This is our state. Ours.

That’s why the name of the state is right there in the name of the club: North Carolina FC.

The Dead Whales and their followers took over the Matthews Sportsplex Saturday night and raised all new sets of questions about this season and what we can expect from both teams going forward.

I know Charlotte came into this game with 7 points to NCFC’s zero, but let’s be honest:

A) Everyone expected Ottawa and Toronto to be two of the very worst teams in the conference, and those are their only wins.

B) They’d played one more game than NCFC. So all along we should have suspected their point total was misleading.

I have to give credit where due, however: Charlotte owning 60% of the possession in this one caught me completely by surprise. But one of the things I was most impressed by was that our beloved Dead Whales generated just as many shots as Charlotte despite that discrepancy. Empty possession that doesn’t generate chances is useless, as Matthews learned last night.

I think we have two good (though not great) teams in this state, and I think the table will reflect that by the end of the year.

I said leading up to this game that I thought Daniel Rios had a firm grip on the starting striker role, and he showed that again on Saturday. He had his best heat map as a Dead Whale and punched in another goal.

Both he and Lomis were similarly opportunistic on their goals, gathering rebounds and finishing, and I’m gaining trust in both, but the Guadalajara man is especially excelling. We still want to give them more touches in the box (just six against Charlotte), but given NCFC’s lack of possession, that number isn’t bad at all.

We even saw a clean sheet! The defensive line looks to be gelling, and even though we didn’t have Turbo in the back line, we did have him in the supporter’s group, which according to our players made the little ole Matthews Sportsshed sound like our very own soccer stadium for ants.

Coming into this game, I think North Carolina FC needed the game more from a pure table/season perspective, but Charlotte needed this game from a rivalry point of view.

Our season is getting back on track in every way, and I’m really excited to see what the team makes of TFC II on Wednesday. It’s a game we should expect to win.

And it was particularly nice to see Matthews celebrate OUR win with fireworks.

Thank you so much to everyone from the fans to the OWNER WHO CAME ONTO THE FAN BUS to the players and staff for giving us a perfect example this week of why NCFC is such a great club.

Frankly, we turned Matthews into a home away from home, and the players noticed.

To our Carolina brothers out in Charlotte, thank you so much for being such great opponents, thanks for being great fans in the Twitter banter this week, and thank you for standing behind your club.

We’re all in this thing together growing the sport of soccer in this state. As thrilled as I am to see your team lose, I’m just as happy to know that passion for this sport is shared from one end of this state to the other.

I hope every N.C. Derby goes just like this one, but I also hope it’s a derby that we can play for years to come (even when NCFC is in MLS and Charlotte is our farm team.) Come on you Dead Whales!