Charlotte FC still alive in Leagues Cup
Breaking down the gutty win vs. Cruz Azul, the impact of backup goalkeeper Bingham's first action, CLT's shootout success, plus 50,000 expected for Real Madrid vs. Chelsea
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Charlotte FC needs Philly to win Sunday to advance in Leagues Cup
A record-setting crowd of both Charlotte FC and Cruz Azul fans saw an intense game. (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)
Winning ugly has become a dominant theme for Charlotte FC this season, so why not when it comes to Leagues Cup, too? Facing the possibility of elimination from the month-long tournament between teams of Major League Soccer and the Mexican League, Charlotte FC took a shootout win after a scoreless 90 minutes vs. Mexican powerhouse Cruz Azul.
“Grind it out,” said reserve goalkeeper David Bingham, who saved two penalty kicks to secure the win. “It’s how we play. We always say, ‘We have to be the worst team to play against. We’ve got three dudes in the middle that run nonstop. We don’t stop running the whole game, and we hear teams just getting on each other at the 50, 60 minutes, and we know, ‘We got you now.’ So yeah, it’s not the prettiest, but it’s very effective.”
Charlotte needs Philadelphia to beat Cruz Azul in regulation or via shootout at home Sunday at 8 p.m. if it’s to advance to the Round of 32 for the second straight year. Leagues Cup is in its second year since expanding to feature all 47 teams from MLS and Liga MX. The top three finishers qualify for the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup, between the best teams in North and Central America.
Charlotte FC managed just one shot on target in two Leagues Cup games — a 1-0 loss in Philadelphia on Saturday and in 90 minutes of the 0-0 draw vs. Cruz Azul Wednesday. But for Coach Dean Smith, Wednesday’s game was much different from the Philadelphia loss, after which he called out both teams for poor play.
“I don’t think it was one to watch back; it would have scorched my eyes,” Smith said Monday when asked what he took from watching a replay. “So I didn’t fancy watching that back. And listen, if we would have won the game, I would have said exactly the same thing. It was just a bad game. My brother came to watch his first [Charlotte FC] game, and he actually said to me after that my Walsall team would have beat both teams, and that was a League One team.”
Walsall, one of the teams Smith used to coach, plays in League One, which is the third tier in English professional soccer.
Smith was much happier with how Charlotte played against Cruz Azul, which he considers a very worthy opponent. Cruz Azul out-shot Charlotte 21-7 in the game, possessed the ball 68% of the time and doubled Charlotte in xG, or expected goals, 1.6 to 0.8, but Charlotte held them scoreless to force a shootout.
“That’s probably the best team we’ve played against all season,” Smith said. “Cruz Azul are a very, very good football team. I think their goalkeeper alone cost $5 million.”
Cruz Azul has spent nearly $24 million just this year on incoming transfers, including a reported $10 million for Greek striker Georgios Giakoumakis, formerly of Atlanta United.
Cruz Azul is coached, by the way, by Martín Anselmi, 39, who is a former assistant of Charlotte FC’s first coach Miguel Angel Ramirez at Independiente del Valle in Ecuador. Anslemi told reporters Wednesday night he’d spoken to MAR to get a scouting report on Charlotte’s players as well as the artificial playing surface.
Bingham comes up big
Backup goalkeeper David Bingham said he’d had known “for a while” that he was going to get the nod to start Wednesday’s game, the second in Leagues Cup group play for Charlotte FC.
Smith had apparently earmarked this game as a chance to get minutes to Bingham, who signed as Kristijan Kahlina’s backup this season but had yet to see a minute of action before Wednesday.
“Kahli’s having an excellent season, but if he were to miss a game for a red card or injury, we need to know David’s ready to play,” Smith said afterward. “He showed that today. His use of the ball was really good. He made saves when he needed to and some really good saves in the shootout."
He made a great punching save of Lorenzo Faravelli’s shot in the first half, then saved PK attempts by Carlos Antuna and Luis Romo.
Charlotte FC’s content team had some fun comparing Bingham to U.S. men’s gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, who helped the U.S. win a bronze medal after waiting the entire competition to compete in the pommel horse.
“It’s challenging,” Bingham said of the lack of playing time. “But when you get you get a chance to play, you have to deliver and I did that tonight, and hopefully I can keep doing that going forward.”
Mentality behind PK success — Charlotte is undefeated in shootouts now, winning an exhibition vs. Chelsea in 2022, Leagues Cups matches vs. Dallas and Cruz Azul in 2023, and Wednesday night
Swiderski beats Cruz Azul goalkeeper Kevin Mier. (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)
You might wonder how a team chooses which five players will take penalty kicks in a shootout: Does somebody pull out the statistics sheet and let analytics rule the day? Does the team go with the most offensive-minded players? Does it choose the most experienced?
Brandt Bronico said Smith played it the old-fashioned way Wednesday night: He asked the 11 who came off the field who wanted to take them.
“I guess the five most confident guys that put their hand up,” Bronico said. “And we took care of business.”
Karol Swiderski, who is 5 for 5 in PKs in MLS play but missed the first penalty in a shootout against Cruz Azul last year, made the first. Captain Ashley Westwood made the second. Patrick Agyemang went upper top shelf for the third and Bronico nailed the fourth and decisive goal. Bingham, who had saved Cruz Azul’s second attempt, ended it by smothering the fourth.
For Bronico, it was his first penalty taken in three seasons now with Charlotte FC. He said he took them regularly in his time at UNC Charlotte, so he felt confident walking to the spot. When asked about what was going through his mind, Bronico said, “You should know what you're going to do before you do it. And just score the goal.”
He then gave some great insight into how he might beat out any negative thoughts that might creep in:
If you think about it, and you break it down, you know you’re only 12 yards out from the goal with no defenders in front of you, and you can pick where you want to go. It’s more mental than it is technical. Obviously, you have to place it in the right spot, but if you know where you’re gonna go, usually your chances [are] better than the goalie’s.
Record BOA attendance for Leagues Cup
There was plenty of royal “azul” along with solar blue jerseys at Bank of America Stadium on Wednesday night. (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)
Charlotte FC organizers were right to be excited about drawing a home game against Mexican powerhouse Cruz Azul for Leagues Cup. They knew Cruz Azul would be a big draw and it was. There were royal blue shirts throughout the stadium Wednesday night to help fill the lower bowl to 33,329.
That was the largest crowd in a single Charlotte FC game at Bank of America Stadium in which only the lower bowl was open. A combined attendance of 34,122 was tallied for Charlotte’s 2022 game against Columbus, which had to be completed over two dates because of rain. A game initially scheduled for July 30 was completed Oct. 5. Original tickets were honored for the makeup game, and additional tickets sold were added to the total.
Quotable: Don’t mess with Westwood
Captain Ashley Westwood (center with armband) taking up for Brandt Bronico (rising up, front left.) Photo courtesy of Charlotte FC.
Charlotte FC captain Ashley Westwood took a shove to the back Wednesday night and showed his displeasure when he stood up and grabbed Carlos Rodriguez by the leg. That set the stage for some dramatics to follow.
Bronico took a yellow card for a hard foul and was standing there getting booked when he got shoved to the ground by Cruz Azul center back Willer Ditta. That set off Westwood and multiple Charlotte FC players, including Swiderski, who went nose-to-nose with Ditta as Westwood got his jersey ripped in the scrum. Before the dust had cleared, an assistant coach for each team had been sent off for red cards, including Pa-Modou Kah for Charlotte FC. Afterward, Westwood had this to say about it:
I saw BB getting pushed, so that doesn’t happen with me, and I’ll stick up for my teammates. That’s part and parcel of football. That’s what gets me going, and I think after that, we were the better side.
More than 50,000 expected for Real Madrid vs. Chelsea exhibition
A big summer of international soccer continues for Charlotte FC when 15-time and reigning Champions League winner Real Madrid comes to Bank of America for a “friendly” Tuesday night against English powerhouse Chelsea.
The game is one of three Real Madrid is playing in the U.S. as a part of its Soccer Champions Tour — the preseason tour of marquee European teams looking to market their brand internationally. Manchester City played Celtic in Chapel Hill last week and Manchester United plays Liverpool on Saturday in Columbia.
Tuesday’s game in Charlotte is drawing fans from 45 different countries and 49 states.
“I think Tuesday night here will speak again to the popularity of the game and the interest people have in seeing these international clubs come in,” Charlotte FC president Joe LaBue said.
Real Madrid’s new star addition, Kylian Mbappe — one of the world’s best players — will not be with the club. The Frenchman is one of multiple international standouts given time off after competing in the EUROs in June. Mbappe helped France advance to the semifinals before losing to eventual champion Spain.
This is Charlotte’s first international soccer event since hosting the Copa America semifinal between Columbia and Uruguay on July 10, followed by the third-place game July 13. The semifinal drew 70,644, the most fans at Bank of America for a soccer game since Charlotte FC drew a then-MLS record 72,479 for its inaugural home game in 2022.
The night was marred by a postgame fight, when players from Uruguay went into the stands to defend family members from rowdy fans. Then, four days later, the Copa America final between Colombia and Argentina in Miami made national news when thousands of fans without tickets accessed the stadium, forcing a delay in the game, stadium damage and security risks. Those games exposed major issues with Conmebol, the governing body of South American soccer, which ran the events, and raised questions about how much control U.S. teams should relinquish to outside organizations. LaBue declined to comment on specifics but said:
“Overall the summer of soccer including Copa America — these have been very successful events. The city of Charlotte has proven that it can handle events to this scale. We've learned a lot of lessons to make sure that these events continue to come to Charlotte, and we continue to grow the game of soccer.”
Up Next for Charlotte FC: It depends
If the Philadelphia Union defeats Cruz Azul in Leagues Cup group play on Sunday, then Charlotte FC would advance to the Round of 32 and play on Friday, Aug. 9. Charlotte would play either in Orlando or at home against San Luis or Montreal.
If Cruz Azul wins Sunday, Charlotte FC will be out of action until Aug. 24 at home against the New York Red Bulls when MLS regular season play resumes.
Carroll Walton is a longtime baseball writer with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution now in her third 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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