Football General Manager
The USL Championship is nearing the halfway point of the 2025 campaign, and some major storylines are taking over the league. Meanwhile, the USL’s intra-league competition, the Jägermeister Cup, returns this August, with the quarterfinals of the competition arriving as well.
In regular season play, reigning champions Colorado Switchbacks were expected to compete for multiple trophies this season, but nothing has gone to plan, and they sit at the bottom of the Western Conference. Meanwhile, two teams across the league are excelling, but for different reasons.
The Charleston Battery are playing incredible attacking soccer at the moment, and are thriving in the final third thanks to a stellar forward tandem in the Eastern Conference. In the West, New Mexico United are being propelled by former U.S. youth international star Mukwelle Akale, who has found a home with the club 11 years on from his biggest moment on the U.S. stage.
BALLGM takes a look at where each club sits and digs into the stats that are defining the USL Championship halfway through the 34-match season.
The USL Championship is nearing the halfway point of the 2025 campaign, and some major storylines are taking over the league. Meanwhile, the USL’s intra-league competition, the Jägermeister Cup, returns this August, with the quarterfinals of the competition arriving as well.
In regular season play, reigning champions Colorado Switchbacks were expected to compete for multiple trophies this season, but nothing has gone to plan, and they sit at the bottom of the Western Conference. Meanwhile, two teams across the league are excelling, but for different reasons.
The Charleston Battery are playing incredible attacking soccer at the moment, and are thriving in the final third thanks to a stellar forward tandem in the Eastern Conference. In the West, New Mexico United are being propelled by former U.S. youth international star Mukwelle Akale, who has found a home with the club 11 years on from his biggest moment on the U.S. stage.
BALLGM takes a look at where each club sits and digs into the stats that are defining the USL Championship halfway through the 34-match season.
In 2024, Colorado Switchbacks claimed their first USL Championship title, defeating Rhode Island FC 3-0 in the 2024 final. It capped off a historic season for the club, but their title defense hasn’t quite gone to plan in 2025.
Heading into August, with roughly three months left in the regular season campaign, the Switchbacks sit in last place in the Western Conference, in 12th place on just 18 points from 16 matches played this season. They’ve won just four total games this campaign and have severely underwhelmed throughout the first half of the campaign.
Similarly, MLS side LA Galaxy, 2024 MLS Cup champions, sit in last place in the Western Conference as well and are off to the worst title defense in league history.
Second-year manager James Chambers has a tall task ahead of him if he wants to secure postseason soccer with the Switchbacks this season. As it stands, they’re set to miss out, and that’s a stunning development for the reigning champions.
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The Battery has been, by far, the best attacking team in the USL Championship this season. They sit atop the USL standings and the Eastern Conference on 41 points and boast the league’s best goal differential at plus-22.
They’ve scored 38 regular season goals, off of 255 shots, with a conversion rate of 20 percent – the second highest in the league, only trailing Phoenix Rising SC.
They have two of the league’s top scorers, with Cal Jennings at 11 goals and Matt Meyers at eight goals, while forward Juan Torres leads all of USL in the assists category with eight. Torres also leads the league in chances created, with 46. The Battery boasts a home record of 8-10 and an overall record of 13-3-2, with an impressive five road wins to their name.
Manager Ben Pirmann has the Eastern Conference side playing a scintillating game, and as it stands, they sit as favorites to lift the USL Championship title this fall.
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In the Western Conference, it’s a tight race at the top, with FC Tulsa, San Antonio FC, New Mexico United, and Sacramento Republic FC all fighting in the top four, sitting within five points of each other.
In New Mexico, though, a familiar name for those involved in the depths of the U.S. Soccer lens over the past decade is spearheading their attacking run: winger Mukwelle Akale.
Akale, 28, was a teenage star over 10 years back, becoming a breakout player at the youth levels, which earned him a move to the Villareal system in Spain as a teenager. In 2014, he was nominated for U.S. Soccer Young Player of the Year, alongside Christian Pulisic, Haji Wright, Emerson Hyndman, and DeAndre Yedlin – the winner of the award.
In 2014, Akale won MVP at the Copa del Atlantico and the International Tournament of Vaclav Jezek with the U.S. U-18s and was touted to be a star for club and country. Although Akale never developed into the player many thought, he’s found a home in the USL with New Mexico, and is now propelling them towards the race for the Western Conference title.
The 28-year-old Minneapolis native has scored two goals and recorded five assists this season, and leads The Road Warriors in goal contributions this campaign.
