Will Cleary

I think he he was probably the one fouling.

I just thought I liked his teamwork with Will Cleary.

And there was a moment where Brent Bronico almost lost it in the box.

And it's Henry Kessler has to bail him out.

He doesn't blow the whistle back.

You know, Kessler at the moment is bodying a man out because I think he's one of the few paying attention.

And Will Cleary is sending the ball back into a man for the goal kick, right? He's being smart.

Kalina had to save it before.

He wants to learn, he wants to get better, and that's the pleasing thing.

Yeah, if you might not have caught the question there, he's talking about Will Cleary, the young right back who has been starting recently in place of Nathan Byrne, who's battled some health issues, but Cleary's kind of locked down the position for the last few games.

But I agree, this was not a good Will Cleary game.

If I look at the...

Sofa score ratings even.

Let's see if we can find those.

For some reason, sofa score rated Cleary pretty high.

I think the clean sheet helps there.

put a little fire under him knowing we're gonna try to get rid of him he's like i'm gonna show y'all i can really play now i guess and that's fantastic

he had another opportunities um i really enjoyed the teamwork he had with will cleary um when they tackled a ball away in possession from atlanta now does atlanta kind of dog about a little bit knock the ball off of him sure i don't think there's any game where it's not gonna be

yeah

get the ball taken off of him but it's what he does otherwise you know and i thought his runs were really good he had uh another shot that the goalkeeper has to block and then there's another one that um someone else blocks so it's just fantastic effort for him i want to see him play games like this consistently because i feel like that's what you really want to see your dp do and especially when like he didn't get subbed this game he played the whole time that's also rare very much though but i think he deserved it just based on his effort so really proud of him he's earning his keep but anyway so who's your first favor my first favor for this match it's a hard one but i feel like it really stuck out to me kind of through the whole game.

And maybe when you look at it, you might not see that, but I just felt like this person worked really hard in defense and really limited the opponent and their opportunities.

And for me, that person was Will Cleary.

He just really stood out with his both defensive work.

He had some great moments forward.

Obviously, if there's a squad player like we just discussed from Crown Legacy that can provide cover there, that's helpful.

Will Cleary, we know in a pinch, can play both sides.

But it's not ideal.

Mostly, though, I'll say we're light in the same place that we've said we're light for the last two years, which is in the midfield.

They could look like they come out and transition flawlessly through it.

You know, Guilherme, the one that you touched on, is another older player with a lot of experience, 31 years old at wing, that does a very good job of putting himself in position to help move the team forward and create attacking opportunities.

I just... don't see in this team the offensive threat that I expect I'm going to be afraid of, especially now with Henry Kessler in the team and Will Cleary in the team.

So if you're looking at their attack, where would you say Charlotte FC's defense is going to face the sternest test if they face a serious one at all?

They've got an electric left winger in Guillerme.

This is going to be a big challenge, I think, for Will Cleary.

I think you're going to need to see Leal Abada tracking back on that wing to help out.

They've got Mateus Bogus, who spent some time in D.C.

And, you know, there has been a little bit of a drop off in terms of the point scoring.

Yeah.

But that also coincides with, wow, all of a sudden, Rodolfo Aloko and Will Cleary are full-time starters with the first team instead.

We've seen Nathan Richmond on the bench.

He's the one who takes the cross for Schnegg's goal.

He's the one who takes the corner that Will Cleary gets a header on.

And so that's two assists and or he also scores himself and got his own secondary assist, if they counted it, on that goal.

So really it's potentially two slash three assists, even though that one for Schnegg can't count because it was a, you know, follow through after the defender got a hand on it or goalkeeper or whatever.

going to give mine to Will.

I mean, I think he has a good night.

What I like most about Will Cleary is the fact that he is consistent and dependable.

And you can't always say that of young guys.

Alan Maximan was getting heavily pressured any time he had the ball and was either forced to the wing and denied that area to cut in.

And then Charlotte also responded by trying to play long balls into Will Cleary and Rodolfo Aloko because there was more space on that right side.

Again, that was quickly abandoned as we got to the 35th, 40th minute to go back to that more normal midfield shape with Luca De La Torre playing closer to Ashley Westwood.

What did you see in that first half that... didn't quite work or why do you think dean uh pulled this ripcord was it specifically to get luca del toro closer to gold do you think

No, I think the first half was just jarring.

Cheryl had much more of the ball, but three total shots, one on target.

It got to the point where I was thinking the only chance they have to score a goal in this half, if Will Cleary or Rodolfo Aloko is going to whip into a cross and it's going to have to... bang off someone's face and go in inadvertently.

That's really how it felt in the first half.

We see...

Some rotation, right? We see Will Cleary come in.

We see Henry Kessler come in.

We get this Kessler ring center back pairing.

With Kessler's history of injuries, I like seeing him get on the score sheet.

Man of the match for me.

Yeah, I think the other one I want to call out real quick is Will Cleary had a very good match early on, especially involved in a lot of the attacking play.

He links really, really well with Rodolfo Aloka on that wing.

Um, there was a, there was a couple chances even before we get to this final goal.

Um, again, looking back at the highlights, there's some really nice connection play between Will Cleary and-

Mm

... uh, Alloco on the right side.

Yeah

...

I've really enjoyed, I think we talked about it a little bit in the past, Will Cleary has really impressed me with his opportunities that he's, he's stepped out there for, too.

Yep.