RIFC remain at home this weekend for a matchup with Loudoun United late Sunday afternoon. We had an impressive 3-1 home win over the Tampa Bay Rowdies last weekend while Loudoun got a big 2-0 win over Hartford Athletic before losing 1-0 to Indy Eleven midweek (more on that loss to Indy soon). With just 3 games remaining on the season, every result matters. RIFC will be looking to continue their push for an unlikely home playoff game, while Loudoun look to hang on to their playoff chances as they currently sit 9th in the Eastern Conference. As for what to expect from each team, we of course start with the good guys.

For us, I actually want to start with Loudoun’s 1-0 loss at home to Indy Eleven on Tuesday night. As I mentioned in the last Postmatch Beacon, that game was Indy’s game in hand on us. We have now played the same number of games (31) and Indy Eleven have jumped up to 4th in the conference with that win. While our playoff hopes are looking good at the moment, we can always dream about a home playoff game. That 4th and final home playoff spot will likely come down to RIFC, Indy Eleven, and Tampa Bay. Indy and Tampa Bay have the tiebreakers on us, so we have to finish with more points then either of them to secure 4th. Indy are playing away at Detroit City FC and Tampa Bay are playing away at Louisville City on Saturday. Those results should give us a better idea of where we stand going into our game on Sunday. I know I usually delve in to the playoff scenarios at the end of the blog, but I had to bring it up here first. Even with only 3 games left, there are so many different permutations for where everyone could finish come the end of the season. If you don’t want to get a headache thinking about it, all you have to know is:

Don’t look now, but a win in this one would secure us a playoff spot! So, what do we need to do to get this win? Well, as I’m sure you all know….

Jojea Kwizera and Noah Fuson are both out for this game. Jojea is away on international duty with Rwanda and Noah is suspended after being sent off with two yellow cards in our 3-1 win at San Antonio. There was an appeal submitted for Noah which is why he was able to take part (and star) in our win over Tampa Bay last time out. I can’t emphasize enough how massive of a loss this is for us. As coach Khano said in the press conference following our last game, Jojea and Noah are two of our most creative players. Noah has also been on fire lately and is one of the most in-form players in the league.

The absence of both players not only deprives us of their quality on the field, but creates problems with our setup. We normally set up in a 3-5-2 and our two wingback spots are massively important. Stephen Turnbull holds it down on the right and Jojea Kwizera is our usual starter on the left. Whenever Jojea has been out, we’ve mostly turned to Noah to take his place. That position is where Noah found himself against Tampa Bay and he had a brilliant game with a goal and an assist on the night.

So heading into this game, Khano has a big decision to make. To me, the crux of it revolves around whether you want to keep our system the same and try to find like-for-like changes, or change things entirely for this one game. If you want to keep the same setup, I think this would be the way to go:

As you can see, this would involve putting Gabi Alves at LWB. Also, as I’ve failed to mention until now, Albert Dikwa picked up an injury in our last game and I wouldn’t expect to see him on Sunday. Therefore, we would need to put Mark Doyle up top with JJ Williams in this setup. Going with this 11 would allow us to keep our 3-man midfield that has seen so much success lately. There’s always the chance that Clay Holstad plays out wide due to his versatility, but I hope that he’s able to stay in the middle as that is where we can get the most out of him.

The other option is to go with a completely different setup. With the players we have available, I think this would be an interesting way to go:

I first want to say that I know this would be a major change and I would assume it’s hard to implement something like this this late in the season. But I think it would work for a couple of reasons. It mainly has to do with the relationship of our fullbacks to our wingers in this setup. Starting on the left, Morris Duggan would be a very solid defensive LB. We actually saw him play on the left late in our last game. Having a defensive LB would allow Mark Doyle in front of him to stay more attacking which if he plays, is where we would want to see him. On the right side, Jack Panayotou likes to tuck in and play more centrally. With Turnbull behind him in defense, it allows Jack to tuck in and Turnbull to provide the width. Clay can also take up wide positions there on the right if need be. Lastly, this setup still allows us to keep that 3 man midfield with Ybarra at the base providing more freedom for Herivaux and Holstad.

At the end of the day, I think it will be fascinating to see how we end up setting up on Sunday. Khano has some tough decisions to make but as I’ve said repeatedly over the last few blogs, that’s why he gets the big bucks. We definitely want to keep the tide rolling after a 3 game win streak and if the atmosphere at Beirne is anything like it was for our last game, I expect a great performance out of the guys on the field.

As I said at the top, Loudoun won this past weekend over Hartford Athletic 2-0. That result kept them ahead of Hartford, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh and they found themselves 8th in the Eastern Conference. A result against Indy Eleven on Tuesday would have given Loudoun more breathing room but they lost 1-0 on a late goal. Since then, North Carolina FC got a big win and have now jumped up to 8th, leaving Loudoun in 9th going into the weekend. Like every team in the conference aside from Louisville, Charleston and Miami, Loudoun have a lot to play for in their remaining games. I would expect them to be really up for this one.

Loudoun are one of the better teams in the league defensively, as they’ve conceded 35 goals on the season. At the time of this writing, that’s good for 4th fewest in the conference and 6th fewest in the whole league. They’ve pretty much kept this pace recently as in the 7 games since our last meeting with Loudoun, they’ve given up an average of exactly 1 goal per game.

When it comes to players to look out for, I’m going to mostly stick with what I said in the Prematch Lookout before our last meeting. Forwards Zach Ryan and Wesley Leggett are still the most dangerous attacking players for Loudoun. Young attacker Abdellatif Aboukoura looked good against us in our last meeting but has only played once since then in a substitute appearance against Hartford last weekend. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out to see if he’s available for this game. Lastly, with Loudoun’s good defensive record, I have to mention goalkeeper Hugo Fauroux. He’s been a mainstay in goal for Loudoun and is one of two players to have started all 31 games for them. The other player is midfielder Tommy McCabe and the word is that he will be suspended for this game.

Before I go, we have to take a look a deeper look at the last time we played against Loudoun on August 24th:

Well, down in Loudoun the match ended in a 0-0 draw. I looked back at my Postmatch Beacon from that one and was reminded that we were in the middle of a poor run of form at the time:

Both teams had a few chances in the game but it really all came down to a late penalty that Loudoun’s Zach Ryan didn’t take well. Koke made the save and it ended 0-0. Unlike a lot of our other second matches against teams this year, I think there are some takeaways from this one. Neither team is that different from when we last played as it was only 7 games ago for us. Loudoun can be tough to break down and they set up well defensively. That worked well for them as we were also struggling to score at the time. But we have regained our goal scoring form since then. And if we end up going with our new midfield trio I think we can really dominate in central areas, especially if Tommy McCabe is in fact out for this game. The only concern for us is that we will be missing Kwizera, Fuson and Dikwa.

Alright, alright. I think this one ends 2-1. I know that we’ll be without some very important players in attack, but I think we can win the midfield battle and that should create enough chances for us. Defensively, I find it hard to predict shutouts. We’ve only kept 8 clean sheets, which ties us with several teams for 13th in the league. Our last one came on August 31st in our 2-0 win against Birmingham Legion.

I can’t wait to see everyone on Sunday afternoon. We only have two home games left (of the regular season at least) and we need to cherish these as the season winds down. Until then, UP THE TIDE!