Ok. Time to start gearing up for the start of the season. Nicholas Murray has his Week 1 power rankings out, even though no one’s kicked a ball and we’re all running on conjecture and good feelings at this point. FiveThirtyEight has its preseason rankings and Week 1 predictions. r/USLPRO is so excited they’ve decided to have a trash talk thread every day this week.

Are we ready? Yes and no! I’m ready for soccer. I’m not ready to be inundated with content and opposition video to browse or not browse when I write pregame and postgame stuff. I’m ready and not ready to argue about the latest injustice that has or has not been visited upon nuestros Morados.

I’ve gotten to see these guys in the flesh this preseason and feel pretty good about City’s chances in 2021. That said, it’s going to be a tough sled in the Championship yet again. It always is.

So, in the spirit of my favorite pastime, baseless speculation, here’s what I think about the USL Championship’s Eastern Conference for the upcoming season:

Tier 4

I’m not going to do full on ascending rankings because I’m a coward and like to hedge my bets. That said, I’m fairly confident this group of teams will be bad. That doesn’t mean Louisville City can’t lose to them, but it does mean they don’t need to be holding off on scheduling vacations come October.

  • Atlanta United 2
  • Sporting Kansas City 2
  • Loudoun United
  • Philadelphia Union 2
  • Hartford Athletic

Those are in no particular order, but you’ll notice it’s chock full of MLS 2 teams. Not one team on that list even has actual, tangible aspirations of winning a trophy in 2020. Only Hartford should even think making the playoffs, which features ten freaking teams per conference, is a reasonable goal. And, as they say in golf, if your goal is just to make the cut, you’re in trouble.

To their credit, Hartford is taking, you know, actual soccer a little more seriously this year. They did a big roster overhaul, but didn’t sign anyone that moves the needle. Athletic lost 21 matches last year – they’ll have some work to do to make me think they can even halve that.

Atlantwo lost their two most threatening attackers in Kissiedou and Andrew Carleton, and the injuries to the first team have been piling up already thanks to CONCACAF Champions League, etc., so I don’t see them being any kind of threat.

Sporting KC 2 are simply unrecognizable. They made more than a dozen changes since finishing dead last in the league in 2019 on just 26 points. They did bring back Christian Duke, and have some talent in Dillon Serna, too, but that’s about it.

Loudoun really came on hot at the end of 2019 and wrecked several playoff teams’ positions or even chances altogether. They won their last four games and were only four points out of the playoffs themselves. That said, they’re only bringing back six players on USL contracts from last season, and the rest of their existing roster is college or academy players. At least they’ll be interesting to watch.

RIP Bethlehem Steel. James Chambers retired, Chavany Willis is out of contract. U2 hasn’t even updated their roster page with the league yet, so it’s fair to expect almost an entirely new team for 2020. They’ve also got a new coach. That’s gonna go badly for them!

Tier 3

These are teams that will be fighting for playoff spots toward the end of the season.

  • St. Louis FC
  • Memphis 901
  • Birmingham Legion
  • Charlotte Independence

St. Louis fans probably deserve better than they’ve gotten in the six years they’ve been in the league. Just one playoff appearance in that time, and they missed out by just a point last year. Given that this is probably the last season they’ll exist before #MLS2STL swallows them whole, I sincerely hope they double that number in 2020. They re-signed Sam Fink and bring back Kadeem Dacres, Guy Abend, Wal Fall. They also signed Mour Samb, who lit it up for Ottawa last year, so they should have a decent chance.

Memphis‘s fighting Tim Howards have been taking a more concentrated approach to the soccer side for 2020 since Howard took over as GM. 901 finished on 34 points last season, nine away from the playoffs, and were largely forgettable doing it. They’ve made a lot of roster changes since then, and signed Mark Segbers, so we’ll see if Timmy knows what he’s doing.

Birmingham snuck into the playoffs last season in spite of a -16 goal difference in 2019. It’s hard to imagine pulling that off twice. They signed leading goalscorer JJ Williams outright, plus Neco Brett and Brian Wright to address their inability to score goals. Time will tell whether it works.

Charlotte. Of this group, this is the one I have the least confidence in. Jorge Herrera retired. Alex Martinez was left to drift in the wind. They still haven’t signed enough, officially, to field a full squad. At least they aren’t entering the season with a gaelic football coach in charge. Yeesh.

Tier 2

Teams that will just be jockeying for playoff position, but have work to do to become the class of the league:

  • North Carolina
  • Tampa Bay Rowdies
  • Charleston Battery
  • New York Red Bulls II
  • Miami FC

I had a hard time putting Tampa Bay in this tier, but they underperform expectations so consistently it’s hard not to. I’ll be glad to be wrong because they’re a fun team to play. TBR sank from second to fifth in the closing weeks of last season to lose a home playoff game. They made a LOT of offseason moves, and jettisoned Poku in the process. However, they added some truly scary names in defense that might address the defensive problems they faced going into the end of 2019: Forrest Lasso, Jordan Scarlett, and Evan Louro.

North Carolina was kind of an afterthought for me for much of 2019, but they probably won’t be this year. NCFC finished 7th on 56 points but bring back a strong core from last season. Adding in Manny Perez, Conor Donovan and Hadji Barry will only make them harder to beat.

Charleston upgraded their roster in addition to their stadium and brand this past offseason. This is a team you can almost never count out, even when it seems like Mike Anhaeuser doesn’t have anything to work with. Taylor Mueller and Tah Anunga are gone, but the Battery brought back Logan Gdula and Rennico Clarke, and aren’t to be taken lightly.

New York Red Bulls II are here because they’re always good, no matter who John Wolyniec pulls out of the club’s random player generator.

Miami might be better than this level. They might be worse. I could just be dead on. There’s no way to know! They’ve signed a lot of good talent but I can’t rate them higher right now because there are so many question marks. We’ll see.

Tier 1

Teams that have a reasonable shot at winning it all.

  • Louisville City
  • Indy Eleven
  • Pittsburgh Riverhounds

Indy kept Tyler Pasher, most of their defense, and added Andrew Carleton this offseason. If they can figure out how to score, they’re going to be very good.

Bob Lilley didn’t do as much as folks might have liked this past offseason, but there’s not quite enough offensive firepower anywhere in the East to make me think the Riverhounds won’t be in the hunt in 2020.

Then there’s us. LouCity had a sub-par 2/3 of 2019 and still managed to finish in the top 4 of the league and win the Eastern Conference playoffs. Then they added Cameron Lancaster, Jimmy Ockford, and Corben Bone, and some really good depth in defense in Wes Charpie. They’re opening a new stadium that better suits their style of play. What’s not to like?

Let’s get it. VAMOS MORADOS!