The Western Conference has been seen as the more competitive of the two conferences for a while now. That last five USL champions have been from the West and this comes after the Eastern Conference had won 7 of 8 of the league’s first titles. What makes the West even more competitive is that of the six different years that a Western Conference team won, all six times were by different clubs. Orange County SC is included into this group. If you look at the Eastern Conference of their seven times winning the title, two of those teams were repeat offenders. To make it even more exacerbated, only two of the champions from the Eastern Conference are still in the USL.
The point should be made that the Western Conference has been one massive brawl for at least five seasons now. This season is no different. Only nine points are what separates the first place team from the last place team. Last year’s USL champion the Colorado Springs Switchbacks sit in 11th with only 8 points. A team who has never qualified for the postseason finds themselves in a three way tie for first in the West.
For Orange County, they find themselves in 7th in the West on 10 points which is tied with 3 other teams. They have been fortunate enough that the other Western Conference teams have really yet to heat up but they have the opportunity to really jump up the table with their next four league games being against Western Conference teams. All of them six-point games.
THE OPPONENT - NEW MEXICO UNITED
New Mexico after a successful season saw the departure of head coach Eric Quill who went up to the MLS and is now the head coach of FC Dallas. Quill had led New Mexico to club records in both wins and points that ended in disappointment in the postseason. To replace their head coach, New Mexico went to the USL to find their replacement and managed to pry Dennis Sanchez away from Las Vegas.
The results have been about what was expected to start the season. New Mexico currently sits fourth in the West but are only just one point behind the table leaders. While the offense has not been anything amazing the defense has kept them in games. But New Mexico are coming off of two consecutive losses against both of their closest rivals. So to say that they are not in a very good mood would be putting it lightly. The defense is in a trend of either not conceding anything or conceding a lot. This is entirely the case considering that of their nine goals conceded all season, five of them have only come from the last two games. Again not exactly firing on all cylinders. Another important note for New Mexico is that they will be without starting keeper Alex Tambakis who was sent off in their game last week.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
One of the Orange County players who has since departed that played a part in the 2024 postseason run was Thomas Amang. Amang who has been a USL Championship veteran for most of his career can now add New Mexico United to his resume. Amang has been finding the field more the past couple of games and has made three league appearances which have all come in three of the last four games. He has scored once already this season and would need five more to tie his mark from last season with Orange County. Amang did spend two seasons with the Orange & Black scoring 17 goals across 50 appearances. This will be his first time back in Orange County since his departure.
On the orange side of things, Vuk Latinovich has been plugged into the backline for six games now and was originally only signed to a 25-day contract which we are going to assume is no longer the case since that was back in early April. In those six games for Latinovich we have seen at both center back and at left mid. A common trend for Danny Stone to field a roster of a number of swiss-army type players who can play anywhere on the pitch. Nico Benalcazar is another one of these types. Latinovich has spent time with a number of teams but has never surpassed 20 appearances with any one club. Orange County could be the first time he passes that milestone if he were to stay for a full season.
PREDICTED STARTING XI
Only two omissions from last week's lineup due to injuries to Sylla and the long term one for Doody. Against North Carolina that was about as close to the lineup that we should expect to be seeing moving forward. Two lineup predictions this week with not many surprises between them.
Dylan Allen
Dylan thinks there will not be any change from the lineup last week and really that should be the case. We cannot fault the defense for last week's game but a clean sheet would be nice.
Nathan Wander
Yes my lineup is going to be the same as Dylan’s. The entire forward core were able to get shots away with five of them being on target. It will hopefully just be a blip in the road and the goals will soon begin to go in. The only possible change that might actually occur depends on the fitness of Ousmane Sylla who should figure to be subbed in for Nico in the second half if they are in need of an offensive boost.
THE MATCH UP
If there is one tried and true fact about 2025 Orange County SC is that they have done better at home. They are currently 3-1-1 at Championship Soccer Stadium. As such they will need to keep their home game form intact if they are to keep pace with the rest of the playoff teams. Overall the Orange County-New Mexico match up has been pretty even. Home teams have had the upper hand as well. This could become a playoff match up later in the year as well but both teams will be looking to get back to winning ways.
WHAT TO KNOW
Game - vs New Mexico United (USL Championship)
When - May 17th, 7:00 PM PST
Where - Championship Soccer Stadium (Irvine, CA)
OCSC Form - LWLLL
NMU Form - LLWWL
All-Time Series - 2-3-3 (8 Matchups)
TV - ESPN+, KCAL+, FanDuel Sports SoCal