Cheat Sheet: Catching up with Vicky Bruce before TST Kicks Off Wednesday; Zaha Leaves Charlotte FC
Also: NC Courage win in Louisville; Independence on 6 match undefeated streak; Charlotte FC end the spring season with a win; Foxes fall in Chattanooga; Crown Legacy lead East
Your Soccer Sheet Cheat Sheet
TST (The Soccer Tournament) kicks off at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary this week with $3 million in prize money - a record for the competition. Soccer Sheet will be providing coverage here and on social media.
In Depth: We caught up with former Carolina Ascent star Vicky Bruce, who will take the pitch for Hope Solo’s Solo FC in both the Women’s and Mixed competitions. Learn more about what she’s been up to below.
The Zaha Era is over. Both Wilfried Zaha and Charlotte FC announced Sunday morning that the former Premier League star will be leaving the club after his loan ends during the World Cup break.
Per Charlotte FC: “Zaha featured 46 times for the Club across MLS league matches and playoffs. The winger scored 13 goals and added 14 assists during his loan spell leaving him 5th all-time in Charlotte FC history with 27 goal contributions.”
Zaha also missed out on making Côte d’Ivoire’s World Cup roster. Interestingly, Zaha was the only Charlotte FC player not to wear a national flag on his kit during Charlotte’s last match.
With Saturday night’s 0-1 victory over #2 Sporting JAX, #3 Carolina Ascent FC are heading to the USL Super League final for the first time in club history.
Mackenzie George, who had three goals for Carolina during the regular season, scored off a give and go play with Riley Parker, who was credited with the assist. Read more about the match here.
The Ascent will face #1 Lexington SC in Kentucky at 7:00 PM on Saturday, May 30 for all the marbles.
The North Carolina Courage (4-3-3, 15 pts) defeated Racing Louisville (2-7-1, 7 pts) 1-2 for both their second away win of the year, and their second win against last place Louisville.
Evelyn Ijeh and Ashley Sanchez both scored for the second time in as many matches.
The Courage improved to 7th place in the NWSL. They have one last match before the World Cup against Angel City FC on Sunday, May 31 at 7:30 PM ET. Then, the Courage are on break until a July 4 home match against Seattle Reign.
After a challenging start to the season, Charlotte FC (6-6-3, 21 pts) beat the 4th place New England Revolution (8-4-1, 25 pts) 1-0 on Saturday, May 23 in the Crown’s final MLS fixture before the World Cup break.
Idan Toklomati scored early off of an assist from Will Cleary, who was making his first start for Charlotte, replacing an injured Nathan Byrne. Cleary also won Man of the Match honors from the club.
The Crown would hold on to their lead for the next 74 minutes despite going down a player. David Schnegg picked up Charlotte’s first (double yellow) red card of the season in the 58th minute, but Charlotte was able to hold on.
The Charlotte Independence (4-2-2, 14 pts) won their third league match in a row, defeating Forward Madison (3-3-1, 10 pts) 3-1 at home at the Matthews Sportsplex. With the win, the Jacks improve to 6th place in League One.
Next week, the Jacks play two away matches - first against Chattanooga Red Wolves SC at 7:00 PM ET on Saturday, May 30; and then against FC Naples at 7:30 PM on Wednesday, June 3.
Their next Cup fixture is at home on June 24 against Greenville Triumph SC.
Crown Legacy FC (7-1-4-2, 27 pts) remained atop MLS NEXT Pro’s Eastern Conference with a shootout loss against New England Revolution II (5-2-4-3, 22 pts). The final score was 2-2, (3-4); Ashton Kamdem and Andrew Johnson (assisted by Nathan Richmond) scored for Legacy.
Here’s how the Penalty Shootout sorted out:
New England (Goalkeeper: Donovan Parisian)
✅ Jacob Shannon
✅ Aarin Prajapati
✅ Javaun Mussenden
✅ Sharod George
❌ Myles Morgan
Crown Legacy (Goalkeeper: Isaac Walker)
✅ Erik Peña
✅ Andrew Johnson
✅ Nathan Richmond
❌ Adrian Mendoza
❌ Daniel Longo
The Legacy are back home on Friday, June 5 at 7:00 PM, when they’ll host 8th place Philadelphia Union II (5-4-2-1, 18 pts) at the Sportsplex.
Carolina Core FC (1-6-4-1, 8 pts) fell to 6th place Chattanooga FC (6-4-1-0, 19 pts) with a 1-0 loss on Sunday, May 24. They host 2nd place Red Bull New York II (7-2-2-0, 23 pts) at 6:00 PM on Saturday, May 30 in High Point.
Speaking of the Core, the Carolina Core FC academy U15 squad made it to the Round of 16 in the MLS NEXT Cup, but fell to FC Delco 3-1 yesterday.
In Depth: Catching Up With Vicky Bruce
As co-captain for the Carolina Ascent in the team’s inaugural year, Vicky Bruce scored the first goal in USL Super League history and was named to the league’s Team of the Month twice. However, she picked up an injury that kept her on the bench for most of the second half of the season, and decided to step away from professional soccer to focus on her health.
This week, Bruce is back and playing for a total of $2 million at TST (The Soccer Tournament) in Cary, NC. She’ll join Hope Solo’s Solo FC in both the Women’s and Mixed competitions. She’ll take the pitch for the first time in the Women’s competition on Thursday, May 28 at 6:30 PM; all matches will be streamed on TST’s YouTube channel.
Audio of our interview with Bruce and a complete transcript are below.
Soccer Sheet’s Interview with Vicky Bruce
The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Soccer Sheet: Hey, everybody, this is Sam Spencer with Soccer Sheet, and we’re talking today with Vicky Bruce, who will forever be known as the first player to score a goal in the USL Super League, as well as being one of the co-captains last year for the Carolina Ascent. And now, joining Solo FC and former US Women’s National Team goalkeeper Hope Solo at the TST Tournament in Cary this week. Vicky, how are you doing?
Vicky Bruce: Hey Sam, I’m good. Thanks for having me.
SS: Thank you so much for talking with us today. So, first up, how did, how have things been going after taking a break from soccer?
VB: Things have been good. Initially, I had a bit of a stress fracture on my foot, so I was just healing that and spending time with family and friends, and getting back into a good headspace, and I actually proposed to my fiancée, so not some exciting things in the fall, and then I started playing soccer again, because how can you not?
I’m obsessed with it and ever since then, I’ve been doing some part time work, some one on one training, some coaching, and I’ve actually been playing 11v11, every Sunday for a while, and I’ve also been doing 7v7 on 3 different teams, 3 different nights of the week, so staying extra busy, but loving getting to play for fun and not necessarily being a defender anymore. I’m a defender forward just helping out and playing co-ed and making all these new friends in my new home. It’s awesome.
SS: Congratulations on the engagement. Was it a post engagement trip you were on when you got stuck in the Middle East earlier this year?
VB: No, it was not, we went on a post engagement trip to Disney World, and then she ended up proposing to me like a month or so after that, and then it was kind of the holidays, so just hectic, and then in the new year is when I decided to go on a trip to the Middle East to visit my buddy Lindsey Harris, who I played with at Chapel Hill, and she’s actually the goalie on the [US Women] at TST and they’ve won the last two years. She’s one of my best friends and she’s actually how I got connected to get into TST.
SS: So how did how did it come together, you being on Solo FC?
VB: I visited this friend Lindsey. She’s playing in Saudi Arabia professionally, and I figured, when am I ever gonna have a place to stay for free in the Middle East? And she was one of my good friends, so she had a international break coming up in her schedule, and we organized it to where I could go visit, and we could see a couple countries while you’re there, because it’s such a far trip. You wanna explore and do as much as you can. And she’s now been there for a few years, so she knows the ins and outs of what’s good to see, what’s good to visit. The tourist stuff.
So we plan this whole trip and I got there and had a blast and the whole time, as we’re sightseeing, I was picking her brain about how to get included in TST and some things just ended up working out great. She had a friend that she connected me to, and that person knew Hope. So it’s all through friends or friends. And then someone else had actually reached out wanting me to be on their mixed team. So it’s kind of like, you have nothing and you’re hoping all these months, it was my dream to get in the tournament and then all of a sudden I had like multiple potential avenues and it was freaking amazing. I was like, “Oh my god!” … but then of course I got stuck in Dubai.
The war broke out the day I was trying to leave to get back home, so that was not ideal. But when eventually I did get home, several weeks later, I got the call from Hope and she said she’s heard about me and and would love to have me join the team and I was honored to speak to her and then I ended up actually joining both her women’s team and her mixed team. So very excited.
SS: Hope is also calling North Carolina home now.
VB: Yeah. I don’t know where she lives exactly, but I think she’s been here for a while and and hopefully she loves it as much as I do.
SS: So when you were stuck in the Middle East, how did you make do? Were you scared at all? What was going on in your head?
VB: Yeah, it was it was definitely more mentally confusing and frustrating than it was necessarily physically. So out of the three countries I went to — I went to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and spent some time in Dubai — and Dubai of those three places was actually really, really safe.
The UAE has very good missile protections and they take care of their citizens really well and they weren’t necessarily actively exercising Ramadan, which the other countries were. So it was on top of that, during Ramadan, you can’t really eat in public, and you’re supposed to be more covered up. So it was nice that by the time this happened, I was in Dubai, so I was able to go out, grab food, do more normal stuff.
But yeah, it was definitely … disheartening, I would say is the word. Cause every single day I got my hopes up of, “maybe I can get out,” and then I was staying right at the airport with my, my friend. She was trying to get back to Saudi Arabia. She ended up getting back a few days before I did, but luckily we had each other. We didn’t really feel super unsafe in the sense of, you know, we weren’t worried like our building was gonna get bombed, but it was definitely alarming to wake up to sounds in the middle of the night. You know, your alarm going off on your phone saying take cover, seek shelter, and it’s like a piercing scream that kind of makes your heart race for a while, and every day we’d wake up and look at the airport, and we’d see ambulance cars — like 30 or 40 of them — wondering what’s going on.
And we have to rely on the news to get our information and then the local news was telling us different stuff than the US news and social media. So it was so confusing, and you didn’t really know what to believe. Some people are saying, “oh, it’s just a few hours. The airlines are going to open up tomorrow,” this or that. So every day you’re waiting and then you’re just let down again. Then the US, they were showing places getting bombed all the time, and while that did happen, it wasn’t necessarily near where I was. So, ultimately, I really struggled. My buddy was okay because she’d been there for a while and was like, “look, I trust them. They’re safe and don’t worry too much.” And I just didn’t know. I didn’t like the unknown and I didn’t know when I was going to get back to my family and friends, and I had trips planned and all these things to look forward to.
So I was a little bit more scared and the only way I stayed sane was working out just like a ton. I didn’t really want to leave the hotel much, so I just went to the gym upstairs a lot.
SS: I’m glad you made it home in one piece because that definitely sounds like a harrowing experience, but now you get to play soccer again. So what are you looking forward to at TST?
VB: I’m looking forward to everything. I mean, obviously the $1 million prize would be amazing if we could come away with that, but also just to be in that professional environment again. I’ve been playing for fun now for quite a while, and I love it, and I love the friends I’ve made, but you know, it’s gonna be a little bit different when you’re fighting for something super important, as well as with all these people that are other professionals, very good college players. It’s just gonna be such intense high tempo soccer again, and really looking forward to putting on a jersey again that says my name, and little things like that, my little pregame routines, stuff that I haven’t really gotten to do in the last year or so.
And connections and making new friends. I mean soccer just brings everyone together.
SS: Are there any superstitions in those pregame routines, like anything you’re willing to share?
VB: Well, I used to have a ton of superstitions, but the thing is, now that these are 7v7 games, they’re a little bit shorter, and I’m gonna have so many in a day, it’s gonna be more of like, how to just find that perfect balance. My prep is crazy.
I brought my Normatecs [for compression therapy]. I brought my massage gun. I bought a bunch of recovery drinks, protein shakes, anything you could think of. My fiancée actually made me a crumb cake, my aunt’s homemade crumb cake, because that is what she made for me the night before the first USL Super League game, and obviously I had the best night of my life in that game. So we are hoping it’s gonna bring me good luck. So I’m gonna have a piece of that every single night before the next morning as my superstition. Other than that, I’m pretty much just gonna stay hydrated and take care of my body as good as I possibly can.
SS: I know you and your family are still very connected to the Ascent. The Ascent are, of course, in the USL Super League final for the first time. What’s the feeling there? Have you have you gotten to talk to any of your old teammates? Are they excited?
VB: Yeah, they’re definitely very excited, I believe they ended in third, and obviously, that’s still very good, but I think they want more out of it, so they’re really excited to have this second chance to win the tournament, and to show that they really have been dominating.
SS: With TST going to a women’s league and a mixed league, and with the Ascent regularly getting some of some of the highest soccer attendances in the state, what do you think of the state of women’s soccer in the United States and across the world right now?
VB: Oh, it’s incredible. I’m also dabbling, some of my part-time work is commentating, and it’s been so great when I’ve done a few women’s games, a Super League or NWSL to just see the fans, and how much support women’s sports are getting all together, basketball, lacrosse, like any any sport, but especially soccer, they’ve really stepped up. There’s expansion sides all around, and it’s just so nice that we’re finally getting the attention that we deserve and respect.
SS: Anything else fans should know is they look forward to seeing you play at TST?
VB: Just to cheer us on and tell them that they’re free to send me messages or words of encouragement. I’ll do my best to reply because at this point I’m just so nervous and excited. It’ll be good to just know that even if it’s one person cheering me on, it’ll really help me get through.
SS: And for our fellow Davidson alums out there, you’ve got to send those messages, support a fellow Wildcat. Come on!
VB: Oh yeah, come on Wildcats, it’s a great day to be Wildcat all the time and my ten year reunion actually is this summer, right when I get back. It’s the week I get back, so hopefully, some of the Wildcats will get together and and cheer on a fellow Davidsonian.
SS: Oh God, my 20th is next year. Don’t remind me.
VB: I know I was like 10. Oh my God, how old am I?
SS: Vicky, thank you so much for the time today, wishing you the best of luck at TST and hope to see you and Hope bring home some gold and maybe a million dollars.
VB: Thank you so much. I hope so too.