Union Omaha became the first two-time winner of the USL League One title last month with a comprehensive 3-0 victory against Spokane Velocity FC before a rapturous crowd at Werner Park.

It completed a year in which Omaha dominated the regular season and playoffs. According to The USL Show’s Ryan Allen, Los Buhos’ ELO rating graded out as the best in league history, which led us to put the campaign further under the microscope.

With a 15-3-4 record and 48 points during the regular season, Omaha’s campaign wasn’t the most historic season in terms of flashier statistics like wins or goals scored – a reduced 22-game regular season schedule to account for the inaugural USL Jägermeister Cup was a key reason for that – but under the surface, the team’s underlying numbers help support the idea that this may be the best team League One has seen so far.

Minutes per goal

The 2024 season saw Omaha produce the most efficient minutes-to-goals ratio so far in regular season history, with it taking just 42.13 minutes on average for the Owls to score. For reference, the now second-best minutes-per-goal ratio was also held by Omaha for their 2023 campaign, which saw them sit at 47.21 minutes per goal.

Other historic winners such as 2019’s double winner North Texas SC and 2023’s Playoff winner North Carolina FC had rates sitting at 47.55 and 49.66 minutes respectively. Being the only team in 2024 averaging better than a goal per half, Los Buhos’ goalscoring prowess makes it fairly clear how Omaha earned its second League One double after the 2021 campaign.

goal differenTIAL SUCCESS

While 2024 was not the League’s nor Omaha’s best season in terms of goals scored, it was still enough to place them in the top five in a regular season with 47 goals in regular season play. In terms of goals conceded though, Los Buhos only allowed 24 goals, which places them third for fewest goals allowed during a regular seasons with 20+ matches. That adds up to a goal difference of +25, which in itself is nothing short of amazing.

In 2023, Playoff winners North Carolina had a goal difference of +19, and in 2022, eventual Playoff Champion South Georgia Tormenta had a goal difference of just +2 during the regular season. During the 2023 season, Omaha scored 61 goals, which was a record for a Player’s Shield Champion, however that came at the cost of conceding 41 goals of their own in the process. To have been able be able to continue to score goals at a league-leading rate while also tidying up defensively is impressive, as there have been beyond far and few teams to be able to be see success like this on both sides of the pitch.

Points-per-Game Rate

From their 22 regular season contests in 2024, the Owls took 48 points from 66 possible with 15 wins and three ties, which averages out to 2.18 points per game during the regular season. In 2023, Omaha had 19 wins and eight draws from 32 matches played. While equally impressive in terms of willingness, this pans out to 2.03 points per game.

This statistic is tilted in the current Omaha’s favor due to how the 2024 schedule was structured, but at the end of the day they still made the most out of what was in front of them. For reference, North Texas had a points-per-game rate of 2.00 when they lifted the first iteration of the League One Playoffs in 2019, and last year’s winners of North Carolina had a rate of 1.97.

A lack of losses

Although they played fewer total games because of the Jägermeister Cup, Omaha lost just four times during the League One Regular Season and Playoffs together. Outside of the 2020 season, which was cut virtually in half due to COVID-19, Omaha finished with the fewest losses during any club’s League One title-winning season. This means they beat their own record twice for their season finishes in 2021 and 2023, where they lost just five regular season games on the way to their previous Players’ Shield titles. Winning is a part of the Owl’s pedigree.

Looking further down the line, 2019’s League One double-winner Northern Texas had just six losses total in 28 matches. Omaha’s 2024 is all the more impressive considering the team made it to the Jägermeister Cup Semifinals and the Round of 32 in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, where they lost to eventual finalists of both competitions.

Sealing their legacy

Ultimately, Union Omaha as a club has already built a winning legacy with a foundation on complete technical dominance. Los Buhos’ performance across all aspects of the 2024 season has gone a long way to suggesting their current team may be the best that the league has ever seen. With their regular season and playoff double cementing their spot as the first team to win both titles on more than one occasion, League One has become their hunting ground.