Strikers the world over, whether MD Myers or Harry Kane, have to come up with little mental tricks for when the goals aren’t going in. When your job is to score, to put numbers up on the board, you have to find a way to help your team when the goals dry up (because they do). For Myers, the secret is hard work. Grind. It’s his foundational bedrock. “Work hard every day, put in a little extra every day, that’s where confidence comes from and that’s how you can dig out of a slump or just keep up consistency,” he said. “The most important thing is being able to turn up week in and week out.”
It’s a recipe that works. “When MD plays, we just have a high energy in this team,” said Pirmann, who admits to his Battery side “not being the same team” in the five weeks Myers was out with injury.
All of this is made more impressive by the fact that the Battery are a far different team this year than they were in 2024, when they reached the USL Championship Conference Final Playoff after a dominant run in the regular season. The loss of league top scorer Nick Markanich, who was crowned league MVP before he moved on to CD Castellon in Spain, could have put another club – one without the firm belief in the power of the unit over the individual – out for a year of rebuilding and disappointment.
“It’s two years in a row now that we’ve sold our best player, at least on paper (it was Augi Williams in 2023),” said Pirmann, who brought in league veteran Cal Jennings to partner Myers, and fill, in part, the gap left by Markanich’s departure. It opens up the possibility of playing with two out-and-out strikers. It also led the Battery to wins in four of their first six league games – and a spot in the Open Cup’s Round of 32 where, for a second year running, they’ll square off with a team from Major League Soccer.
