Sarasota Crushes Greenville 6-0
Triumph's playoff hopes take major setback in Sunshine State
The Greenville Triumph’s slim playoff hopes took another major setback as the Sarasota Paradise claimed a dominant 6-0 win Saturday night in USL League One action. While not officially eliminated, the Triumph need to win all their remaining six matches and get some major help from the teams ahead of them in the table to claim a playoff spot.
The two teams had played to a 1-1 draw earlier this summer in the Upstate but Paradise made no mistake in the second meeting as they dominated whistle to whistle.
After a 45-minute weather delay postponed the start of the match, Sarasota opened the goal-scoring floodgates on the visiting Triumph early in the match.
Sarasota scored their first goal in the 4th minute as Anderson Rosa was slipped a ball wide left of the goal where he fired a low shot past the scrambling Greenville keeper Amal Knight for the early 1-0 lead.
Greenville forced a save off a long-range shot in the 6th minute but conceded the second goal in the 13th minute as Knight made the save on the initial shot but saw Brendan Krueger pounce on the rebound clipping the ball up and over Knight still recovering from the first save.
Sarasota pressed their advantage and scored their third goal off a long-range effort from the left flank at the top of the box. Romian Gall dribbled inside at the top of the box getting some separation from his mark to then rifle the ball into the back post for the commanding lead. Not content with this lead at the half, Sarasota scored again at the 45+3 minute mark as Sander Roed headed in a cross from the right flank to extend the host’s lead at the break.
Sarasota kept their foot on the gas to open the second half and pumped in two more goals in the opening 15 minutes of the half to make sure Greenville never found a way back into the match. Jonathan Bolanos scored a long-range goal as the Triumph defenders gave him too much time and space at the top of the box in the 54th minute before Roed secured his brace in the 59th minute timing his run to perfection to collect a through ball and dink it up and over the onrushing Knight and into the empty Greenville net.
Greenville forced four saves from Sarasota’s Alex Sutton but couldn’t solve the Paradise keeper and left the scoreboard empty on the visitor’s side.
Greenville remains near the foot of the USL League One table on 23 points (6W-15L-5T) and now fourteen points out of the final playoff spot. The second-half-of-the-season surge needed from the Triumph to make the playoffs hasn’t been consistent and with just six regular-season matches to play, the points just aren’t there for the Triumph to make the postseason in 2026.
Three home matches versus Omaha (9/26), Spokane (10/14) and Charlotte (10/17) as well as road matches at Boise (10/3), Alta Vista (10/10), and Richmond (10/24) remain on the schedule.
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