{"id":35880,"date":"2015-06-16T15:57:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T19:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=35880"},"modified":"2015-06-16T17:41:02","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T21:41:02","slug":"11-things-to-know-about-the-charlotte-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=35880","title":{"rendered":"11 Things to Know about the Charlotte Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Charlotte Independence<\/p><\/div>\n

On Wednesday, the Revolution will meet the USL’s Charlotte Independence for\u00a0the very first time in a\u00a0fourth-round U.S.\u00a0Open Cup clash at Soldiers Field Soccer Stadium on the Harvard University campus.<\/p>\n

Here are 11 things to know about the\u00a0Independence:<\/p>\n

1. They have a pair of players on the roster with Revolution connections.<\/strong> Midfielder Paolo DelPiccolo, who\u00a0spent the 2014 preseason with the locals, has started nine of nine games this season. DelPiccolo was also a college teammate of Revolution right back Andrew Farrell at Louisville. \u00a0Defender Bilal Duckett, who played one game for the Revolution in between loan spells to the Rhinos in 2013, has started seven of eight games this year.<\/p>\n

2. They pulled off an upset\u00a0to advance to the fourth round.<\/strong> After matching wits with the NASL’s Carolina RailHawks for 80 minutes, the Independence broke through on an 81st minute Ryan Finley goal to\u00a0eliminate the second-division squad on their home pitch in Cary, N.C.<\/p>\n

3. They’re a brand new outfit.<\/strong> The Independence ownership group\u00a0bought the USL franchise rights for the Charlotte market, which formerly belonged to\u00a0league mainstay Charlotte Eagles,\u00a0last summer. The Eagles now play in PDL.<\/p>\n

4. They’re affiliated with the Colorado Rapids.<\/strong> And it’s turned out to be a fairly beneficial affiliation, at that. To date, the Rapids have\u00a0sent promising players like Marlon Hairston and Carlos Alvarez (formerly of UConn)\u00a0to the Tar Heel state for loan spells.<\/p>\n

5. They’re going through the usual expansion side growing pains.\u00a0<\/strong>At 3-4-3 (12 points) they’ll enter Wednesday’s contest ninth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

6. Despite some of the expected struggles, they have a few promising players.<\/strong> Attacking midfielder Jorge Herrera is the team’s\u00a0most dangerous option on offense\u00a0(3 goals, 3 assists), while Finley (3 goals, 1 assist) is a constant threat. At 6-6, defender Patrick Slogic (2 goals) poses a fierce threat in the air.<\/p>\n

7. They’re coming into Wednesday’s match on a high note.<\/strong> In their last match, they beat the Pittsburgh Riverhounds 2-1. Alvarez and Herrera\u00a0did the damage for the Independence.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0Charlotte has long been a soccer-mad city. <\/strong>There’s a good reason why Charlotte\u00a0has been\u00a0seen as a potential host city for an MLS expansion side. The city, and its surrounding communities, have hosted a number of successful\u00a0professional and semi-professional sides. Prior to the arrival of the Independence, the city hosted the aforementioned Charlotte Eagles, which was founded in 1991.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0The\u00a0Independence ownership group\u00a0has MLS ambitions.<\/strong> In a Jun. 10 report on wfae.org<\/a>, club founder Jim McPhilliamy said that he’s looked at how Orlando City – once a USL power – was\u00a0able to start off the lower-divisions and eventually build itself up as a successful candidate for MLS expansion. \u201cThat\u2019s totally the model,\u201d McPhilliamy told WFAE.com. \u201cI think that\u2019s exactly the model we\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

10. They’re nomads for the time being.<\/strong> The squad has played its home\u00a0matches\u00a0the University of North Carolina-Charlotte\u00a0and Winthrop University. They were supposed to play Saturday’s game at Ramblewood Soccer Complex, but the venue hadn’t yet received the requisite approval from local building officials.<\/p>\n

11. They’re holding a vote on\u00a0Twitter for the “official” hashtag for Wednesday’s match.<\/strong>\u00a0Since the\u00a0fourth round clash will pit them against another side with a Revolutionary War-inspired moniker, the\u00a0team’s social media team is\u00a0looking for a creative\u00a0designation for\u00a0the\u00a0gameday hashtag.\u00a0Among them: #FreedomFixture and #DeclarationDerby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get to know the Revolution’s Open Cup foe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[25],"tags":[1130,891,1274,892,257],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Independence-1.png?fit=600%2C415&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35880"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35901,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35880\/revisions\/35901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}