Charlotte FC Hits the Road on a Mission in 2024
The Crown's 3rd preseason journey begins with a racecar driver at the wheel, a squad that will surprise many outsiders, and potential shakeups in the DP ranks
Charlotte FC is heading on the road again. Just as quickly as the boys were reunited in the QC this weekend amidst much hugs and rejoicing, they all got on a plane to travel to Miami, kicking off Phase One of the 2024 Preseason.
It’s cliche for pro athletes to talk about how away day matches are “business trips” with a mission to go and achieve the objective then get home as unscathed as possible to go again. We’ll have plenty of those to look forward to this year, but that’s not what’s happening this week.
This “business trip” is more like a new CEO taking his talented but underachieving squad on a corporate retreat. Everyone knows each other already, except the one guy who just showed up to teach them how to quit crapping down their own legs in big moments so often, and maximize the talent that the Charlotte FC roster clearly possesses.
There will be seminars and breakout groups and against all odds there will be multiple keynote addresses. The purpose of preseason is to impart the vision and implant the mission. And the mission in 2024 isn’t just to make the MLS Cup Playoffs, it’s to win the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Realistic or not, winning it all is now the stated goal of both new manager Dean Smith & continuing Sporting Director Zoran Krneta.
How well those adjectives age for either big boss in this company will take shape based on what happens over the next 6 weeks, starting with 12 days of training on the FIU campus in Miami before a return to Charlotte for a few days on Jan. 26th and some closed-door friendlies. Phase Two of the preseason will see everyone head way out west to play the Coachella tournament in early February.
From a fan perspective, we’re all generally happy with the new gaffer’s bonafides and his big talk, and there’s an air of optimism when you hear the phrase “Dean-O’s at the Wheel” of this drive into the new season. What we’d like to see is a few new teammates jumping in the car, and it does feel incomplete to know that the Club has promised us new signings but they haven’t shown up for the bigtime bonding opportunity that training camp provides.
I love the “at the wheel” analogy for soccer managers generally and for Smith specifically. When I think about the previous two men to wield that wheel for Charlotte FC I think a lot about the modern method of mediocre motorists who put phony Student Driver decals on their cars.
Most of the people you see sporting these stickers on the road these days are not Driver’s Ed enrollees, nor recent graduates. Instead they are people who have licenses but don’t know how to drive well. They use the sticker as a ploy to get some grace from their fellow drivers or ambitious traffic cops in excuse for the fact that they really don’t know what they’re doing at the wheel.
In Ramirez and Lattanzio Charlotte FC had one guy who’d done the big job but not on the big stage, and another who’d spent a lotta time on the stage without ever doing the job. They nominally “knew how to drive” but ultimately relied too much on the crutches of their inexperience. MAR lambasted the quality of the squad publicly, while Lattanzio said the right things to the microphones but was known within the walls to be vocal about his dissatisfaction with the talents at his disposal.
These misinformed complaints about quality reveal more about the men who made them then about the players they were directed toward…they’re the fraudulent Student Driver stickers that Miguel and Christian plastered onto the car to distract from the fact they had no idea how to handle being at the wheel.
Dean Smith, by contrast, is a racecar driver. He’s a man who knows how to win The World’s Richest Match, he’s faced pressure his predecessors couldn’t even fathom, and he’s come out a champion on the other side. Notably he’s not one to complain about the vehicle he’s handed, either…one of Dean-O’s defining descriptors is his ability to adapt his style to the players and not try to force the players to fit his style. It’s a welcome change here in Charlotte and part of what makes this month’s “corporate retreat” so vital for determining exactly what that style will look like this time around.
Which brings us back to those players…and the desire to get a few new ones. Charlotte FC has been quiet by its own standard so far in this January transfer window. By this time last year, ahead of the club’s sophomore season, we’d already brought in a new DP striker and a new midfielder to wear the captain’s armband. So far in 2024 it’s all departures, and that’s become conspicuous to many fans who’ve grown increasingly vocal on social channels with their lurking sense of unease.
But here’s where I’ll throw one last transit-based analogy at you. I’ve heard the outcries from the fanbase to get some guys in asap, and I understand them. But I can’t help but feel a little like the parent who’s driving the family home as they clamor to hit a drive-thru for some takeout.
“Daaaaaad, can we get some fooooooood????”
“We have food at home!!”
Look I’m not going to deny that we aren’t at full-strength yet. New signings are coming, I have gained confidence from people I talk to inside the war room at CLTFC. With that in mind, I’m here to preach patience, and remember the talent that’s already here in house.
We’ve seen what Karol, Enzo, Kerwin, Ashley, Scott, and even Brecht can do, among others. The issue all along in my mind has been coaching that makes it all click. Now we have someone who can genuinely lay claim to owning the best resume in all of MLS calling the shots and directing the flow of these players’ efforts. I’m genuinely so excited about the dinner he has planned to cook for us, so I’m not too bothered (yet) about the failure to stop off in a rush to pick up a bag of fast food.
Bear in mind also that there are some guys here you could arguably consider “new signings” for Dean-O’s purposes. Corujo certainly, and Tuiloma possibly. You can expect Nicola Petkovic to push for a place in the Senior Team this year and he may not be the only one from Crown Legacy to make the jump early in 2024. If you’re feeling generous there’s even a case for Cambridge or Dejeagere or even Ben Bender as guys who could be considered “new” to the side based on how little they actually got to take the pitch last year.
In addition we have a great opportunity in this preseason that wasn’t open to us last year: When we go out to that Coachella tournament I mentioned earlier, we’ll actually be playing in the tournament. Last year we only played friendlies in Coachella and left that site before the real action there began. It left us with nothing to do in Charlotte for two weeks before the ‘23 season kicked off…the Club scrambled to schedule a pair of USL friendlies that were fun to attend, but didn’t necessarily best prepare us to hit the ground running. This year’s preseason prep will have a lot more action that feels like real games, and will take us all the way up to a few days before those real games begin in earnest.
With all that said I do expect more quality to come in before the MLS season officially kicks off, but it won’t happen until we do a bit more subtraction first. I have zero doubts that Zoran and his team have identified some targets and not just role players. Karol and Kamil have rumors abounding about their departures, and Enzo can’t stop talking about his childhood dream of playing for River Plate back in Argentina, so you have to figure a new DP or even two are potentially in play.
I’ll call my shot today here as I sit at home and write this with the team roughly 30,000 feet up in the air and en route to the Sunshine State- before the 2024 MLS regular season begins, Kamil Jozwiak will be transferred out of Charlotte FC and we’ll have him replaced with a new designated player. I expect Enzo Copetti to start the season with us, and I think with Karol Swiderski it’s 50/50…it will simply be a matter of whether or not a European club grows desperate enough for a late-January replacement to meet Charlotte’s price, which is presumed to be around $10 Million. If you ask me it doesn’t happen, but I can’t rule it out.
So you can call me a gullible dupe for finding myself in the same position this year as I was in January 2023, but I don’t care. I’m deliriously excited about what Charlotte FC is going to do this season. I think we have the best manager in MLS, a front office that has learned from its mistakes and continues to add bigtime talent to its ranks, and a lot more quality in the squad than has been allowed to flourish under the previous regimes. Dean-O’s at the wheel, I’m calling shotgun, and it’s time to start zooming into 2024. Buckle up.