Hearts midfielder Michel Poon-Angeron, center, experiences the tight defense played by Forward Madison in Saturday night’s road loss. Photo courtesy of the Portland Hearts of Pine
(Editor’s note: news about Mikey Lopez announcing his retirement just broke. The Hearts’ Beat will be following that story later today too.)
Let’s be real.
The Hearts of Pine’s match against Forward Madison was rather dull. The Mingos won 2-0 on a chilly night in south-central Wisconsin in a contest in which Portland barely threatened to put a ball into the net.
It would be easy to chalk it up to an end-of-season loss for a team going through the motions because it had been eliminated from playoff contention. But a deeper look reveals something else.
Let’s take a look at the match.
Madison is simply clinically excellent at playing stout, in-your-face defense. The third-place Mingos employ a smothering style driven by block-and-tackle physicality and box protection, which left Portland with almost no answers Saturday.
The Mingos have only given up 98 shots on target this season, which is first in USL1 and amounts to a meager 3.2 per game. They also give up the second-fewest in total shots. Accordingly, Madison is tied for the second-fewest saves in the league but is third in the league in save percentage.
Madison ranks high in nearly every defensive volume stat and near the top in fouls:
Tackles: 15.2 per match, fourth
Clearances: 25.0 per match, fourth
Interceptions: 7.5 per match, eighth, roughly middle of the pack
Fouls: 15.5 per match, third most in the league
That’s an aggressive, contact-heavy defense that wins the ball by challenging for it more than by reading passing lanes.
Interestingly, Madison only possesses the ball 50.1% of the time, which is eighth in the league, and ranks 13th in accurate passes per match at 292.1. Both stats are further examples of how the players aren’t defending by keeping the ball away from opponents but instead clogging lanes and marking opponents closely.
Put that all together and it explains why Madison has only conceded 30 goals this season. Having played 31 matches thus far, the 0.97 goals per game average makes the Mingos the only team in USL1 that has given up fewer goals than games played.
Additionally, the Mingos are quite good at defending set pieces. Madison has only allowed 7 set piece goals this season.
When Madison scored its first goal in the fifth minute of the match, it signaled that it would likely be a long night for Portland because the Mingos could focus even further defensively.
Portland nearly scored in the second half when Diego González struck a laser of a free kick from 35 yards that was headed to the far upper corner before goalkeeper JT Harms made an incredible save. It would be the only shot on goal for Portland.
When a Hearts player had a ball on their feet, a Forward Madison defender was sure to be near. Photo courtesy of the Portland Hearts of Pine
For Hearts fans saddened by this season and in search of some encouragement for the future, take a look at what Madison has done in a year.
In 2025, the Mingos finished out of the playoffs in 10th place. The team struggled to score goals (31 for the season) while yielding 43. Now a season later, Madison is in third place and is in position to host at least one playoff match. And it did so with the intention of competing immediately.
Mingos head coach Matt Glaeser, in a Madison365 article published in March, said, “We’re looking at it more as a reload than a rebuild. I think there’s some foundations that we’re pretty confident with just sort of structurally as an organization.”
How did the Mingos do it? By cleaning house, changing out 90% of their roster in a single season.
According to the story: “It’s not always just like the club makes the decision. There’s a lot of times it’s a mutual thing too,” Glaeser said, noting that the club entered discussions with a handful of players from the 2025 squad who were up for new contracts. “I know there’s some guys, for instance, that were on our roster last year that got massive pay rises even within our league.”
Let’s make this clear: The Hearts’ Beat isn’t calling for a complete teardown of the club, or anything like that, and Glaeser himself stated that Madison wanted more of its team back than actually returned. But losing teams need to find answers to fix their squads, and sometimes that means big changes.
There’s another important similarity between these two clubs, as Madison365 reported: Perhaps the most significant change in the offseason was the addition of sporting director Matt Cairns, who has taken over player personnel responsibilities, freeing Glaeser to focus on managing the squad.
“It’s really hard on coaches to have to sign players, because coaches, they’re the ones arguing or negotiating with an agent, and then have to turn around and the player reports, and the coach has to try and get the most out of them,” said Conor Caloia, Forward Madison’s chief operating officer. “It’s really been unfair to Matt Glaeser for the last four years to have to do that.
“For so many years, the League One model is to bring back veteran players, hope they perform better. And it’s kind of a crapshoot. And I think we’re going away from that crapshoot and looking a little more at data and science in trying to build something more long term,” Caloia added.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Portland hired its first sporting director, Ray Saari, in August. Saari became technical director at El Paso Locomotive after it finished last in 2024. The club climbed to fourth in 2025, and it’s in first this year.
We don’t want to go too long in this report, so for our final point, it should be mentioned that Hearts goalkeeper Kash Oladapo played a solid game in his third start of the season.
Oladapo, starting for the first time since July 11, conceded two goals, but one was a penalty kick that he deflected, just not enough to keep it out. On the first goal, Oladapo saved a close-range shot that bounced to Madison’s leading scorer, Ryan Carmichael, who had an open net to shoot into.
Kash Oladapo played a strong game, making several tough saves. Photo courtesy of the Portland Hearts of Pine
Oladapo finished with five saves, several of which were highlight-worthy.
Once again, The Hearts’ Beat is not advocating for a major change. Hunter Morse has had an outstanding season and would be a welcome sight in a Hearts uniform. But it’s possible a USL Championship club might come calling in the hopes of making the free agent its starter.
And if that’s the case, Portland has a solid option in bringing back Oladapo.
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