Hearts of Pine face pivotal week to reverse struggles
It's been a season of tough knocks for the Portland Hearts of Pine and players like Aboubacar Camara. Portland has allowed the third-most goals in USL League One and is currently well off the playoff pace. (Libby Kamrowski Kenny/Staff Photographer)
PORTLAND — It’s not quite now or never for the Portland Hearts of Pine.
But it is close.
“Mathematically that’s what it’s coming down to,” said Hearts midfielder Michel Poon-Angeron. “You look at the number of games we have left and look at the points on the board and at some point the table’s got to turn for us to end up in postseason.”
The Hearts of Pine begins a three-game week Sunday against red-hot Forward Madison at Fitzpatrick Stadium in desperate need of a win.
Poon-Angeron said Sunday is the time to “just go fearless and really try to make the game swing in our favor and use momentum to really try to get points.”
With 13 USL League One matches remaining, Portland (5-8-6) is in 11th place, three spots and seven points off the playoff pace. The Hearts haven’t won a match since July 3, going 0-4-3 overall, 0-3-1 in USL1 action, since winning at FC Naples.
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Center back Kemali Green said the club can’t deny what has happened thus far. Instead, it needs to change the narrative.
“The results show who we are,” Green said after a training session Friday at Fitzpatrick Stadium. “But obviously there’s no heads dropping, no giving up. We’ve just got to change that game by game and that starts Sunday.”
Forward Madison (11-5-3) is in third place in the 17-team league.
Portland then plays at fourth-place One Knoxville (11-5-3) on Wednesday and at the lowly Richmond Kickers (16th place, 5-11-3) on Saturday.
Leading scorer Ollie Wright (7 goals, 7 assists overall; 5 and 6 in USL1) downplayed the need for urgency. His approach, he said, “is that it’s never too late until it is,” and believes the club has the ability to put a multi-game winning streak together, “and that’s hopefully starting this weekend.”
Hearts of Pine fans do their iconic “Heart Beat of the Pine” chant prior to a friendly against at CT United on Aug. 5 at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)
After its busy week, Portland will play six of its final 10 matches at home. Considering the Hearts sell out every game and are averaging about 6,200 energetic fans at 5,500-seat Fitzpatrick Stadium that should be a slight advantage. Portland is 3-3-3 in USL1 matches at Fitzy, including a 2-0 loss to Corpus Christi in its most recent game.
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The most glaring reason for Portland’s struggles is a defense that hasn’t posted a shutout since tying Knoxville, 0-0, in the home opener on April 11, and has allowed a third-worst 33 goals in league play. Only last-place New York Cosmos (40) and Richmond (35) have conceded more goals.
The defensive lineup has been ever-changing in 2026, starting with the preseason departure of all-USL1 left back Nathan Messer to USL Championship squad Charleston Battery. Nine players have seen time at outside fullback, including midfielder Mikey Lopez and since-released Adam Armour and Ernest Mensah Jr. Green leads the team in appearances and minutes but his center back pairing has alternated all season between Brecc Evans (17 starts) and Serigne Mbacke Faye (11 starts), with Evans occasionally at outside back and Green seeing some time at the midfield.
“We understand where we are right now and we’ve just got to be better,” Green said.
Especially damaging has been Portland’s inability to close out games. Portland has lost leads in six league games. Three of those times it gave up another goal and lost the game. That’s 15 potential points squandered and most are because the Hearts have allowed seven goals in the 87th minute or later.
According to soccerstats.com, Portland has conceded an equalizing goal 64.3% of the time after taking a lead. The USL1 average is 38.5%.
“A lot of our results that haven’t gone our way. It’s been last-minute things or set piece (goals). As frustrating as that is to be on the end of, it’s weirdly enough an indicator that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Wright said. “We’re a couple things away from being perfect.”
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Or, as Hearts coach Bobby Murphy said, he’s waiting for the breaks to “regress toward the mean,” and getting a few more odd bounces and officials’ judgement calls going in the Hearts’ favor.
Help on the way?
Portland added two intriguing players this week, both of whom are expected to play on Sunday: Felipe Rodriguez Gentile, a 19-year-old Argentinian forward from England and Eiji Hata, 23, a Japanese defender who was with Houston Dynamo 2 in MLS Next Pro.
Gentile had his first practice session Friday, which he capped by shucking and eating several fresh oysters the club supplied.
“A 12-year-old showed me how to open them,” Gentile joked, referring to one of the several dozen youth campers who attended the practice session at Fitzpatrick Stadium. Gentile is a 5-foot-10 (maybe) forward who grew up in Argentina, was born in Brazil, has grandfathers from both Italy and Spain, and spent most of the past six years in Liverpool, England, playing for Preston North End’s youth teams. Preston North End plays in EFL Championship, the league just below the Premier League.
Gentile dressed for a few Championship matches but did not play at that level. He most recently went to AFC Fylde on loan, scoring seven goals with five assists in 18 matches to help Fylde earn promotion to the fifth-tier National League for the 2026-27 season.
Hata appeared in eight matches for Dynamo 2 this season but has not played since early June. He is a former Seattle University teammate of Hearts players Mo Mohamed and injured forward Titus Washington.
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Tagged: Hearts of Pine
Steve Craig reports primarily about Maine’s active high school sports scene and, more recently, the Portland Hearts of Pine men's professional soccer team. His first newspaper job was covering Maine. More by Steve Craig
