What We’ve Learned About Charlotte FC Under Christian Lattanzio

July 6, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – Charlotte FC News Release

Interim head coach, Christian Lattanzio has overseen Charlotte FC for five matches now, but in that short time he’s already had to face a fair share of adversity: three away matches, unavailable players, and three opponents who sit above the playoff line.

The Club’s record through these five matches is two wins, two losses, and one draw. It’s far too early to come up with definitive conclusions, but there is certainly enough there to begin dissecting how Lattanzio is influencing this team.

Defensive Stability

Before CLTFC even had a roster, there was always an emphasis on building the spine first. Starting from the back to the front. It seems that Lattanzio has taken that same approach in how he’s begun instilling his game model. Because the first step he took was to improve the defensive stability of the team.

In his head coaching debut for CLTFC, the team faced the New York Red Bulls – the best away team in MLS. It was a tough task but from the get-go the team looked more organized and compact on defense than what we’ve previously seen. The Crown earned the win and kept a clean sheet against the team that had previously beaten them 3 – 1 in U.S. Open Cup play.

That defensive stability continued to be present throughout the rest of the matches under Lattanzio. Since June 1st, CLTFC have had the best Expected Goals Against (xGA) per game in the league. Meaning that Charlotte has been the most difficult team to create high-quality scoring opportunities against during this stretch.

What makes this statistic even more impressive is that the team hasn’t been conservative and sat in a low block for entire matches. They haven’t been afraid to press high which proved to be effective against Austin FC and the Houston Dynamo.

And of the five goals that CLTFC have conceded, all but one came from either individual mistakes, poor refereeing decisions, or a wondergoal like the one scored in the Austin FC match.

The shift away from a man-marking system has made the team more compact and therefore helped prevent players from getting dragged out of position. The increased organization has increased the defensive stability of the team but not at the cost of the offense.

Attacking Freedom

For almost the entirety of the season, Charlotte has been ranked in the bottom five teams for number of Expected Goals (xG). A metric that measures the quality of a chance by calculating the likelihood that it will be…