West Ham are continuing their pre-season tour of the USA with a match against Carolina Railhawks in Cary, North Carolina. The Hammers will hope to put out a better showing than they did in their 3-0 loss to Seattle.
However many West Hams are unlikely to have heard that much about their opponents, so we thought we’d do a small profile on our American opposition
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What League do they play in?
The Railhawks play in the North American Soccer League (NASL), one rank below the MLS. The league is played in two halves, and the season is currently 2 games into the “Fall” section of the season. Railhawks finished 7th in the league over the Spring and have lost one match and won one since the restart.
Where do they play?
WakeMed Soccer Park, which has a capacity of 10,000. Carolina regularly get an attendance of around 5,000 for refular season matches, but they will be hoping for more when playing the illustrious opponents that West Ham are…
Who’s their manager?
Their coach is former Northern Ireland striker Colin Clarke who made 38 appearances for his country, scoring 13 goals. One of these was scored at the 1986 World Cup against Spain and in 1991 he became the first Northern Ireland player to score an international hat-trick since George Best with 3 goals against the Faroe Islands.
Despite his playing career taking place entirely in the UK, for teams including Ipswich, Bournmouth and Southampton, Clarke has never managed outside of the North American continent. His only spell managing a non US league team was with the Puerto Rico national side, where he earned the nickname “The General”.
He has been managing the Carolina Railhawks since 2011 when the new version of the NASL commenced.
Who’s their star player?
As the clubs top scorer with three goals and a league leading 6 assists, Nazmi Albadawi is the man to look out for in tonight’s match. He has played solely for the Railhawks since he graduated from North Carolina state, where he was spotted by the club and turned out for their U-23 side.
Being a local favourite the fans love his style of play, as he is also the league leader in chances created, with 27 in 12 games as well as 22 shots.
Any other players to look out for?
Goalkeeper Akira Fitzgerald is also a decent player for the standard that Carolina Railhawks play at, with 29 saves and 3 cleans sheets so far this season. His goals conceded stat has taken a bit of a hit in the last few games, as you will see below.
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Recent form
INDY ELEVEN 4 – 1 CAROLINA RAILHAWKS
MINNESOTA UNITED FC 5 – 1 CAROLINA RAILHAWKS
CAROLINA RAILHAWKS 4 – 1 TAMPA BAY ROWDIES
So West Ham are facing a team of lower quality that have taken some hidings in recent weeks. Should be fine…right?
Bilic will be looking for a little more cohesion than we saw against Seattle, but he will be buoyed by the few decent individual performances there were there and be looking to build on that.