There’s no more room for error.

With seven games left in the 2025 USL Championship season, Birmingham Legion are on the outside looking in. And with back-to-back games against two of the other teams currently below the playoff line, the Three Sparks face a make-or-break week.

In the span of just five days, Birmingham (11th, 22pts) will host the Tampa Bay Rowdies (10th, 22pts) and travel to Indy Eleven (9th, 26pts). All three sides are vying for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, currently occupied by Rhode Island with 27 points.

“It’s a position we’ve put ourselves in,” Mark Briggs said. “The magnitude of the game is huge. We’ve got to be able to perform under those restraints, under those pressures. That’s just the way it is.

“It’s what we’re faced with, and we’ve got to overcome it,” he continued. “We’ve got to step up and we’ve got to produce a performance that’s worthy of three points.”

Birmingham enjoyed a bye week at the weekend and will hope to have ironed out some issues the team has faced in recent outings. Though three consecutive draws — the longest such run in club history — mean they’re undefeated in their last three, the Black and Gold have also failed to register a league win since July 11, over two months ago.

They currently have the lowest number of wins in the USL Championship (4), but will need all three points against Tampa to maintain a shot at the postseason.

“Every game means a lot,” Phanuel Kavita said. “But this one, right now… It’s just one game at a time, and this one means everything. This Wednesday game means everything for our season, to keep it alive.”

The Rowdies come into the game in similarly poor form as Legion, though they do boast one win in their last five. Two of those other games were losses, however, with the last two ending as draws.

Indy Eleven, Birmingham’s Sunday opponent, are in a slightly richer vein of form. Though back-to-back losses have hurt the morale up North, Indy had won two of the three games prior to that downturn. They only dipped beneath the playoff line following their latest result, a 1-0 loss to Rhode Island at the weekend.

Wednesday’s game will be the second time Birmingham face Tampa this season, with the first coming in Mark Briggs‘ very first game at the helm. A 2-2 draw that should have been a win was the result in Florida, but with a system change, multiple new players through the door and a coaching change for Tampa, Briggs said that game will have very little bearing on this week’s matchup.

“We’ve got to go after the game, be on the front foot and make sure we do everything in our power to get the points here in Birmingham,” Briggs said. “[Last time] is another game we should have won, we were 2-1 up with 90 seconds to go. … We’ve just got to go and do everything we can to win now.”

Wednesday’s game, scheduled well before the club knew how crucial it would be to the season, will see Legion host its first ever “Education Day” encounter. As a result, kick-off will take place at the unusual time of 11:30 a.m.

For players, that means changing a pre-game routine usually designed for evening outings.

“It changes everything,” Briggs said. “It’s difficult. Your pre-game meal changes. Do you have breakfast? Do you have pre-game? You wake up earlier than you normally would. It changes everything.

“So we’ve got to make sure the guys understand that,” he continued. “We’ve got to make sure the guys know what’s important in that process and make sure we tick all those boxes so that at 11:30, we’re ready to go.”

Kavita said he was relishing the experience as there would be less time spent waiting around for the game to arrive. Instead, he will be able to wake up and get straight into game mode.

And to put all the chances on their side, Birmingham have tweaked their training schedule in recent days. The Three Sparks usually take to the practice field between 9 and 10 a.m., but the last few sessions have seen them begin at 10:45 a.m., the same time warmup will start at Protective Stadium on Wednesday.

“We’ve been training game time, so we’re trying to prepare ourselves mentally for it,” Peter-Lee Vassell said. “The sun is going to be hot so we have to hydrate, but football doesn’t matter the time. We just go out there and do what we need to do.”

Vassell is the latest addition to a list of recent signings that also include the likes of Amir Daley and Jackson Travis in the wingback slots. After making a premature start to his Legion career against FC Tulsa, coming on 24 minutes into the game for the injured Samuel Shashoua, Vassell will likely be called back into action this week.

The Jamaican international said he is settling in well and hopes to bring leadership and goalscoring contributions to the team. With multiple players, such as Shashoua, touch-and-go for this week’s double slate, he could find himself playing a lot of minutes after being away from the game prior to joining Legion on trial last month.

“No matter when the coach calls, you have to be ready,” Vassell said. “That’s preparation for me. I’m always preparing and ready for any moment of the game that the coach calls on me.”

New injuries will be offset by other players returning, with both Dawson McCartney and Maliek Howell back in practice following recent layoffs. Kavita and Ramiz Hamouda are also back following international duty, with the former earning his first competitive caps for the Rwanda national team in World Cup qualifiers with Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

After facing off with the likes of Victor Osimhen, Alex Iwobi and Ademola Lookman — all household names not just in Africa but also on the European continent where they ply their trade — Kavita said he returned to the Magic City with extra confidence. He now hopes to infuse some of that into his teammates as they look to turn their season around.

“Coming back and seeing what the guys have been doing all week, watching the level of focus that the players and the coaches have on Wednesday’s game means everything,” Kavita said. “We need that type of focus for 90+ minutes, and you can see it on the field and especially during the training sessions.”

Birmingham Legion begin their make-or-break week against Tampa Bay Rowdies at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Protective Stadium. They then travel to Indianapolis to take on Indy Eleven at 4 p.m. Sunday.

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