Next weekend, seven USL League One clubs will take on Championship foes to inaugurate the 2026 edition of the USL Cup. Last year’s tournament saw just one League One club advance to the knockout round, but it was the proof of concept that allowed 26 players to jump up the pyramid this offseason.
We’ll see if the ties between the divisions continue to tighten. In the meantime, Week 7 in League One was full of storylines. Multiple clubs that started slow out of the gates started to get right; at the top of the table, presumed contenders had a difficult weekend. What stood out amidst it all? Let’s dig in.
Are Portland Hearts of Pine back?
Portland hasn’t won a league game since their season opener in early March, and that didn’t change after their 1-1 draw with Naples in Week 7. Bobby Murphy has tried shape changes, mixed up his personnel, and lost star attacker Masashi Wada to a season-ending injury since then, but he got back to basics on Sunday. The results aren’t here yet, but Hearts – who held Naples to just 0.18 xG and looked electric on the break – are finally rounding into form.
Hearts entered the matchweek with an average defensive action height of 37 yards and a passes against per defensive action mark of 16.8, two bottom-of-League One numbers indicative of highly ineffective pressing. That changed over the weekend. Murphy’s classic 4-4-2 press ran back all the tenets that made Portland so exceptional in their expansion campaign, and Naples completed a season-low 72% of their passes.
