The last week has been exciting for Charlotte soccer, hasn’t it??

The Charlotte Eagles kicked off their 2017 campaign with an impressive 2–0 win over Chattanooga FC in the first round of the US Open Cup on Wednesday night. They controlled that game from start to finish and overwhelmed CFC with their speed on the wings and forward positions. You can read all about that game here.

The Charlotte Independence had a pretty nice week as well, setting a club record for goals on Thursday and getting a huge 5–1 win against NYRBII. You can read all about that game here.

Then the Eagles opened their PDL regular season by shredding the Wilmington Hammerheads 6–2 in their first league game. You can read more about that game here.

TFW you win 5–1.

Together, the teams combined to score 13 goals over the course of 270 minutes, about a goal every 21 minutes.

That’s right.

Charlotte Derby Connections:

The Charlotte Eagles are playing their 25th season, and there are several (by my count seven) Independence players who formerly played for the club at both the USL and PDL levels.

Jorge Herrera, Jaime Siaj, Austin Yearwood, Bilal Duckett, Jared Odenbeck, Kyle Renfro and apparently, although unknown to most fans, David Estrada all featured for both sides of this Charlotte Derby!

Hat tip to Ashley Mahoney of QCFC for bringing this up!

This is part of why I say that the Independence are “traveling,” not only because they aren’t leaving the city limits, but because they are so familiar with their opponent and their facility. The Eagles likely won’t have much of a home field advantage in the stands either. Jack’s Militia, QC Royals and Slogic’s Army will be there and will be loud supporting the Jacks! All positive vibes this year, right guys?

What To Expect:

Goals

I expect there to be a lot of goals scored in this match-up. Both attacks are coming off of games where they were firing on all cylinders (five goals for Indy, six for the Eagles) and with the extra intensity of the knockout format of the U.S. Open Cup as opposed to an early season league game, I expect both to have their A games ready to go.

Joao Costa

Watch for Joao Costa from the Charlotte Eagles to be the focal point of their attack. He has 4 goals in 2 games and was inches away from 5 as he hit the inside of the post in the Chattanooga game. He won our first ever SNST Player of the Week award too. This isn’t to say that they don’t have other attacking talent, but Costa stands out to me as someone the Independence need to focus on to move on to round three.

Jorge Herrera and Enzo Martinez link up play

In the Independence’s game against NYRBII, Herrera and Martinez led the way playing as the front two. Together they created ten (ten!) chances and had a goal and an assist each. This was the first time that Independence fans have seen what, presumably, the coaching staff has been seeing in training and pre-season. If they continue this type of play, we could see another goal explosion from the Independence tonight at Charlotte Christian.

The Independence’s dynamic duo.

Squad Rotation

I expect to see some squad rotation for both the Eagles and the Independence. The Jacks are quickly approaching an extremely tough stretch of games at the end of May and beginning of June and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few fresh faces both in the starting 11 and on the bench. I would love to see Jaime Siaj get the start against his former club and brother Dani, which would be a mini-derby within the Charlotte Derby. The Eagles too, while fresh at the start of their year, have played two games in the last week and might cycle in some fresh faces against the Independence.

Prediction Time

I’ve talked up both teams’ attacking play, so of course there’s a good chance that this could be a defensive slugfest that goes 0–0 and has to be settled by penalty kicks. I hope for all of our sakes that that isn’t the case, but I’m throwing that out there. I expect both teams to play well but to make some defensive mistakes that give goal-scoring chances.

I’ll list some of our writer’s predictions, including my own below. Tweet us (@SoccerNSweetTea on Twitter) and tell us your prediction as well!

Me (Alex)

2–3 Independence in extra time

Johnny

3–1 Eagles

Paulo

1–2 Independence

Chris

1–3 Independence

Matt

0–2 Independence