RIFC travel to Highmark Stadium to take on the Pittsburgh Riverhounds on Saturday night at 7pm. It’s yet another playoff 6 pointer as we aim for a home playoff game while Pittsburgh try to push for a playoff spot. We are coming off a solid 2-0 win at home against Birmingham Legion. Pittsburgh drew 1-1 at Indy Eleven last weekend. Let’s take a look at the teams, starting with the good guys first:

The 2-0 home win against Birmingham Legion last time out was so crucial. It pushed us up to 5th in the Eastern Conference and ensured that we have the tiebreaker over Birmingham should we be level on points at the end of the season. Here is how things look currently:

It’s still a really congested table, with 6 points separating 4th and 9th. And it’s important to note that Indy Eleven and Loudoun United have played one fewer game than us. With 8 games remaining, a lot can change. But it’s looking good at the moment and hopefully we can continue our good form and hit our stride as we come to the end of the season.

Per usual, the big question…….

There’s always something at play every week when it comes to the starting 11. This time, it’s that Jojea Kwizera will not be available as he is away on international duty with Rwanda. I see two real options for replacing him. Gabi Alves can come in as a natural LB/LWB or we can move Noah Fuson over from his attacking midfield position. The positive of playing Gabi would be that we wouldn’t need to make any other changes from our last starting 11. The negative would be that he hasn’t played since playing the first 45 minutes of our 1-0 loss at Indy Eleven on August 7th (yes he technically played a couple minutes last game but that doesn’t really count).

Starting Fuson out wide instead might work well. Noah has had some success there at certain points this season. However, moving him to wingback would mean that we’d take him out of the number 10 spot where he’s been so crucial for us lately. We played with two number 10s last time out with the return of Jack Panayotou. So moving Noah out wide would mean that we’d probably see the return of either JJ Williams or Mark Doyle to the starting 11 to play alongside Albert Dikwa. And yes, assuming he’s fit, JJ is the obvious choice to start if we do go this route.

I think this decision really comes down to if Khano thinks JJ is ready to get back into the starting 11. If he is, you move Noah out wide and call it a day. If not, you keep the two number 10s and start Gabi Alves. I would honestly be ok with either of these options, but I know there’s someone at Tide Talk who would much prefer to see Gabi.

There is also the possibility that we see a change in our back 3. Two games ago we gave Nodarse a break and played Stoneman, Yao and Duggan. Last time out we brought Nodarse back in for Stoneman. I would prefer that we keep our same back 3 from this last game but with 4 capable players for 3 spots, you never know what we’ll end up doing.

Pittsburgh come into this game on a 9 game unbeaten run where they have won 4 and drawn 5. In what I now know is typical USL fashion, this 9 game unbeaten run was preceded by a 10 game winless run. That run also included a stretch of 6 straight games where Pittsburgh failed to score. Needless to say, it’s been an up and down season so far.

So what do we make of this team? Which team is going to show up on Saturday night? It’s hard to tell but what I do know is: Pittsburgh absolutely can’t score. They have fewer goals this season than Birmingham Legion. And as we all know, Birmingham has no number 9. I mean, just looking at Pittsburgh’s last 3 games, they’ve scored….hang on….6 goals?

Yeah so maybe they’re not as inept in front of goal as we all think they are. I think it’s more apt to say that they’re streaky. I mean, they ended that goalless drought with 5 goals in the home win against Oakland Roots that kicked off this 9 game unbeaten run. Hard to get more streaky than that.

If Pittsburgh are going to score in this game, the first obvious player to look at would be forward Edward Kizza. Kizza leads the team with 7 goals this season and recently had a brace against Birmingham Legion. After that, Pittsburgh resembles RIFC a lot with some defenders getting some goals and a bunch of players with 1 or 2 goals on the year.

This isn’t the only similarity between the two teams. Pittsburgh have made a late roster move of their own bringing in winger Bertin Jacquesson on loan from MLS side Real Salt Lake. He has bounced between RSL and their MLS Next Pro team since getting drafted in 2023 out of the University of Pittsburgh. The move definitely brings to mind our move for Jack Panayotou. Jacquesson is a young player, albeit a couple years older than Jack P, who probably isn’t ready yet for MLS but needs time playing at a higher level than MLS Next Pro. Being that Jacquesson played at Pitt in college, the move makes a lot of sense for both sides.

Surely there can’t be any more similarities here….

Pittsburgh has a left wing back that has just been called up for AFCON qualifiers. Sound familiar? Junior Etou has been called up by Congo for their upcoming games against South Sudan and Uganda. Etou has been in some camps but hasn’t made an appearance yet for the Congolese national team. I wish him all the best and thank him for missing this game against us.

On the subject of missing players, Pittsburgh will be without CB Patrick Hogan for this game after he got a red card last time out vs Indy Eleven. This could be a huge loss, as Hogan is probably Pittsburgh’s best defender and leader at the back. For all the talk about their inconsistent goal scoring, Pittsburgh has been one of the best defensive teams in the league. They are tied with Phoenix Rising and Charleston Battery for 2nd fewest goals conceded this year with 25. Sacramento Republic lead the way, only conceding 20. It should be noted that Pittsburgh and Charleston have done this playing 3 more games than Phoenix and Sacramento, so that should give them some extra credit.

Given that I did such a great job predicting last week’s game, I’m allowing myself to use this gif. When I inevitably get it completely wrong, this gif will disappear from my arsenal and there will be no mention of this prediction. Now that that’s out of the way, I’m thinking this one ends up a 1-0 RIFC win. While Pittsburgh have started scoring lately, we’ve improved defensively with 3 shutouts in our last 4 games. And I think without Hogan at CB for Pittsburgh, we’ll be able to get a goal from a set piece. I’m not sure who’s going to score it, but Jack P is going to be the one swinging the ball in.

A win here for us would likely bury Pittsburgh and keep us firmly in the race for a home playoff game. More importantly than all that though, we all know what a shutout win means:

I will be at Providence Brewing with the rest of the Tide Talk guys on Saturday night. Matt and Ryan are doing a live show at 6:30 leading up to the game. It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve all been there and I can’t wait. Join us for what will be a great time, win or lose. Thanks for reading, and UP THE TIDE!