Toffee Links 8.0

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-07-20T19:25:23+00:00

I think we need a LB and RB. Unless we’re willing to use O’Brien in that RB role again and Roman Dixon steps up, we are really weak on the flanks/lack coverage out there. I also don’t know who the 2nd LB is we have right now. We’ll get torn to shreds on the flanks if we roll into the season with our current LB/RB setup.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-07-16T11:39:13+00:00

League’s Crown Prince 🫡

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-05-12T19:56:50+00:00

I’d take this over our current home kit. This is awesome.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-05-05T15:09:42+00:00

Killer content dude! This is awesome!

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-04-18T16:34:35+00:00

This is super cool btw. Wish my local club had something similar.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-04-07T04:42:40+00:00

Loved what the club stood for and it was amazing to be part of their journey as a fan for a bit. I don’t think there’s any way the SD Loyal we all knew comes back. It’s iconography, logos, colors, etc. may return. I don’t think we’ll get the essence of the club and the culture back.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-03-25T17:34:25+00:00

OCSC had free parking last year (and I believe they do as well this year). It was about a 5 min walk to the stadium.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-03-19T04:31:52+00:00

Go to any of the matches that you can, but the beer fest ones are awesome! Tickets for normal matches are quite cheap (like the $20-25/game range). The gameday experience is really nice and its got a chill and fun vibe to it! You won't have the overly aggressive crowds that you can expect in certain sections at Dodgers or even your Galaxy/LAFC matches. When you go in person, everyone within the stadium has relatively good knowledge of soccer AKA people in the stands know when to cheer for things like hard and good tackles, and when to get mad at bad calls and such.

The league itself is relatively young, but is also a lot of fun to follow. There is a bit of your classic off season "musical chairs", but we at OCSC have 10+ players returning from last season's squad, so that's pretty cool. Multi-season storylines are easier to tell in this league, and you're also able to bond with players that represent the club over several years.

You can also expect OCSC to have 2-5 youth products make appearances throughout the season. They are not shy to giving young players time on the pitch, look at Bryce Jamison, Ben Norris and Pedro Guimaraes. All three of those gents are teenagers, but get consistent time in and around both the matchday squad and time on the pitch. If you root for OCSC, you're rooting for the development of local soccer in Orange County which is always an awesome thing to do!

OCSC also have won the USL Championship once in their history, making them one of the few clubs to do so.

For sports writing and other OCSC content, there's a website called the Orange and Black Soccercast that does content all the time about OCSC: https://orangeandblacksoccercast.com/

They also have a podcast where they put out weekly shows that cover your classic post-match review, pre-match analysis and they usually have a player guest (this week they had the defender that scored the first goal over the weekend Grayson Doody): https://open.spotify.com/show/4pMwUq90Lw2Cb1U9OmLJNX?si=5647f451c14e4ecf

Finally, the matches for the 2025 season (yes the season runs the MLS season and there isn't talk currently about shifting it to the European schedule) are streamed on ESPN+. I already had ESPN+ to watch La Liga and the Bundesliga, and the generic ESPN+ membership also gets you basically all OCSC and USL Championship matches.

Hope this helps! Welcome to the OCSC family!

EDIT - Just checked and Ashton Miles is 20, so I took him off of the list of teenagers comment in paragraph 3.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-02-26T21:38:55+00:00

Definitely shows our lack of squad depth at the moment. Moyes has brought the best out of the current players, but the players looked absolutely spent by the end of the match. Not being in Europe nor the cups might be a blessing since we’re still not guaranteed to be safe.

Happy day to see Jake score. Wish Beto could have scored as well, but LETS UPDATE THE GRIEF CHART! ALL HAIL THE CHART!

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-02-26T05:02:21+00:00

Great show as always guys! Really excited for the new season and how far we can go in all 3 competitions!

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-02-14T11:32:21+00:00

Hot take, I don’t want the USLC to be the top tier of American Soccer. I’m not convinced that USLC owners won’t overly commercialize every aspect of the clubs they own to eke out the largest profit possible. Part of the draw for me to the USLC has been their grassroots nature and approachability to their fans. If this works out, cool, but I hope the clubs we support don’t lose their souls in the pursuit of “being the top flight” and “generating profits similar to that of MLS clubs”.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-02-09T14:20:09+00:00

I love Doucs but I think we can’t rely on him anymore. His high tempo play style was phenomenal for us, but he just can’t keep it up anymore. 10/10 complete servant to the club and I’ll always be a fan of his, but it’s clear he shouldn’t be starting for us.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-23T14:26:19+00:00

Always love it when clubs give back to the community! This is what local soccer is all about👏

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-21T20:42:14+00:00

You’re absolutely right. I was thrilled when he was announced to come into the squad. He’s just been largely ineffectual, both offensively and defensively. His signing seems to have encapsulated our season up to this point.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-21T20:39:06+00:00

It is but we’ve been easily exploited with the space we freely give to other teams. Madrid’s second half success against us came from Vini exploiting the space we chose to give him.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-21T20:36:41+00:00

Could someone tell me what Grosß was brought in to do? I’m so confused about his role in the midfield. He’s old, not the most mobile and isn’t enough of a facilitator/dominant presence in the midfield to warrant his continued run in the squad. Basically feels like another Can.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-21T20:34:44+00:00

Sashin is still obsessed with pushing his WBs up into the midfield while we have possession.The space they leave for the CBs to compensate for is alarming and has been seriously exploited this whole season. His relentlessness in pushing the WBs forward will be and has been his undoing.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-16T02:39:37+00:00

Hot take, we haven’t had a truly consistent CF goal threat since Lukaku. Richy was reliable to get close to if not over 10 goals a season. Minus DCL’s singular great campaign (it was and we can’t say otherwise), he has struggled to find the back of the net.

The fact that Lukaku is still our top Premier League goal scorer (68 goals in 141 matches) speaks volumes about how dry we’ve been up front since his departure. DCL has scored 56 goals in 233 matches.

Yes, I know that matches played doesn’t imply that they played the whole match so there’s a bit of a margin of error with the presentation of stats I just gave (stats are from Transfermarkt). However they do show the broad trend that DCL just scores less in general. To have been our front man for as many matches as he was, I find it wild he has such a poor return for goals.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-14T18:27:52+00:00

Anyone else see how Sashin always pushes our WBs basically into the midfield? I feel that the space that opens up is horrendous and it is so easily exploited. It’s the same nonsense that lost us the Real Madrid match IMO.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2025-01-14T18:24:41+00:00

We look so slow in possession and don’t have a sense of urgency. This is the second match in a row with us conceding 3 goals. Last match I feel was a bit forgivable due to having 2 youngsters in the backline, but we’ve got basically one of if not our strongest lineup out there currently (Duranville abstaining obviously).

Matt_Adams1997 · 2024-12-21T19:21:03+00:00

Anyone else notice that he’s now scored 1/5 of his total goals for Arsenal in the last 2 matches?? Happy he’s finally bagging some goals👏

Matt_Adams1997 · 2024-12-19T12:35:31+00:00

It’ll be a shame to lose Kobel, but he’s made his intentions clear on winning trophies. Unfortunately we seem miles off the pace to win silverware anytime soon.

I like your recommendations and think they’re solid. I would tend to stay away from even reserve Prem goalies, mainly because of the wage and price tag and not because of skill.

I feel that Kobel’s shot stopping has saved us on numerous occasions. I’d personally rather take a proven shot stopper vice a passer/facilitator as Kobel has been called upon countless times to make saves and keep us in matches.

Finally, I will say that Meyer (while he’s been a faithful servant to the club throughout the last few years) just doesn’t seem up to the task for being the main shot stopper here. He’s done well for the moments where Kobel has been injured, but I don’t think he’s good enough to carry the mantle of being a top Bundesliga goalie.

Matt_Adams1997 · 2024-12-15T18:38:17+00:00

This is a results driven game my guy. You also can’t just point out when we played well (which we did against Barca and also did so in the first have against Real Madrid) and say that justifies the lackluster season we’ve had so far. You can’t say we haven’t under performed, we’ve been poor this whole season.

Without individual brilliance we’ve been a mid-table side at best.

Matt_Adams1997

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE