Well…..that was…..not great. RIFC put up a dismal performance and lost 2-0 in Pittsburgh Saturday night. The result bumped us down to 6th in the Eastern Conference and provided Pittsburgh some hope of making the playoffs. I had a lot of confidence coming into this one and that confidence seemed to be shared by most other RIFC supporters. So…..

As is often the case, I think everything starts with our starting 11.

The biggest decision Khano had to make coming into this one was who to start at LWB with Jojea Kwizera away on international duty. Khano chose to move Noah Fuson out wide and bring JJ Williams back into the starting 11 to play alongside Albert Dikwa up front. This seemed like the most likely scenario coming into the game so I wasn’t surprised. Fuson has played pretty well when deployed out wide this season and JJ was coming off of a great substitute performance last time out against Birmingham Legion.

Unfortunately, this move didn’t work out. In Khano’s defense though, I’m not really sure what else he could have done. In the Prematch Lookout, I did present the option of playing Gabi Alves at LWB and keeping Fuson centrally with Jack Panayotou. The issue with that however is that Gabi has seemingly moved down the pecking order this season, especially since we moved from a back 4 to a back 3. Injuries of course haven’t helped him either.

The other move that was really crucial in my opinion was bringing Grant Stoneman back in for Frank Nodarse. Since Morris Duggan came into the starting 11 three games ago, Stoneman and Nodarse have rotated on the right side of our back 3. Stoneman started against Loudoun, Nodarse started against Birmingham, and then Stoneman started again in this one. If you’ve been reading the blogs, you might know that I’m probably one of Nodarse’s biggest fans. I think he’s been the best and most consistent player in the squad all season. So unless we’re trying to manage his minutes, I don’t understand this move at all. I have nothing against Stoneman by the way. Stoneman has been really solid for us. But with Duggan and Yao seemingly nailed on starters right now, I feel like there’s a narrative developing regarding Stoneman vs Nodarse for that third CB spot. And for me, it has to be Nodarse.

Truth be told, not even the muppets can cheer me up enough to make this loss go down any easier. I know I said we had a dismal performance, but there was a small sliver of hope in the first half. We played Dikwa through on goal in the 13th minute but his shot ended up grazing the post. I mean, it ended up being offside anyway but it was a somewhat positive moment. I’m grasping at straws here. We also had a few corners in the first half but weren’t able to make anything of them. I feel like we could have used Frank Nodarse’s presence there, as he is still our 2nd leading goal scorer but what do I know?

It would have been great to go into the half at 0-0 but of course, that wasn’t in the cards for us on Saturday night.

As you can see above, after having a hard time clearing the ball, we made a clearance out wide towards Albert Dikwa. Dikwa wasn’t able to control it and his touch put him right in between 3 Pittsburgh players. The quick turnover meant we were out of poisition and the ball was eventually buried into the back of the net by Bertin Jacquesson.

Obviously I hate any goal that we concede, but this one was a little more frustrating than most. Right before the goal, Pittsburgh had us pinned in our own defensive third. We were so sloppy in our attempts to clear the ball away. Had we been able to even just blast the ball down into their end, there’s a good chance the half ends 0-0. Instead, we went 1-0 down against a very strong defensive side who were now going to be even harder to break down.

Pittsburgh would score again less than 5 minutes into the 2nd half and we were truly buried.

All I have to say about this is:

I’m 50/50 on whether that gesture is towards Koke or just the goal in general. I think Koke was cheating a little bit in case he needed to come out of goal. But I don’t think the Pittsburgh player really thought he was going to score there. It was a bit of a flukey goal that was fitting given our overall performance. So after all of that….

Well, as I mentioned at the start of this blog, we’re now sitting 6th in the Eastern Conference. This is what it looks like:

I think the chance of a home playoff game is dwindling away a little bit. Unless we go on a nice run of wins, I don’t see it happening. The main reason is because Detroit, Indy and Pittsburgh all own their respective tiebreakers over us. We would need to be firmly ahead of those 3 teams on points in order to finish above them. We do own the tiebreakers over Birmingham and North Carolina. As for Loudoun, that will largely depend on our home match against them next month.

With that, I think it’s time to end this blog. I can’t lie, it hasn’t been a fun one. My only hope is that this result wakes the team up a little bit and we see a better performance next time out at Orange County. Speaking of that game, I will be back with another blog later this week as usual previewing the matchup. As always, UP THE TIDE!