With Interim Head Coach Giovanni Troise leading the team, the Lights will be looking to take advantage of the new coach bounce to keep the season on track and vault back into the playoff positions with a win on Saturday night.
Read on for a breakdown on the coaching changes and tonight’s keys to the match!
A New Start
On Tuesday, following a conversation with Sporting Director Gianleonardo Neglia, Head Coach Antonio Nocerino decided by mutual agreement with the club to part ways.
The Lights’ 3-0 away defeat to San Antonio proved to be Nocerino’s final match in charge after a run of negative results.
Following Nocerino’s departure, his former Assistant Coach Giovanni Troise was named Interim Head Coach as the club moves forward in its search for a new permanent Head Coach.
Troise’s appointment marks the start of a new era for the Lights, who aspire to return to playoff qualifying positions and be competitive with a strong squad.
A win against Monterey Bay would be an ideal reset for the Lights as they keep pushing forward deeper into the 2025 season.
A Tale of Two Streaks
The Lights and Monterey Bay arrive at Saturday’s match on streaks. However, the nature of their streaks is very different.
The Lights are on a six-match winless streak, having won their last match on May 3 against Loudoun United FC thanks to a Johnny Rodriguez header. From that point onwards, the Lights have drawn one match and lost five, including two at home against Western Conference rivals El Paso Locomotive and Phoenix Rising.
On the other hand, Monterey Bay have won their last three matches in consecutive fashion. The Californian side won its two Jägermeister Cup matches against Orange County and Spokane Velocity and bagged three points in its Championship duel against Lexington SC at home.
Momentum is on Monterey Bay’s side. But the game of football and its outcomes on the pitch are too complex to be solely determined by trends or streaks. The game must be played, so let’s dive into the keys to victory.
Claves del partido
Nico Campuzano: The Monterey Bay Wall
Monterey Bay has a cheat code in goal: Nico Campuzano.
It’s safe to say that the Spaniard is the most determinant goalkeeper in the entire USL Championship. While he does not lead the league in clean sheets (3), he does lead in total saves with 48.
Yes, forty-eight. That’s 16 more than runner-up Matt Van Oekel from Birmingham Legion. He also leads the Championship in saves per match with 3.7 and is second in save percentage with 78.7%, just 0.1% short of Louisville City’s Damian Las.
It’s impossible to separate Monterey Bay’s recent successes from Campuzano’s top performances, as his acrobatic saves have helped them sustain leads at home and snatch points away. In fact, it can be argued that the difference between Monterey Bay’s xGA (expected goals against per match; 1.36) and their actual goals against per match (1.0) can only be explained by the goalkeeping phenomenon that is Nico Campuzano this season.
For the Lights to earn three points this Saturday, they must go past the seemingly impenetrable Monterey Bay Wall. Clinical finishing will be indispensable.
Get the Forwards Going
The Lights’ offensive performance so far this season has been… not great. Some quick stats that are not pretty viewing: the team possesses the lowest goals scored per match in the entire league (0.6) and has only scored once in the past six games across all competitions.
However, there’s still a lot of season remaining for Vegas, and there’s time to make the team’s attack click.
Johnny Rodriguez, Nighte Pickering, and newly acquired forward Stefan Stojanovic have already proven their worth at the USL Championship level. They are quality strikers with the numbers to back them up from their previous stops at Oakland, Memphis, and Tulsa, respectively.
All they need is one good night against Monterey Bay. Sometimes, it only takes one goal to get a striker hot and put the team on a roll.
If that happens, then Cashman Field will witness a home win that the fans deserve.
New Coach Effect?
There’s a strange phenomenon in sports, especially in soccer: whenever a new coach takes over a team, it’s not strange for that team to win its next match regardless of previous performances.
Is it because of a boost in morale? A change in team internal dynamics? A burning fire within each player’s soul to prove himself useful to the new man in charge? The reason is hard to pinpoint.
What’s true is that the Lights will momentarily be commanded by Giovanni Troise, and it’s in the interest of the players to perform at a higher level than before to remain worthy of his or any future coach’s trust.
The vibes were good throughout the week’s training sessions. If that is a foreshadowing of things to come, then the Lights are looking great for this weekend’s match.