RIFC and Charleston Battery battled to a 1-1 draw on Saturday night. As mentioned in the Prematch Lookout, for Charleston the game was meaningless for all intents and purposes. They have already secured 2nd in the Eastern Conference and can’t catch Louisville in 1st. For RIFC however, the game meant more. A lot more. Despite what the announcers said during the game and the fact that the league didn’t acknowledge it, the draw ensured RIFC are playoff-bound.

Before I get into what happened in this game, I have to try to “quickly” explain what the heck happened with the playoff clinching scenario. Along with some great help from Tide Talk’s very own Tide Chart blogger Andrew Quadros, I was able to do some math and work out possible scenarios late into the night on Saturday. The conclusion was that there was a possibility where if 6 results went a certain way, including an RIFC loss to Miami next game, there would be a 3 way tie between RIFC, Pittsburgh Riverhounds and North Carolina FC. All 3 teams would be on 48 points and would be competing for the last 2 playoff spots. The million dollar question here was: what is the tiebreaking rule in a 3 way tie? Head to head wouldn’t be applicable in this case and my assumption was that it would go to points per game vs conference opponents. I did the math and using that rule, the order of the 3 teams would be Pittsburgh, RIFC and North Carolina. That would mean we were in. But the league hadn’t yet said we were in. And even on Sunday afternoon, the league posted on social media which teams had qualified and we weren’t on there. So what gives? I had to find out. I was able to get some inside info that let me know that the 3 way tie scenario I just mapped out is what the league was looking at. And PPG vs conference opponents was officially the tiebreaker. Because we would be 2nd among the 3 teams in that 3 way tie, we couldn’t miss the playoffs. The league went through all of the scenarios on Sunday and subsequently notified the team and allowed them to post that they “will” be in the playoffs. The league won’t acknowledge it yet due to their protocols and it will likely have to wait until after the Tampa Bay vs Hartford game on Wednesday night, depending on the result.

So after a long night on Saturday and a long day on Sunday where I looked like this:

I finally had some answers!

Anyway, let’s move on to what happened on the field, shall we?

The first half of this game was a masterclass in tactics and execution of said tactics by RIFC. We stifled Charleston’s potent attack and while they controlled possession as expected, they weren’t able to do a whole lot with it. In fact, they had 0xG over the first 40+ minutes of the game. Nick Markanich sent a header wide in the 43rd minute but it was really only a half chance. The big chance of the first half came for us 2 minutes into stoppage time:

Morris Duggan did well to win his header there and it was a great passing move between Noah Fuson and Marc Ybarra. Fuson did really well to tuck it away and give a perfect finish to a perfect first half.

We were strong defensively to start the 2nd half but Charleston started to look more dangerous as time went on. They would eventually get an equalizer in the 71st minute through substitute MD Myers:

The shot from Juan David Torres really needed to be smothered there by Koke. Spilling the ball allowed Myers to coolly slot it away into an empty net. It was an extremely disappointing goal to concede.

Then, we had a real hold your breath moment the 75th minute when this happened:

Emilio Ycaza was through on goal but luckily couldn’t finish. Credit to Marc Ybarra there for chasing him down and maybe putting him off before the shot. And credit to Koke as well for making the huge save.

There was one final moment in the 83rd minute. After Charleston goalkeeper Adam Grinwis took down Jack Panayotou in the box, Noah Fuson stepped up to take the penalty:

If we’re being honest about this, it was a really poorly taken penalty by Noah. He seemed confident stepping up but the shot was tame and it wasn’t a difficult save for Grinwis to make. It marked a disappointing end to the game but all in all, the 1-1 draw seems like a fair result based on the balance of play.

If we’re going to take a deeper look into this game we have to start with our tactics and starting 11. This is what Khano decided to put out there to start this one:

The big difference here from the setup that I called for in the Prematch Lookout was that we had Duggan at LWB and Noah up top. I wanted to see Noah at LWB and Jack Panayotou up top. Clearly, Khano made the right decision and I had no idea what I was thinking. I really wanted to see us go more attacking but Khano preferred to go more defensive here and it was a brilliant move. Duggan was so solid defensively on the left and our 3 man midfield was incredibly effective. We conceded possession to Charleston but clogged the dangerous areas that they wanted to get into. It was a perfect blueprint on how to handle Charleston’s deadly attack.

We kept this up for some of the 2nd half and made some interesting substitutions along the way. Jojea Kwizera came on in the 66th minute for Stephen Turnbull. This resulted in Kwizera at LWB, Duggan at LCB and Frank Nodarse at RWB. Nodarse played there late in our previous game as well and honestly it was kind of funny to see. Frank seems to really like getting forward from defense so I’m sure he enjoyed the role. He even put in a halfway decent cross at one point. It only lasted a short time though as 10 minutes later, Jack Panayotou came on for Duggan. Frank was sent right back to the back line. Joe Brito would also make his usual late appearance in midfield, this time coming on for Ybarra in the 86th minute.

Overall, the subs did make somewhat of a mark on the game. It was Jack P who won the penalty that Noah was unfortunately unable to convert. It was also good to see Kwizera back out there after being away on international duty. He should be ready for some more minutes in our next game. And Joe Brito didn’t have enough time to make a big impact but I like the recent trend of subbing him in late as an extra runner from midfield.

But at the end of it all, leaving Charleston with 3 points just wasn’t in the cards. They really turned up the pressure on our defense as the 2nd half went on. A neutral observer would probably say that Charleston deserved a goal based on their performance. But the goal they did get really was a gift. And our penalty miss was a massive missed opportunity. Those two moments were the nail in the coffin on our hopes for a home playoff game.

Of course, we can still get a home playoff game if there are a lot of upsets in the playoffs. And based on the history of this league it’s certainly possible. But for now, the best we can do is 5th. Here’s what the standings currently look like:

At the start of this blog I had a whole explanation of the worst case scenario: a loss to Miami FC in our next game. So let’s actually flip that and see what happens if we win. It really all depends on what happens with Tampa Bay. If they win their next 2 games, they’ll finish ahead of us in 5th no matter what we do against Miami. If Tampa Bay drops any points and we win over Miami, we’ll get 5th. The rest of the results in the Eastern Conference don’t matter as long as we beat Miami. As for what happens if we draw with Miami, I’ll save that for the next Prematch Lookout. That will come out later in the week and importantly will be after the Hartford vs Tampa Bay game on Wednesday. We should have a much clearer picture by then.

I can’t finish out the blog without bringing up my score prediction from the Prematch Lookout. I called a 5-2 RIFC win and I said that I would either be a genius or we could all look back at that and laugh. So let’s laugh about it. It really was a hilariously bad take. Lightning was never going to strike twice. We may have beaten Louisville by that score but Charleston can’t be scored against like that. They have only conceded more than 2 goals twice this season. Those games were a 3-1 loss to Louisville and a 4-2 loss to Tampa Bay. Both of those were away from home as well.

And as for the allegations that I “flip flop” on my predictions, I’ll say this. I like to make my predictions later in the week when I write the Prematch Lookout. But I’m often asked on the Quahog Corner on Monday night. I don’t really have a good answer then but sometimes I’ll throw something out. This past week, ironically I said 1-1 on the QC so I would’ve been right had I stuck with that. The 5-2 prediction really started as a joke on the Away End pod. But I decided to stick with it. I promise in the future, I’ll be more strict with my predictions.

Now that that’s all out of the way, I can finally end this blog. I’m really spent from my playoff scenario obsession. And as they say, “blogging ain’t easy”. So I’ll see you all later in the week and as always, UP THE TIDE!