Well everyone, it’s official. Officially official. RIFC have qualified for the 2024 USL Championship Playoffs. We knew we were mathematically in after our 1-1 draw last Saturday night in Charleston. No need to go over that insanity again. But with Hartford Athletic and Tampa Bay Rowdies drawing 2-2 on Wednesday night, the bizarre 3 way tie doomsday scenario is impossible. The league has finally given us the “x”. x-RIFC. Qualified.

So now we can look ahead to our final game of the regular season. RIFC close it out on Saturday night with a matchup against an historically bad Miami FC team. For us, the result of this game determines playoff seeding. For Miami FC, it simply marks the end to an embarrassing season. As always, we’ll start with what to expect from us before I struggle to get through some way to analyze Miami’s season so far.

With playoff seeding on the line, I expect us to come out full strength in this game. A win would keep us in 5th. A draw would at worst move us down to 6th and a loss would at worst move us down to 7th depending on other results. As for who we would play in these scenarios, the only one that’s guaranteed is a 7th place finish would send us to Charleston. The rest depends on what happens with Indy Eleven and Detroit City FC. Detroit are in 3rd and Indy are in 4th currently but Indy will pass Detroit if they win and Detroit loses. All of this being said, the expectation from practically everyone is that we will win this game and get the 5 seed. To do so, this is how I think we should set up:

You may notice that my favorite player Frank Nodarse isn’t in this lineup. As much as I love Frank, I have to give Duggan his flowers. Duggan was tremendous last game in a defensive role at LWB. Because of that, I think he should keep his place in the team. We don’t need to be extra defensive though, so he would slot in to his preferred spot in the back 3.

As for the rest of the lineup, I think this is the strongest 11 we have at the moment. I feel that it’s important for us to come out strong in this game in front of a crowd that will undoubtedly be one of the best we’ve had all year. We’ll all be in a celebratory mood and will hope to push the team to put this game away early. If we do, I think we’ll see a lot of changes in the 2nd half starting around the hour mark.

What those changes will be is really anyone’s guess. Based on the team’s social media post from training, it looks like Albert Dikwa is back with the team. If he is ready to go, I’d like to see him get some minutes near the end of the game to get himself ready for the playoffs. Outside of that, my guess is we’ll see our usual subs of Joe Brito and Jack Panayotou among others. I’d like to think we’d see someone we haven’t seen in a long time (or at all), like Kevin Vang or Amos Shapiro-Thompson. But I don’t think that’s too realistic. However, it’s worth keeping an eye on the bench an hour before kickoff to see if anyone unexpected makes it.

We come into this game tied for 7th in the league in goals scored with 48, and tied for 8th in the league in goals conceded with 40. Being in the top third of the league in both categories is a very good accomplishment for an expansion side in it’s first season. We’re also on a 5 game unbeaten run. It’s not as great as our magical 8 game unbeaten run during the summer. That we will never forget. But it’s still really good to see us rounding into form at the right time.

We can attribute our recent return to form to two main things. The first is only two words. Noah. Fuson. Noah has been on a tear lately, with 6 goal contributions (3 goals + 3 assists) during this unbeaten run. He has only played in 4 of our last 5 games due to his incredibly stupid suspension for the Loudoun game, which coincidentally ended 0-0 without our best attacker. I know we’re all glad to have him back and we’ll need him to maintain his current form if we want to be successful in the playoffs.

The other factor here can also be put into 2 words, as Tide Talk’s resident slides expert Ryan Healey has done. Adult. Midfield. Khano Smith has recently introduced a 3 man midfield of Clay Holstad, Marc Ybarra, and Zach Herivaux. That midfield has been so difficult to get through for opposing teams. And it’s been equally effective attacking-wise, with Ybarra typically anchoring the midfield which allows Holstad and Herivaux more freedom to roam forward and play off of our attackers. For Khano, it’s really been like this lately:

Look, I had to slip in some #Eurosnob stuff in here at least once. I’ve been holding back for a long time. Don’t worry though, RIFC is now and will forever be #1.

In closing, this is a game where we should be able to impose our will. There’s no reason why we can’t keep our form and head into the playoffs on a high. But now it’s time to take a deeper look at our opponents.

This is going to be difficult. I mean, look at that image. That’s the best I could find. It’s not even centered. I hate it. But moving on to the actual team, you don’t need me to tell you how bad Miami FC have been this year. But I’m going to do it anyway, so buckle up.

Miami FC are the worst team in the league by an astonishing margin. They have 11 points this season. 11. That’s 21 points behind the next closest team El Paso Locomotive. And it’s 31 points behind the next closest team in the conference, Birmingham Legion. Miami have won 3 games, drawn 2, and lost 28. This season, they’ve had runs of 9 losses in a row and 7 losses in a row (twice!). That includes the current 7 game losing streak that they’re on. Oh and speaking of that current run of games, not only have they lost 7 in a row but they haven’t scored in any of those 7 games. That’s all while conceding 19 goals in that span. To do some quick math (sorry to a certain clammy Tide Talk member who hates math), that’s more than 2 and a half goals conceded per game. And I know I’ve done more than enough to emphasize how bad Miami is, but I have two more numbers to mention. Miami have scored 25 goals all season, which is actually only 2 less than the 2nd worst team, El Paso. But they’ve conceded 81 goals, which is 29 more than the next closest team, Oakland Roots.

Look, I had to do something to fill space here. Blogging ain’t easy sometimes. This is the part where I normally point out some players to watch out for from our opposition but even that is nearly impossible. The player I can mention here though is Frankie Lopez. Lopez is Miami’s best player and has 7 goals and 3 assists on the season. He’s also the last person to score for this Miami FC team. However, he hasn’t started a game since September 14th against Hartford and his only appearance since then was a 15 minute cameo against Pittsburgh two games ago. So there’s a chance we don’t see him at all on Saturday.

I don’t even want to look back at my Prematch Lookout for our last meeting with Miami. That was my first ever blog for Tide Talk and I’m sure it’s some pretty boring stuff. But I’m pretty sure that I mentioned Allen Gavilanes and Khalid Balogun as well as Lopez heading into our last meeting. Lopez did end up scoring against us and Gavilanes got an assist. Balogun had at the time recently come in on loan from USL League One side Lexington SC. He looked like he might have some goals in him but he was injured 30 minutes into our last meeting and hasn’t been seen since. Gavilanes however has seen some consistent playing time.

But there really isn’t anything else to talk about with Miami FC. They haven’t been playing for anything for practically half of the season. One could argue they haven’t had anything to play for all season. Miami FC are the worst team in league history, going back to 2017 when the league was granted division II status. You’d have to go back to the USL Pro days and 2013 when Antigua Barracuda FC lost every game and ended the season on 0 points. They were part of an “international division” that the USL Pro had started along with two teams from Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican teams dropped out and Antigua ended up playing every game on the road that season. It’s a crazy story that’s worth checking out if you have time. I’d recommend this article from the Guardian.

I’ve come to a conclusion on a score for this one. 4-0 RIFC. I think we’ll get ahead early and then take our foot off the gas for the last half hour. I just don’t see a way where we even draw this game. If we do, it’s a massive failure on our part. This is what the Miami goalkeeper should look like all night:

I’ll be back on Monday with the Postmatch Beacon. I’m hoping the game goes as smoothly as we all think it will and that there won’t actually be much to write about. We will then move on and look ahead to our first ever playoff match in the next Prematch Lookout. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday in what will most likely be our final home game at Beirne Stadium. If it is, for many of us this will be the last time we’ll watch the team in person for close to 6 months. So we should all cherish the moment and celebrate the season we have had together as fans. Until then, UP THE TIDE!