RIFC return home to take on the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday night. We are coming off of a 3-1 win away to San Antonio FC last time out. Tampa Bay lost 3-1 at Charleston Battery in their last match two weeks ago. Their home game against Hartford Athletic that was scheduled for last weekend was postponed due to the effects of Hurricane Helene. With both teams fighting for positions in a still congested Eastern Conference, this is shaping up to be a pivotal match. Here’s what to expect from both sides:

The vibes around the club are pretty good after back to back wins against FC Tulsa and San Antonio FC. Those two wins came after our first consecutive losses of the season, defeats at Pittsburgh and Orange County. Khano Smith has seemingly found some answers to our recent scoring troubles with these last 2 wins. We scored 5 goals in those 2 games but prior to that had only scored 3 goals in 5 games. We were also shut out 3 times in that stretch. There has to be a reason for this turnaround right?

I’m glad you asked. It’s hard to just point to one thing, but I think a major factor is having Jack Panayotou on the bench. I know that’s really harsh, but it’s hard to ignore that all of our goals in these last 2 matches came when he wasn’t on the field. He started against FC Tulsa and we were down 1-0 until we tied the game just a few minutes after he came off. Jack then didn’t see the field at all in our last match at San Antonio and we went on to score 3 goals. I’ve been saying this a lot over the past couple of weeks, but I just feel that Jack hasn’t been good enough for us this 2nd time around. He’s struggled with the physicality of some of the defenders he’s come up against. Until he learns to deal with that, I don’t see him making much of an impact for us. And no one hopes that I’m wrong more than myself. I think he’s a very talented player on the ball and he definitely has qualities that could help us down the stretch and into the playoffs (hopefully). It just remains to be seen if we’ll see it.

The other difference for us over these last 2 games is the use of 3 central midfielders. It’s something that I hadn’t even thought of going into our last game. But Khano gets paid to make the big decisions and it really worked out. Much of the discussion (at least from me) around our midfield was which 2 players to slot in out of our 3 really good options. Khano said, “why not all of them?” and played Herivaux, Ybarra and Holstad in this last game with Noah Fuson and Albert Dikwa up front. This worked wonders for us, particularly in the 2nd half as we were able to take control of the midfield battle. We found tons of space in between their midfield and back line and probably could have scored 4 or 5 goals.

With all of this being said, the next question is:

Since the win in San Antonio, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to figure out what we could/should do in this next game with our lineup. Much of this had to do with Jojea Kwizera being suspended for yellow card accumulation and Noah Fuson being suspended after receiving a second yellow card late in the game for a coming together off the ball. One option was to go with the same lineup and just replace Kwizera with Gabi Alves and Fuson with either Jack P or JJ Williams. Another option was to play a 4-4-2 and get really wild with it. However, yet again procrastination has helped me because….

Noah Fuson is available for selection on Saturday. The USL announced on Thursday that “due to an ongoing appeal”, Noah will be available. I would have loved to see that Noah’s second yellow card was rescinded, but I’ll take this for now. This news alleviates a lot of the concerns that I had coming into this one. However, we still need to figure out what to do with our LWB spot. To me, the two clear-cut options are playing Gabi Alves there or moving Noah there. It’s a tough decision, but after giving it some thought I think you put Gabi out at LWB. The lineup would then look something like this:

I think this is the best chance we have at maintaining what we did last time out. If we were going to be without Noah and Jojea, I would have been more inclined to suggest a bigger change. But with just Kwizera out, I think it makes more sense to make one like-for-like change and keep everything else the same. Gabi isn’t going to be nearly the offensive threat that Kwizera is, but he should be able to help us defensively against a strong Tampa Bay attack. Speaking of Tampa Bay….

Before getting into what to expect from Tampa Bay on the field, I first wanted to say that my thoughts are with everyone who has impacted by Hurricane Helene. I can’t imagine what not only those in the Tampa area, but all across the southern United States are going through right now. The Tampa Bay Rays/Rowdies ownership group has already pledged $1 million in relief which is of course great to see. For more information on the team’s hurricane relief fund, go to: https://www.rowdiessoccer.com/relief/

As we turn our attention to the team on the field, we should first look at how the Tampa Bay Rowdies have fared this season so far. They started the season with a 7 game unbeaten run, including a 4-1 win over us down in St. Pete. For much of the season, Tampa Bay has been one of the better teams in the league. A little over a month ago, I would have told you that the playoff race in the Eastern Conference consisted of 4th down through 8th, with Louisville, Charleston and Tampa Bay securing the top 3 spots. But Tampa Bay have faltered as of late, losing 5 of their last 7 games. This has helped Detroit City FC move past them into 3rd in the conference, at least for now.

Well first, I can tell you that scoring goals is not the problem. Tampa Bay are third in the league in goals scored behind Louisville and Charleston, who are so far ahead of the rest of the league that it really doesn’t seem fair. The real issue is that Tampa Bay are conceding way too many goals lately. Over those last 7 games that I just referenced, they’ve conceded 15 goals while scoring 9. In the 5 losses during that time, they conceded at least 2 goals in each game including 4 in a loss at Colorado. It’s glaringly obvious to see that Tampa Bay need to fix their defensive issues. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if they don’t start playing better defensively, it doesn’t matter how good they are in attack. They will continue to struggle to get results.

The players to look out for in this one are pretty straightforward. Tampa Bay’s potent attack is led by forwards Manuel Arteaga and Cal Jennings. Arteaga has 15 goals on the season and Jennings has 13. Slowing these two down would be massive for us but it’s much easier said than done. Two other players to look out for are Damian Rivera and Nathan Worth. Rivera is a Rhode Island native who came up through the New England Revolution academy system. He spent some time with Revs II before moving to Tampa Bay on loan this season. Rivera has 6 goals and 2 assists this year and I would expect him to have a little bit of extra motivation coming back to his home state for this one. Lastly, Nate Worth is a 17 year old midfielder with a bright future. Worth came up through the NY Red Bulls academy and played for Red Bulls II before moving to FC Tulsa ahead of last season. He was acquired via transfer by Tampa Bay back in May. Worth is a regular US Youth international and was just called up to the U-19 team. It’s always great to see young players getting an opportunity in the USL and hopefully he goes on to do great things. Just not on Saturday of course.

Only one table to look at here and it’s this:

As you can see, we’re currently sitting in 6th. A win here could be massive in solidifying us as a playoff team. There are so many crucial games in the Eastern Conference this weekend, with Loudoun playing at Hartford, Detroit at Charleston, Lou City at Indy Eleven and North Carolina at Birmingham. Depending on all of these results, we could see a major shift in the standings heading into the last few games of the season.

This jury of 1 has. I’m going with a 2-2 draw. My initial thought for this game was a 1-1 draw, but after looking at things more closely, I think we’re going to see some more goals. Tampa Bay is going to be hard to stop but we also should be able to hit them on the counter. It should make for an exciting game as Tampa Bay try to regain their form and keep pace with Detroit for that 3rd spot in the conference. Meanwhile, we’re hoping that our back to back wins represents a turning of the tide (pun intended) as we head to the finish line.

I can’t wait to see everyone at the tailgate and I know it’ll be a great time ahead of a huge game. I don’t really know how to end this so as usual I’ll just say: UP THE TIDE!