Published for Carolina Core FC fans — October 2026
By Toxlay Sports Editorial Team · Last updated October 23, 2026
🦊 Carolina Core FC Fans — Your Foxes Hunt Alone, and That’s the Point!
No MLS giant behind them, no reserve-team safety net — just High Point’s own independent club, a first playoff run in 2025 and a squad that refused to roll over in 2026. Claret shirts, green trim, full voice — this is the season to wear the Foxes’ colors.
The Club
Carolina Core Football Club is the independent dream made real in the North Carolina Triad. MLS NEXT Pro announced the club on November 10, 2022 — not as an MLS reserve side, but as a fully independent team — and the Foxes began play in 2024. The nickname comes straight from the crest: the red fox at its center stands for a clever, adaptable predator, the sunset behind it for renewal, and the mountains for strength and stability. Even the palette is pure North Carolina — teal for the Blue Ridge Mountains, green for the trees, sunset yellow and orange, and red for the clay soil under High Point’s feet.
Home is Truist Point, a $38 million stadium in High Point’s revitalized downtown, renovated to hold 5,000 fans and loud enough to feel twice that size. The project is fronted on the sporting side by a hometown hero: Chief Sporting Officer Eddie Pope, the High Point native, U.S. national team defender and Hall of Famer who has championed professional soccer in his own backyard from day one. Owners Megan Oglesby, Matt Penley and Mark Penley built the club; Pope gives it its football soul.
The dugout has already seen three eras. Roy Lassiter, the inaugural coach, was relieved after the first season. Donovan Ricketts delivered the club’s first playoff berth — then, on May 26, 2026, a mid-season sporting reorganization handed the team to Jake Davis, whose draw-specialist Foxes became one of the hardest sides in the East to finish off. In a league of 30 clubs, Carolina are one of only three independents, alongside Chattanooga FC and CT United FC — every budget smaller, every result earned the hard way.
And then there is the shirt. Ask anyone searching for the Carolina Core FC jersey in 2026 and they describe the same thing: a claret Hummel shirt with a tonal checkerboard woven through the body, a dark green polo collar, the little white fox sitting on the chest and GO-FORTH HOME SERVICES across the front. Carolina were the first MLS NEXT Pro club ever to sign with Hummel Pro North America — and the look is like nothing else in the league.
⭐ FAN FAVORITE
#26 Tattevin — Carolina Core FC Style Jersey
$59.99
The 12-goal fox. Tattevin’s No. 26 on the claret checkerboard shirt with the dark green collar — a fan-inspired Carolina Core FC style jersey from the Foxes’ fighting 2026 season.
Last Season (2025): The First Playoff Night
Year two delivered the milestone year one had just missed. Donovan Ricketts’ Foxes finished 8th in the Eastern Conference — 28 matches, eight wins, ten draws and ten defeats, 42 goals scored and 39 points — and held on to the East’s final seed to reach the playoffs for the first time in club history. In MLS NEXT Pro, those drawn games are settled by shootouts, and Carolina split theirs five and five: a team that was never easy to beat, learning to survive October.
The postseason lasted one night. On October 19, 2025, the Foxes traveled to the No. 1 seed, New York Red Bulls II, and lost 5–1 at MSU Soccer Park — Glory Nzingo’s 83rd-minute goal a consolation on a hard education. The U.S. Open Cup run ended a round earlier in the spring, too: a 4–2 home win over Soda City FC, Joshua Rodriguez scoring twice, then a 2–1 extra-time defeat away to Charlotte Independence. Through it all, Argentine forward Facundo Canete led the team with nine league goals. The direction, for a second-year independent club, was unmistakably up.
Best Players Right Now
Arnaud Tattevin — #26, forward. The Foxes’ top scorer by a distance: 12 league goals in 2026, more than double any teammate, and the club’s standout performer all season. The Central African Republic international — formerly of Rennes B, Paris FC, Avranches and Borgo — owns the single best attacking night by a Carolina player this year: a hat-trick in 55 minutes away at Atlanta United 2 in July. When the Foxes need a goal, the whole stadium looks for No. 26.
Thomas Raimbault — #20, midfielder/forward. The creative hub. The New Zealander scored five goals and posted the team’s highest assists total in 2026, knitting together a midfield that rarely had the ball for long but always knew what to do with it. His 47th-minute goal at Crown Legacy in September lit the fuse on the derby comeback that defined the run-in.
David Díaz — #58, midfielder. The third prong of the attack: four league goals, the third-highest total on the roster, as an ever-present in the Foxes’ midfield. Díaz does the running that lets Tattevin hunt and Raimbault create — the engine room of a team built to punch above its weight.
Nick Holliday — #1, goalkeeper. On loan from Crown Legacy FC — yes, the derby rivals — Holliday posted a 1.17 goals-against average that topped the league’s regular goalkeepers. For a side that lived on fine margins, a keeper stealing points most weeks was not a luxury; he was the plan.
Ricardo Montenegro — #6, midfielder. Four assists from the middle of the park and the steady hand next to Díaz. Montenegro’s range of passing is how a team that defends in numbers still breaks quickly — the first pass out of pressure is usually his.
Nolan Evers — #4, defender. The captain in the Foxes’ published lineups and the organizer of a back line that had to defend more than most. Evers marshals a young defense in front of Holliday — and in a season of one-goal games, his voice was worth as much as any tackle.
Star Spotlight
Fifty-five minutes, three goals, one stunned stadium. July 31, 2026, away at Atlanta United 2 — the side that would finish third in the East behind the league’s Golden Boot winner. Tattevin simply took the game over: a hat-trick inside 55 minutes in a wild 3–3 draw, a performance rated 9.7 out of 10. It remains the finest individual attacking display by a Fox all season, and the night the rest of the league learned the name on the back of the claret No. 26.
Derby night, shootout kings — again. September 12, 2026: two down becomes two-all becomes another shootout win. Trailing at Crown Legacy, Carolina fought back through Raimbault on 47 minutes and Jay Stewart’s 87th-minute leveler, then held their nerve from the spot, 4–3. It preserved a remarkable record: the Foxes have never lost a shootout to their I-85 rivals. Four attempts, four Carolina wins.
The change that stopped the slide. May 26, 2026 is the hinge of this season. Ricketts out, Davis in — and a team that had been losing the close ones stopped losing them. Seven of Davis’s 17 matches ended level, the Foxes became draw specialists, and a lost season turned into a statement: this young independent club does not fold.
🔥 More Fan Favorites
More Foxes stars, same claret and green.
This Season (2026): The Year of the Draw
The honest headline first: Carolina took a step back. A year after their first playoff berth, the Foxes finished 14th in the Eastern Conference — 28 matches, five wins, 11 draws, 12 defeats, 31 points — six places below the playoff line when the season closed on Decision Day, September 20. The start was the wound: a winless opening month, two points from the first four matches, and a hole the squad spent the rest of the year trying to climb out of.
And yet nobody who played them remembers an easy night. After the May reorganization, Davis’s side drew 11 games across the season — more than anyone could turn into wins, but proof of a team that refused to be beaten quietly. The 40 goals scored were respectable; Tattevin’s 12 led a real attack. The 53 conceded were the problem, and they told the story of a young defense learning expensive lessons. The closing weeks summed it all up: defeats to FC Cincinnati 2 and Chattanooga, then three straight draws — New England Revolution II and Crown Legacy beaten on shootouts, a 1–1 at Columbus Crew 2 on Decision Day. Winless at the end, yes. Beaten in spirit, never. The Foxes also flew the independent flag in the U.S. Open Cup for a third straight year — one of only two independent clubs in the tournament — and the winter question is a simple one: keep Tattevin, tighten the back line, and 2025’s playoff feeling comes back fast.
🦊 Love the Foxes? Wear it. Shop Fan Sportswear at Toxlay Sports →
Mark Your Calendar
Carolina Core FC’s season is done — but the 2026 MLS NEXT Pro Playoffs roll on, and the rest of the bracket is appointment viewing for any Foxes fan who wants to see exactly what this young squad has to climb next.
Sunday, October 25, 2026 — Eastern Conference Semifinal: Chattanooga FC vs CT United FC, Finley Stadium (5:00 p.m. ET). The first playoff match between two independent clubs in league history — Carolina’s fellow independents fighting for the conference final the Foxes dream about.
Sunday, October 25, 2026 — Eastern Conference Semifinal: Crown Legacy FC vs Columbus Crew 2, Sportsplex at Matthews (7:00 p.m. ET). The I-85 rivals carry the Southeast’s flag into the final four of the East.
October 30 – November 1, 2026 — Conference Finals. One match in each conference, hosted by the higher remaining seed. Win, and you play for the Cup.
November 6–8, 2026 — MLS NEXT Pro Cup. The final, hosted by the finalist with the highest regular-season points total. Every remaining playoff match streams live on OneFootball.com and MLSNEXTPro.com.
Biggest Rivalries — The Wars
1. Crown Legacy FC — the I-85 derby. The interstate that links High Point and the Charlotte area gives this one its name, and the record book gives it an edge: Carolina have dominated the I-85 derby, winning the season series all three years with four outright wins, four shootout wins and only one loss in eight meetings. Crown Legacy have never won a shootout against the Foxes — four attempts, four failures. The 2026 trilogy had everything: a 2–2 draw in April that Carolina took on penalties, a clean 2–0 Foxes win in June, and September’s 2–2 comeback draw at Matthews settled, inevitably, by another Carolina shootout win.
2. Chattanooga FC — the independent rivalry. Two of only three independent clubs in a 30-team league, and Chattanooga’s own local coverage calls it exactly that: the independent rivalry. The 2026 league meetings split the story both ways — a 1–1 draw at Truist Point in July, then a 5–2 Chattanooga win at Finley Stadium in August, the Foxes’ heaviest defeat of the run-in. When two clubs carry the same flag, every meeting is a measuring stick.
3. The North Carolina triangle. Professional soccer in this state runs through a tight triangle, and Carolina sit at its northern point. Charlotte Independence knocked the Foxes out of the 2025 U.S. Open Cup, winning 2–1 after extra time — a cup grudge that still needs settling — while Crown Legacy’s academy-powered machine gives the state a second neighbor to chase. North Carolina derbies are this club’s natural fuel, and the I-85 series is the one that already has a name, a record book and a villain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does Carolina Core FC play?
Truist Point in downtown High Point, North Carolina — a $38 million stadium in the city’s revitalized downtown district, renovated to hold 5,000 fans. The Foxes are an independent club (not an MLS reserve team), led on the sporting side by High Point native and U.S. soccer Hall of Famer Eddie Pope.
Who is Carolina Core FC’s best player?
Forward Arnaud Tattevin (No. 26). The Central African Republic international was the Foxes’ top scorer in 2026 with 12 goals — more than double any teammate — including a 55-minute hat-trick at Atlanta United 2. The creative hub is Thomas Raimbault (No. 20), with 5 goals and the team’s highest assists total.
What trophies has Carolina Core FC won?
None yet — honestly. The club only began play in 2024. Its best results so far are a first playoff appearance in 2025 (a Conference Quarterfinal) and a U.S. Open Cup Third Round run in its inaugural 2024 season. The Foxes are one of just three independent clubs in MLS NEXT Pro, building without an MLS parent club behind them.
How can I get tickets or watch Carolina Core FC?
Tickets and the team store are at carolinacorefc.com. MLS NEXT Pro matches stream live on MLSNEXTPro.com and OneFootball — the league confirmed all 2026 playoff matches, including MLS NEXT Pro Cup (November 6–8), air on those two platforms.
🦊 Carolina Core FC Fan Shop
The full Foxes trio — Tattevin, Raimbault and Díaz in claret and green.
Sources & official links: Carolina Core FC official site · MLS NEXT Pro official site · Carolina Core FC tickets
Claret shirts, fox hearts, a town that built its own club — the Core hunts on.
