South Georgia Tormenta is looking to rebound after a disappointing 2023 campaign that saw them miss the playoffs one year after claiming the USL League One championship in 2022.
Defender Jake Dengler is the lone member of that title-winning team still playing for Tormenta as the roster has undergone a big turnover. Only six players from the 2023 team will return for 2024, which Manager Ian Cameron said creates opportunities for the construction of the team.
“It can be quite fun in the sense that there are different directions you can take the team,” he said. “You have the flexibility in the degrees of freedom to put new dynamics into the group.”
While a majority of the 2023 squad have departed, Tormenta does have a small core of returning players and have made some signings to start to fill out the roster as preseason training approaches.
Midfielder Jackson Khoury, the league’s 2023 Young Player of the Year, returns for a second season with Tormenta and will be joined in the midfield by Pedro Fonseca. Defenders Dengler, Preston Kilwien,Nick Akoto and Collin Mocyunus round out the returners from the 2023 South Georgia team
Two players Tormenta is sure to miss offensively are Mukwelle Akale and Kazaiah Sterling. The duo combined for 24 goals in 2023 and both played key roles in leading Tormenta to their 2022 title.
“There’s no question there are certain players that you lose that you’d rather keep,” Cameron said. “Mukwelle Akale is a talent that you can’t just go and get another Mukwelle or you can’t go get another Kaz with his finishing abilities so you have to build a team with a new identity. And that’s ok, that’s what we get paid to do as coaches is to go and revitalize groups and that’s what our club is set up to do.”
Longtime goalkeeper Pablo Jara, who played more than 100 games in goal for Tormenta and was their longest tenured player dating back to 2018, has also departed, signing a contract in the offseason with Richmond of USL1.
Akale has signed with New Mexico United and defender Daltyn Knutson signed with Miami FC of the USL Championship. Sterling has been rumored to be working out for teams in his native England.
New additions to the team in 2024 so far include USL League One players Daniel Steedman, a midfielder from North Carolina FC and defender Aaron Lombardi from Chattanooga.
Tormenta also added forward Niall Watson from Southport FC in England as well as midfielders Tavio D’Almeida and Mason Tunbridge while signing goalkeeper Ford Parker from New Mexico United.
Cameron said as of now the roster is about 75 percent complete but they will certainly continue to look for ways to improve their roster before the season kicks off on March 9.
When looking to sign players, Cameron said he looks for players that fit the style of play that the coaching staff wants to see but also drawing upon their experiences in the league that has made them successful or fix the flaws that may have caused Tormenta to fall short of the goals they set for themselves.
One phase of the game Cameron mentioned multiple times as needing to be improved from 2023 is set pieces, both from an offensive and defensive standpoint.
“We felt we left ourselves a bit short in the set piece department in terms of personnel we had,” he said. “That’s both stature and physicality that we needed to defend corners and free kicks. And then on the offensive end we didn’t have enough good set piece takers other than shooting free kicks, which Mukwelle was great at.”
Cameron said the staff was able to look back at that experience and learn from it and try to address it in the offseason as the team prepares for 2024.
Additional signings are expected as the season draws near and players report on February 1 to begin preseason training.
New in-season tournament
USL League One is introducing a new in-season tournament to their schedule for the 2024 campaign. This new, yet-to-be named Cup, will see the league broken in to three divisions of four teams each where they’ll play a home and away match against each and then two more matches against teams from the other divisions with those games interspersed throughout the regular season games.
The top team in each division will advance to a playoff with the fourth team being decided by the team that scores the most goals in the cup matches. Tormenta is in a division with Greenville, Charlotte and Richmond.
With another possible championship on the line to go along with the Players’ Shield as the team with the most regular season points and the league championship going to the winner of the playoffs, there has been some discussion that some teams may prioritize one title over another. Cameron said that will not be the case for Tormenta.
“When you have professional players, professional coaches and a professional organization and you’re given one game a week to go and win, you better be sure our full focus each week will be going and winning that game,” he said. “So there will be none of this going for this trophy or not going for that trophy. We have three cups to go and try to win.”
Unlike regular season games which can end in a draw, the Cup games will immediately go to a penalty kick shootout to determine the winner. Cup games will also not count in the regular season standings.
Cameron said he likes the idea of USL League One trying something different with the cup games and isn’t opposed to seeing them end in a penalty kick shootout, but he didn’t want to see that kind of change applied to regular season games.
One factor behind the Cup games being played outside of the regular season records is to create a balanced schedule where each team will play every other team once at home and once away. In 2023, for example, Tormenta played regular season champions Omaha twice on the road and only once at home. The new schedule seeks to address that imbalance for the regular season while keeping the same number of games throughout the year.
Expanded playoffs
In 2023 Tormenta finished one point out of the playoff picture, finishing in 7th place just behind Forward Madison for the league’s final postseason spot. In that format, the top two teams in the league earned a bye into the semifinals.
This year the league is expanding to eight playoff spots for the 12 team league. It will be a straight-forward bracket with the teams seeded 1-8 based on the regular season standings and then a single-elimination tournament with no byes.
Cameron said the expanded playoffs don’t change anything now for the team as they prepare for 2024.
“In the here and now, our focus is not to be in the seventh or eighth spot. Our focus is to go and try to win the regular season championship,” he said. “The highest we’ve finished (in the regular season) is third in 2022, close to the top but not quite. Our motivation now is to have the highest regular season we can and be first or second, which the club’s not done yet, and then obviously go to the playoffs and roll the dice and try to win a championship.”
Preseason games will begin on February 9 with the regular season starting a month later when Tormenta opens at home against Central Valley and their new head coach, former United States Men’s National Team player Jermaine Jones on March 9.
