Shinyashiki shaking up offense for Charlotte FC
Also, Lattanzio on his "Italian" substitutions, recent lineup decisions, and the lowdown on festivities in store for Saturday's "Americana Night" at Bank of America Stadium
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Shinyashiki delivers on deal: 5 goals in 10 games; was ‘stoked’ to be traded to Charlotte
Shinyashiki celebrating during Charlotte FC’s 2-1 win over Houston (Photo courtesy of Charlotte FC.)
While the Polish designated player duo of Karol Swiderski and Kamil Jozwiak get much of the attention — both the double teams and the scrutiny — Andre Shinyashiki keeps scoring goals for Charlotte FC.
The winger with the catchy name has scored four goals in eight games since Charlotte acquired him in a trade from Colorado. He has got five goals in 10 games, including U.S. Open Cup play (he scored one against Richmond.) And he’s fresh off scoring the go-ahead goal last Sunday night in Houston in a 2-1 win. He came off the bench to help Charlotte claim its long-awaited first victory on the road and keep the team within shouting distance of a playoff spot.
Shinyashiki has been scoring since he showed up. He came off the bench in his debut for Charlotte May 7, punching in the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Inter Miami. That was just a week after Shinyashiki played against Charlotte in a game in Colorado. But to hear Shinyashiki tell it, he’d been eager to come here since he heard of sporting director Zoran Krneta’s interest in him as early as the preseason.
“I asked to be traded,” he said this week. “I wanted something different. I feel like I needed a fresh start and to play closer to the goal. Colorado plays a different way than we do here. They play, in my opinion, a very defensive style of soccer. They wanted me to be in a more defensive, supporting role rather than be close to the goal. They don’t really play with wingers. The wingers are actually outside (full) backs playing as wing backs.”
Colorado had Diego Rubio entrenched at center forward, which left Shinyashiki playing more of a midfielder’s role. In Charlotte’s system, by contrast, both under Miguel Angel Ramirez and now his replacement Christian Lattanzio, as a winger — or outside forward — in a three-forward front, Shinyashiki is a featured part of the attack.
“(Here) they see me as a goal scorer,” he said. “They see me as an attacker, and they value me for those things. I think that’s why I’ve been so happy and the team has had some success, and I’ve been able to help the team.”
Shinyashiki says part of his success comes from extra work he did in Colorado, working out on his own outside of practice.
“I prepared myself for this moment,” Shinyashiki said. “So when the opportunity came, I was ready.”
The Rapids weren’t prepared to part with Shinyashiki until they had another striker in place. After they acquired veteran Gyasi Zardes in late April, and with only four days left before the first transfer window closed May 4, Shinyashiki met with Colorado general manager Padraig Smith to encourage him to pull the trigger on a trade. Shinyashiki said shortly after he left that meeting, he got a call from his agent that Charlotte was in on the conversations.
‘100%’ in on Charlotte: Within hours, a deal was done — Shinyashiki to Charlotte for $225,000 in general allocation money (cash to spend on payroll) plus another $175,000 more if certain performance thresholds were met.
“I remember my agent asked me, ‘Are you cool with Charlotte?’” Shinyashiki said. “And I was like, ‘Yes. 100%’.... I was stoked. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Shinyashiki’s four goals in eight games already for Charlotte are as many as he scored in each of his past two full seasons in Colorado. He’s got three more goals this season than Zardes does for Colorado, by the way, and Zardes’ only goal came on a penalty kick.
The former 2019 MLS rookie of the year is playing like he has something to prove. Shinyashiki, a native of Brazil, who played his high school soccer in Florida and college at the University of Denver, said he’s always played with a “chip on his shoulder.”
“I've been pretty underrated my entire life, had a lot of people who didn’t believe in me,” Shinyashiki said. “I saw a clip that somebody reposted, even when I got traded here, about ‘Andre’s numbers are terrible. There’s no way he’s going to come in and change anything. Seems like you guys overpaid.’ Yeah, it’s good to prove people wrong. You have no idea how good it feels.”
Lattanzio getting defensive on substitutions
Lattanzio preparing to sub in defender Jan Sobocinski vs. New York Red Bulls (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)
It took him five games, but Charlotte FC coach Christian Lattanzio is finally getting weary of questions about some of his defensive substitutions late in games.
After the first time he went to a five-back line in his debut as Charlotte FC’s head coach against the New York Red Bulls, he joked in the postgame press conference about being the stereotypical Italian coach, emphasizing defense. (This article does a great job of explaining Italy’s reputation for playing boring, I mean, defensive soccer.)
After a 1-1 tie in Columbus, Lattanzio was hammered on social media for his lack of aggressiveness in his substitutions. Afterward, he was generous in his explanations of why he chose to focus on bringing in fresh legs in the midfield and an extra defender in late.
“My rule is if I can’t win, at least I don’t want to lose,” Lattanzio had said. “… I wanted the team to come away with at least the point.”
But after actually seeing and hearing about some of the flak he took on social media during that game and since, Lattanzio seems to be growing weary of the criticism. He got a little more, well, defensive, when asked about his “Italian-style” substitutions in Houston.
“This is an old stereotype,” Lattanzio said. “OK, whatever … I think my main role as a head coach is to be the trustee of the team. I have to make decisions that benefit the boys, that put them in the best position to win a game. So they can say whatever they want.”
I don’t fault Lattanzio for getting annoyed. Frankly, I thought he went above and beyond when he didn’t get defensive at that line of questioning early on. But what was more interesting in his response Sunday was something that made me want to dig back through the play-by-play from recent games after the team went to more defensive postures.
“I heard about that when we went five (back) against the Red Bulls,” Lattanzio said. “And we scored when we change formation. We created (offensive chances) against Columbus when we switched formations. Whatever you want to say for me, the most important thing with the boys is they show that they can adapt to different formations and they can do it with a lot of grit, with a lot of determination.”
So about that play-by-play, when Lattanzio sent fullback Jan Sobocinski in for winger McKinze Gaines at the 87-minute mark against the Red Bulls, Charlotte FC scored an insurance goal three minutes later after Derrick Jones finished off a Sergio Ruiz assist to go up 2-0. Against Columbus, he took heat for not subbing out the wingers, but pointed out later he didn’t send in an extra defender until near the end of regulation.
Then on Sunday night in Houston, 13 minutes after he subbed in defender Joseph Mora for winger Yordy Reyna — and followed it with more traditional substitutions including Shinyashiki for Swiderski — Charlotte FC scored the go-ahead goal while still in the more defensive formation.
Lineup shakeup in Houston
Just three days after fielding what was arguably Charlotte FC’s strongest lineup of the year, Lattanzio not only sat three of the front six players Sunday night in Houston, he left three notable names off the travel squad: Titi Ortiz, Daniel Rios and Jordy Alcivar.
His explanation afterward?
“I saw a couple of players tired against Austin, and I thought it was only right to bring here players that would have given us the characteristics I felt the team needed,” Lattanzio said.
One of those front six players starting on the bench Sunday might not have liked the decision, but he appreciated Lattanzio’s honesty and directness about it.
“Ultimately it’s the coach's decision,” said Shinyashiki, who scored the game-winning goal as a sub. “The only thing he has in mind is winning the game. He doesn’t think about, ‘Is this guy going to like me?’ ‘Is this guy going to hate me?’ At the end of the day, we have a job to do. We are professionals. And yeah, sometimes it sucks. That’s why you come in (to practice) and you just run and you just work because now everybody’s healthy. So there’s going to be a lot of competition, and you have to be ready because there are going to be good quality players missed in the lineup.”
Reading up on CLTFC
Brian Maurer of TopBin90 did a nice breakdown of how Charlotte FC might get a player on the MLS All-Star team. As a rookie soccer writer myself, I didn’t realize that Major League Soccer didn’t do what Major League Baseball does and that’s include at least one player from every team in the league. It can drive you crazy as a baseball fan when the sole All-Star pick from another team costs your team a logical All-Star, but now covering a league that doesn’t account for that makes me appreciate baseball’s way. I think it’s a good idea to have every city represented, especially when you’re trying to drum up interest and continue to grow the sport.
But if you want to understand how Charlotte FC has its best chance to send somebody to the game vs. Mexican All-Stars, Maurer’s take is that it’ll come down to commissioner Don Garber’s two picks. He makes a good argument. Personally I think Guzman Corujo and Kristijan Kahlina make the strongest cases.
Midseason Report Card: Matthew Doyle of MLSSoccer.com put out his midseason grades this week and he gave Charlotte FC a B+. He gave Charlotte bonus points for all the off-field drama (Miguel Angel Ramirez’s outspokenness and subsequent departure) and the recent aggressiveness of the front office. He also pointed to a lack of productivity from the designated (highest-paid) players Karol Swiderski and Kamil Jozwiak. It’s an interesting read.
Up Next: Charlotte FC (7-10-2) vs. Nashville SC (7-5-6)
When/Where: 7:25 p.m. Saturday, Bank of America Stadium
How to watch: FS1, Fox Deportes, or live stream at www.charlottefootballclub/live or on the Charlotte FC app. Local restrictions apply.
Notable:
Charlotte opened up a few sections in the upper deck for this one, charging as little as $15 a ticket, in response to fans’ pleas to offer more affordable ticket options. That means Charlotte has a shot at its largest attendance since opening the entire upper deck for the record-breaking opener against L.A. Galaxy that drew 74,479.
It’s Americana night, which includes a pregame party on Mint Street, $5 Bojangles gift cards to the first 20,000 fans, a collectible poster of “Sir Minty” the mascot to the first 10,000 fans and a postgame interactive light show.
Charlotte FC brings the momentum of its first away win back to Bank of America, where it is 6-3 this season. (Charlotte lost to Austin 1-0 June 30.)
Nashville, meanwhile, has won its past two road games. Nashville SC has gotten used to playing on the road after spending eight matches away from home while the impressive new soccer-specific GEODIS Park was being completed for its May 1 opener. Nashville went 3-3-2 over those first eight games.
Carroll Walton is a longtime baseball writer with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution now cutting her teeth on soccer and the Charlotte FC just as fans in Charlotte do. She would love to hear from you. E-mail her with questions, suggestions, story ideas and comments!
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