RIFC travel to Detroit for a clash with Detroit City FC at 4pm on Saturday. This is an important game for the club as well as for us here at Tide Talk. The game is going to be nationally televised on CBS! Yes, actual CBS, not CBS Sports Golazo or CBS Sports Network. No excuses for not being able to find this one on TV. Having a nationally televised game is of course great for the club, as it provides an opportunity for more eyeballs on the team. Hopefully we can have a great performance to go along with it.

For us at Tide Talk, this game marks the start of an exciting collab with Providence Brewing Company. Matt and Ryan will be doing a live podcast from the brewery at 2:45pm on Saturday leading up to the game. I’ll be there and plan of crushing a few GOOOOOOOOOAL Lagers. It promises to be a great time and I encourage everyone to come down and watch the match with us at the watch party. Just don’t expect any hugs from me (IYKYK).

RIFC are coming off of a great come from behind 2-1 win at home against North Carolina FC. As always, for more on that, check out Timmy’s Player Ratings and my own Postmatch Beacon. Detroit City are coming off a midweek game against Hartford on Wednesday night, which they lost 1-0.

I feel like before we get into what to expect from this one, we need to do a little trip down memory lane. We last played Detroit City on June 8th and it was a very different time for us. I know it’s hard to remember now, but there was a time where we couldn’t win matches. It seems like forever ago, probably because we all collectively buried that period of time in the back of our brains. The season really started with that 5-2 win in Louisville, right? Well, unfortunately it didn’t, and we had our struggles to start the year. I’m sorry to bring up the bad memories, but I promise it’ll be worth it…..maybe.

At the time of our first game against Detroit City, we were coming off of a couple of recent performances where I thought we had possibly turned the page. We drew with Sacramento 2-2, but then lost 3-1 with a disappointing performance in Colorado. We drew 0-0 with Louisville, but then went to Hartford and only drew 1-1. You may remember a speech from Khano Smith to the fans in the parking lot in Hartford after the game. Khano spoke about the need for us to stick with the team and hoped that we could see his vision and the improvements the team was making. This was a great message that really energized the fanbase, but we then went home to lose 2-0 to Detroit City.

It was a pretty poor performance from RIFC on the night, as we registered 3 shots on target but 2 of them were tame efforts right at the goalkeeper. The other shot was a long range attempt from Gabi Alves late in the game that did force a diving save, but the game was already gone by then. We were poor defensively on both goals, especially their 2nd, which started from an awful pass out from the back by Koke. As with most games from way back then, we are a completely different team now. You can look at the lineup and pretty easily see it. Clay Holstad started at RB and Stephen Turnbull was at LB in a back 4. Prince Saydee and Mark Doyle also started in this one. Albert Dikwa and Jojea Kwizera were unavailable due to injury and international duty respectively.

However, with all of that being said, we have really turned things around since that Detroit City game. As much as the Memphis draw felt like a loss, Detroit City was actually the last team to beat us. You might think that doesn’t bode well for us on Saturday, but more on that soon. I just have to point out that our recent success wouldn’t be as sweet without the bitterness of our tough times earlier this season. Sometimes you have look back at those difficult times so that you can really appreciate the good times we are currently in. But now, on to our opponent.

Detroit City have had an up and down season so far. They started with 5 consecutive wins but then lost 3 and drew 2 over their next 5. They followed that up with the win over RIFC and a win over Charleston. Since then, over their last 7 games they have only won once. And that was against bottom of the league Miami FC. We are of course unbeaten over our last 7 games. I will keep referring to our unbeaten run until it ends (which is hopefully never, but realistically it can’t go on forever. Sorry to be a downer). Now, what should we expect from this inconsistent Detroit City team?

Detroit City most often utilize a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 formation. Coach Danny Dichio likes to change the lineup often, so it’s a little difficult to predict how the team will set up against us on Saturday. They have several attackers that they interchange depending on form and opponent. The biggest player to watch out for is Maxi Rodriguez, who leads the team with 10 goal contributions, coming from 7 goals and 3 assists. Rodriguez will sometimes play as a number 10 behind striker Elvis Amoh if Detroit goes with a 4-2-3-1.

Amoh, mirroring his team, has had an inconsistent season. In his case, a lot of that has been due to injury. He missed 6 games earlier this season, with his first match back being the last meeting against us. He had started 3 games in a row recently but was benched for the Hartford game and only played the last 15 minutes. If Amoh doesn’t get the start, Detroit City might play a 4-4-2 again, as they did against Hartford. The front 2 would likely be Rodriguez and Ben Morris.

Two other players to look out for are Jeciel Cedeno and Nate Steinwascher. Cedeno is a new signing from Oakland Roots and he played his first game for his new team on Wednesday night. He is a left-footed attacking player who gives Detroit City even more options to move players around in attack. Cedeno played on the right in order to cut in on his stronger left foot against Hartford and looked like he has the potential to be dangerous as he gels more with his teammates. Steinwascher is coming off of a great game in goal Wednesday night. He was the only reason that Detroit City were really in the game at the end. Without him, Hartford could have scored 2 or 3. I would expect Steinwascher to start in this one, although with Detroit City you never really know. Carlos Saldana started over Steinwascher a few times this season, including in our last meeting.

With us flying high over our last 7 games and Detroit City struggling, it’s easy to say that we’ll get a win here. But at the same time, I could argue that this could be one of those weird games where we can’t keep going unbeaten forever and Detroit City can’t go winless forever. To be honest, I’m struggling a little bit between what I’m seeing with my eyes vs how I think things tend to balance out over the course of a season. But I’m going to go with the eye test here and say that I think we get a 2-1 win. We haven’t been keeping clean sheets on this run, with our last one coming over a month ago against El Paso. But we have been scoring plenty of goals and Detroit City are prone to some defensive lapses. I’m looking forward to a great day on Saturday and hopefully an even better performance by the boys in amber and blue. UP THE TIDE!