Orange Moon Rising
Soccer is a funny game. One week you play a very embarrassing 0-6 defeat to an average team at best. Then the next week you shut out the defending USL champions. The biggest fact that went into the sudden turnaround could be the new head coach bump which is a phenomenon where a team gets a wake up call after their coach has been sacked. We have definitely seen OC benefit from it before but this would perhaps be the most profound example of it if Orange County can really make a deep playoff run in this season of all seasons.
Yaniv Bazini’s last minute strike did a lot of good for OC as it bumped them up two spots on the table. The very good start for OC has still left them in a favorable spot on the table regardless of how bad they have played overall. If absolutely everything goes right this Saturday then OC could go as high as 4th in the West with only 3 games left in the regular season. The elusive win that Orange County desperately needed came against a 5th place Pittsburgh side from the Eastern Conference who are definitely poised to be a playoff team at season's end. But perhaps the true test to know if Dekel Keinan was able to right the ship is if Orange County can get a result against a team that will not make the postseason.
Orange County SC will host Monterey Bay FC in what is the second matchup of the season. OCSC were able to come away with a 2-1 victory in Northern California back in the summertime. We already know that OC are a very good team in the month of October historically; especially at home games as well. If they can continue that trend then it could go a long way to getting a favorable path to the USL Championship Final.
THE OPPONENT - MONTEREY BAY FC
When it comes to Orange County SC and their reputation within the USL Championship they are perhaps known best for the academy talent they have been able to nurture and sell off to bigger teams. But something that I do not think has ever been mentioned is that OC has become a bit of a coaching/front office development team as well. To really start things off, Oliver Wyss was the long time Sporting Director for Orange County SC. He spent nine years with the club to be exact and his eye for scouting talent was good enough to land him a job with the USL as its Head of Global Football Development and Sporting Director. More on Oliver later. Other OC fans will remember the name Jeff Garner who was the President of Business Relations before taking a similar job with Pittsburgh and helping them to a USL Championship title. Former coach Morten Karlsen had his contract bought out by his former club in Denmark midway through the season and it showed that OC can even transfer coaches to European teams.
The reason why I bring this up now is because Oliver Wyss has found himself back in the role of Sporting Director but it is not with OC this time. Beginning this season Wyss has been the man tasked with fixing the Monterey Bay FC roster. To say that he may have his work cut out for him would be putting it lightly. Monterey has simply been a very bad team. Through 26 games they have only won four games total. Their 18 points earned all season are tied for second lowest in the league with expansion side Brooklyn FC and only ahead of the other cannon fodder expansion team in the East, Sporting Club Jacksonville. I have little doubt that Oliver can fix Monterey Bay but it will be a multi year endeavor. The last time Monterey won a game goes all the way back to June 20th and it came against first place El Paso of all teams, I told you soccer was a funny game.
But what is not funny for Monterey is the fact they have the worst offense and worst defense in the entire Western Conference. They have signed numerous players on top of taking any loan they can get in the hopes that something will stick but nothing has. Really the only thing that Monterey has left to play for in the month of October is playing spoiler and holding tryouts to see which players are worth keeping around for another year. This team has a very nice stadium in a very USL-friendly market with foreign team support so eventually something has to improve.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
During the preseason when Monterey Bay were signing a bunch of players, one name stood out above the rest. Monterey Bay FC had signed long time MLS veteran and former West Ham United academy product Sebastian Lleget. The same Sebastian Lletget that won a Gold Cup and Nations League title with the United States would spend 2026 in the USL. This was a big signing for Monterey on paper and did look like a step in the right direction with a vetted player coming in to become a leader for a relatively young franchise. Then he only scored one goal in his first 15 games. To be fair to Sebastian he has since gone on to get three more later in the season but the midfielder only has two helpers to his name so this has not been a memorable season for him. Lleget has been able to be a consistent starter for Monterey only missing a single game back in May. The 12 game winless run they find themselves in will not get much easier as they still have to play OC, New Mexico and Colorado Springs one more time but lets hope that OC keeps tabs on Lleget.
On the orange side of things, the young players have been a storyline for OC this season for the good moments and the other moments. It does seem that with the large quantity of them that it can be easy to forget about some of them but Efren Solis has quietly become the de facto right midfielder in 2026. Coincidence or not but when Solis began his tenure in the starting XI, OC went on their 9 game unbeaten run. He even scored a goal in the win against Miami FC which was a tap in but hey he still did a lot of work to even get that opportunity. This season more than ever has shown that even if the results have not been ideal there are a number of players who are barely of voting age on the roster. We can only assume they will get better with more experience and Solis should be the perfect example of this. Solis is already at 22 appearances with the senior side so the potential, with all the young players, is definitely there.
PREDICTED STARTING XI
We definitely had our fair share of surprises when it came to the lineup last week. Both Kevin Partida and Mouhamadou War returned to the starting lineup and assuming that no other injuries occurred then OC are nearing their full team as intended and not a minute too late. There were also some noticeable coaching decisions such as Marcelo Palomino starting, which was a good thing, and Yaniv Bazini starting on the bench which I was not too sure about. But in saying that I would not expect much to change.
These lineups are hard to accurately predict so lets just assume the same one that won the game on Saturday will get the nod again. Nico Benalcazar and Garrison Tubbs were the big omissions due to injuries in the last couple of weeks so if anything does change it will likely be because of their returns. Alex Rando will start in goal. I really did like the defensive pivot of Partida and Palomino so I would like to see them continue to do that. Lyam MacKinnon at top is fine too but Bazini could be another one too.
THE MATCHUP
This has actually been a very consistent matchup all things considered with Monterey Bay actually getting the better of OC more often than not. There is not much correlation or consistencies either when it comes to previous matchups. Think of every type of win whether it is high scoring or low scoring, home or away or whatever and it has happened. The only thing that there is evidence for is that these two teams rarely play to draws with one another. In fact since the first in 2022 there has only been one draw ever. Any point that OC does earn from this point on is important so a draw is not the end of the world. Other important matchups to keep an eye on will be Tulsa-Sacramento, Phoenix-New Mexico and Las Vegas-San Antonio.
WHAT TO KNOW
Game - vs Monterey Bay FC (USL Championship)
When - October 3rd, 7:00 PM PST
Where - Championship Soccer Stadium (Irvine, CA)
OCSC Form - WLLDD
MBFC Form - LLDDL
All-Time Matchup - 4-1-5 (10 Games)
TV - ESPN+, KCAL+