu for different games when I feel we need it,” Smith said.

Graphic of Charlotte FC’s 3-4-3 lineup. (Ledger photo illustration via ChatGPT)

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Quotable: Zaha — ‘I’ll be the villain’

Zaha was a bright spot in Wednesday’s postgame, for his candor and his way with words, in what was his first appearance with local media since March. When asked about the “edge” he plays with, Zaha, who is known for chirping at the officials and going nose-to-nose with opponents at times, too, said this:

With the amount of grief we get given on a pitch, teams need to get it back. I say to the lads, “We’re way too sweet!” These other teams we play against, they don’t mind knocking into us. They don’t mind giving a bit. So I’ll be the villain. … I don’t mind being the person that’s going to rile up the other team.

Sometimes, just sometimes, we’ll admit words on a screen don’t pack the punch video does. No better example than here, showing the mad skills of Daniel Bramlette, podcaster for Charlotte Soccer Show, Charlotte FC fan, and ESPN producer by day. Here’s his interpretation of Zaha’s villain quote:

Spoiler alert: Want to test your villain recognition skills? If only we could type upside down. (Joker, Hans Gruber, Thanos, Agent Smith, Hannibal Lechter, Gollum, Anton Chigurgh, Darth Vader, Biff Tannen, Walter White, Alonzo Harris and Littlefinger.)

Quotable Part II: Smith defending Ream

Veteran defender Tim Ream, 37, has come under fire from some in the Charlotte FC fanbase for his part in some porous defense during this losing streak. Addressing that criticism, coach Dean Smith said:

If people are looking to try and make Tim a scapegoat at the moment, I think they're way off target.

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Agyemang sits at the start of Orlando match

It wasn’t just having three games this week — and nine this month — that had Smith starting Idan Toklomati at striker Wednesday in Orlando. He feels like Patrick Agyemang, who has scored two goals in 12 games, might be pressing.

“I just felt Patty’s probably got the world on his shoulders at the moment, thinking about scoring goals, and maybe it’s affected his performance a little bit,” said Smith, who’s seen Agyemang miss big chances against Columbus and Nashville. “I just felt it was the right time to give Idan a run, knowing hopefully it took a little pressure off Pat. And then he can come on and did what he does.”

Toklomati had a good first half but Smith subbed him out at halftime because of a tight hamstring. He’s questionable to be able to return Saturday against Chicago.

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Abada heating up

Abada on the run vs. Columbus Crew. (Photo courtesy of Charlotte FC.)

Liel Abada scored goals in three straight games, against Columbus, North Carolina FC (in U.S. Open Cup play) and Nashville, bringing him to four on the season and into a tie with Zaha for the team lead.

The Israeli national has benefited from a full season in Charlotte. He didn’t arrive last season until after the MLS schedule had started, as he sought a fresh start from Celtic in Scotland and political tension in its fanbase after war broke out in Israel. He’s had more time to acclimate to Charlotte, with his now-wife, Bar. He said the two of them, who live uptown, enjoy the restaurants and how sport-centric Charlotte is. He’s also spent time recently meeting with children at Charlotte’s Jewish Community Center.

“When you come into a different country, it’s different football, different everything. Sometimes it’s tough,” he said. “But right now, I’m really happy to be here. I feel more comfortable here with the staff, with the players, with all the people in this club. And this is, for me, the most important.”

Smith says Abada is at his best for Charlotte FC when he takes that comfort level onto the field as well.

“When he’s doing well, he doesn’t think too much about the game,” Smith said. “He just plays. When he gets space in front of him, go and run with the ball, make sure you see a pass, get it, give it and go. When he does that, he looks really, really dangerous.”

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Up Next: Charlotte FC (6-6-1) vs Chicago Fire (4-4-4)

When/Where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte

How to watch: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. Find information about how to subscribe for the season here.

How to listen: WFNZ 92.7 in English, WOLS 106.1 in Spanish.

Notable:

• Charlotte FC has plummeted from 1st to 7th place in the Eastern Conference during this four-game losing streak in MLS play. It matches the team’s longest league losing streak in club history: Charlotte lost the final game of 2022 and first three in 2023 under former coach Christian Lattanzio.

• Charlotte FC is 5-1-0 at Bank of America Stadium compared with 1-5-1 on the road. The four-game losing streak started with a 1-0 loss against New England at home.

• The Chicago Fire rebounded from a 7-2 drubbing by Nashville to draw Orlando 0-0 and defeat Atlanta 2-1. Hugo Cuypers is tied for third in MLS with eight goals.

• Chicago goalkeeper Chris Brady served a one-game red card suspension against Atlanta, but he’s eligible for Saturday.

• The first 10,000 fans receive a Charlotte FC party shirt.

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Carroll Walton is a longtime baseball writer with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution now in her fourth season covering Charlotte FC. She would love to hear from you. E-mail her with questions, suggestions, story ideas and comments!

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