Part of what makes the USL Championship such a fun, baffling league is the sense of parity. That’s true on a team level, given the third- and 24th-placed clubs in the league are separated by merely 11 points. But dig into the players that make the difference in a given week, and you’ll find something similar.
Of all the players to score this weekend, just two appeared on Backheeled’s USL Top 50 list. Both, Rafa Mentzingen and Jack Blake, faced off in the same match on Friday night. In other words, almost every result in Week 20 was defined by the supporting casts and the decisions that managers from across the Championship made to maximize those players.
Who stood out amidst it all, and what does that mean in terms of the power rankings? Let’s dig in.
John Morrissey
1. Charleston Battery
Trending: No change
Result: 3-0 win v. Miami
Few teams are as malleable as Charleston. Ben Pirmann has a clear system, but his players are smart enough to adapt once they find their footing in a match. That was true this weekend against Miami, a team that shut down the Battery barely a month ago.
This time around, Ben Pirmann gave Rubio Rubin a start as his second striker and allowed the Guatemalan international’s gravity to draw out Miami. The visitors decided to invert their fullbacks, and those players could get mixed up if asked to mark a Charleston player making an interior run. If Rubin, then, could time his movement well enough and pin the center backs, the Juan David Torres types could do lethal damage in zone 14.
THREE for the home team!@aartur98 caps off a beautiful team move for the @Chas_Battery 😎 pic.twitter.com/7VtlqA1MCw
— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) July 20, 2025
Likewise, the Battery proved opportunistic on the break. Miami tended to shift into a possessive back three by tucking their right back into the midfield, meaning that their flank was open in transition. Arturo Rodriguez smartly recognized the chance to do damage there, knowing just when to press the issue or to slow down and allow an overlapping Nate DosSantos to get involved. Every bit of the offense felt fine-tuned.
