2025 season has seen a lot of firsts for Loudoun United; first wins at five different away venues, first wins ever against two opponents, and the team’s first playoff appearance. And with the ups come the eventual downs, and Saturday saw the team’s first exit from said playoffs, falling to North Carolina FC by the same 1-0 scoreline they suffered a week before at Segra Field to the same NCFC club. With that, here are the highlights:

On the game. Well, the gameplan for Ryan Martin was to try and get Omari Glasgow and his speed on the outside to try and pick on 18-year-old Finn Sundstrom in the hopes of freeing things up inside so Riley Bidois could get to a ball, similar to the goal that led to Loudoun beating Detroit several weeks back for the clincher. And generally that worked well; Glasgow was 2nd on the team in created chances behind Abdellatif Aboukoura.

What kind of led to early gritted teeth was the NCFC goal, coming off a turnover by Kwame Awuah, Oalex Anderson countered and fired a shot on the short side which, while Ryan Jack may have left a little open space, did come off a deflection and such, was the difference. NCFC could consolidate in back (doing so well with former Loudoun player Bryce Washington and USL vet Conor Donovan), leaving Loudoun trying to throw things at the wall and hope that they’d stick.

When Washington went out to concussion protocol, that’s when Loudoun was able to turn things up, but as you can see from the Gameflow and the highlights above, the best chance after he went out, was Anderson outrunning and outmuscling Cole Turner, leading to a shot off the crossbar. Loudoun kept knocking on the door, but couldn’t get in. At least they died with their boots on.

What’s next for Loudoun? Supposedly a whole bunch; presumably, news about Ryan Martin’s dismissal (reported back in August) will be made official; my thoughts on it remain unchanged from the initial report, and I presume that Attain Sports Managing Partner Greg Baroni’s presence at WakeMed Saturday night is slightly related to it.

Then you have the matter of roster decisions; the impact of this roster envisioning can be felt as Loudoun’s all-time leader in shutouts (Hugo Fauroux, 17), assists (Florian Valot, 11), and a guy who logged the second highest assist number in a season for the team (Ben Mines, 7), have contracts that expire at the end of the year, along with Tommy McCabe, Drew Skundrich, Yanis Leerman and Keegan Tingey. That’s 6 of your Top 7 highest minutes played on your team able to leave on their own, and you’ve apparently already told your coach and personnel boss to leave as well. Not a great position for the team to be in, hopefully scouting chief Alen Marcina has the list ready to go, presuming that things go well for the League.

Wait, what does that mean? Oh, you didn’t hear? The USL’s CBA expires at the end of the year, and talks have been exasperating at times, to the point where the USLPA Director Connor Tobin has addressed this in a couple of interviews that, if you have an hour for both, I highly recommend.

In those, Tobin gets into the mechanisms for the USL and the sticking points, things like employer-paid insurance and a consistent player experience are chief among them, along with player working conditions (*cough, Segra Field, cough cough).

The USL has made goodwill gestures on things like multiple professional women’s league, a developmental league, and with the addition of their own Division I Men’s League to compete in the future, the enticement of promotion and relegation with it. Tobin’s point that he makes in both of those interviews is valid, in that while they are making these announcements, that is going to impact the players in some way, and protecting them from degradation in their environment if their team drops is valid. The sides are talking, and the clock is ticking.

Finally, here’s the last word by Ryan Martin:

“When you’re trying to break teams down, be proactive and try to create chances, it takes a lot of time and effort and a lot of quality, and that’s why it’s a lot easier to destroy than create. (But) hats off to the guys, we fought to the end, we had some big chances. You’ve gotta execute and score your goals, they did and we didn’t, and that’s the reality of the game. But I’m incredibly proud of the guys, it was an incredible effort and an incredible journey.”