RIFC got a massive 3 points this weekend, defeating San Antonio FC 3-1. The result puts RIFC in 6th place in the Eastern Conference with 4 games remaining on the season. For San Antonio FC, their playoff chances are slowly slipping away as they sit 4 points out of playoff spot in the Western Conference. As always, we’ll take a look at how things went down on Saturday night as well as what this result and performance means in the bigger picture as we near the finish line of the regular season.

First however, a quick look at the ref from Saturday night:

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at how this one went down:

It was a fast start for us (major understatement) as we got the first goal within 21 seconds:

Every element of that goal was fantastic. It was a great long ball to Noah Fuson, who nodded it on perfectly into the path of Albert Dikwa. Dikwa then produced the great finish to bury the fastest goal in club history.

For as great as that goal was, it has to be said that our performance for the rest of the first half was not good. We had a couple of chances similar to the goal where we played the ball long to get past their defense, but nothing came of them. Outside of that, it was really a half dominated by San Antonio. I use the term “dominated” lightly here, as I don’t think San Antonio looked like they were going to blow us away or anything. But they had more possession in more dangerous areas while we struggled to push the ball into their defensive half consistently.

The territorial dominance paid off for San Antonio in the 20th minute, when Juan Agudelo got on the scoresheet to level the game:

It was a well placed cross from Nelson Blanco and Agudelo did well to find space and get on the end of it. That being said, Karifa Yao could have done a better job there to not lose Agudelo and challenge for the header.

The first half would end 1-1, which was disappointing given how we started the game. It was going to take another great second half performance from us if we wanted the 3 points. And we got that performance. It started early once again as we almost scored less than 2 minutes into the half:

It was a fantastic lay-off from Dikwa to tee up Fuson for the shot. Noah had to take it with his left foot and couldn’t get enough power on it, but it was a sign of things to come.

Just 4 minutes later, we would get our 2nd goal in similar fashion:

This time, it was Clay Holstad who was on the end of a great lay-off from Dikwa. Holstad produced a typical well-placed finish and we looked well on our way to 3 points. Holstad would go on to fire in two more shots, a curling effort from the left and a powerful shot from straight on but was unable to convert either chance.

In a wild sequence around the 82nd minute, San Antonio played the ball long from a goal kick and almost had the equalizer:

It’s debatable what Karifa Yao was doing there but I actually think he made a good play. He shielded his man and allowed Grant Stoneman to get the clearance. Yao was facing goal and if he doesn’t box out the San Antonio player, I think that one goes in. There is also the argument that Yao kind of just stood there and was watching as the ball was about to go into his own net. But luckily it all worked out in the end for us.

Immediately following the clearance, we went down the other end and did this:

Once again, we saw another lay-off to set up a goal by a late runner from midfield. This one was a beautiful backheel from Noah Fuson to tee up Joe Brito for an easy tap in. I have to give credit to Brito here for making that run and being in the right place at the right time.

The match would end 3-1 but not without some controversy. As I not so subtly hinted at earlier, the referee was a major issue. He handed out 8 yellow cards to RIFC players and an extra one to Khano Smith. San Antonio received just 4 yellow cards despite committing 4 more fouls on the night than RIFC. It just didn’t seem that the cards were handed out fairly across the board. This causes major issues for us going into our next game, as Jojea Kwizera’s yellow in stoppage time means he’ll miss the matchup with Tampa Bay and Noah Fuson’s second yellow in the 85th minute means he too will be out. The second yellow for Fuson was a particularly terrible call. The San Antonio player ran into Fuson off the ball and from my perspective, there was no intent from Noah to take the player down.

I had to follow up that depressing news about Jojea and Noah with a silly gif. I’m kind of running out of good ones to transition here into talking about the starting 11, so cut me some slack. Anyway, here’s what we went with for this one:

It was a fascinating 11 to look at when it came out before the game. There was no Jack Panayotou, which is something I called for in the Prematch Lookout. But rather than starting JJ next to Dikwa up top, Khano chose to play all 3 of Herivaux, Ybarra, and Holstad in the midfield and pushed Noah Fuson up to partner with Dikwa. This is why he is the manager and I’m just some random blogger.

I think this lineup was a clever way to attack San Antonio. San Antonio lost 4-0 at Phoenix Rising in their previous game and much of that had to do with Phoenix’s midfield dominating San Antonio’s midfield. While this didn’t come to fruition for us right away, we were able to eventually take control. We created several chances in the 2nd half through utilizing late runners from midfield. San Antonio were terrible at tracking those runners and we constantly found space between their midfield and back line. At the end of the day, San Antonio were probably lucky that we didn’t get 4 or 5.

This was really the biggest takeaway for me in this one. Our interplay and the movement between our attacking players and midfielders was brilliant. While we did get the ball out wide at times, we had our most success centrally. As I just mentioned, some of this was due to San Antonio being bad on the night and not tracking our runners. But I also have to think that playing a midfield 3 really helped us in this regard and it could be something we can replicate moving forward.

I feel that we’ve struggled to find the right balance in midfield and attack since Jack Panayotou returned on loan. It was interesting to see him not only not get the start here, but also not even come off the bench. We ended up bringing on Joe Brito late instead and of course that worked out perfectly as he put away our third goal. I still think Jack P can be an important player for us down the stretch but what his role will be is something Khano needs to figure out. Again, that’s why he gets paid the big bucks and I just sit here and type away.

The boys in amber and blue return home for 3 of the last 4 games of the season, starting with a home matchup with the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday night. As I said earlier, it will be a difficult one without Kwizera or Fuson. We’ll take a closer look at that later in the week in the Prematch Lookout. For more on this game though, be sure to check out Matt and Ryan on the Postmatch Pod and Timmy’s Player Ratings. Also, for a more unfiltered take on the game, check out the Quahog Corner on X (twitter) Monday nights at 9pm. With all of that said, UP THE TIDE!