We’re here. Eastern Conference Finals. RIFC travel down to the Low Country to take on Charleston Battery on Saturday night. We got here by finishing 5th in the Eastern Conference and taking down Indy Eleven 3-2 and Louisville City 3-0. As for Charleston, they finished 2nd in the Eastern Conference and defeated the Pittsburgh Riverhounds 1-0 and the Tampa Bay Rowdies 2-1. Every indication is that this is going to be a phenomenal matchup. Both meetings this season ended in draws, with a 0-0 in Rhode Island early in the season and a 1-1 late in the season in Charleston. We’ll take our usual deep dive into each team, starting with the good guys:

What a season it has been for RIFC. We had a rough start and couldn’t buy a win. Then we turned it around over the summer. We came back down to earth for a few games but have since figured it out. We’re currently 8 games unbeaten again: the last 6 games of the season and our 2 playoff games so far. So, how have we done this?

It’s a lot easier to write about on here than to actually go out and do on the field. But it’s the adjustments that Khano Smith had made throughout the season and the players’ willingness to go with it. Whether it’s going from a back 4 to a back 3 or playing 3 central midfielders instead of 2, we’ve shown a constant willingness to change things up in order to get the results. It has lead to us being solid defensively, with a midfield that excels at breaking up play. It is now much more difficult to create chances against us. And in attack, our midfield helps set up quick transitions that we can take advantage of.

Speaking of that attack, I wrote a few weeks ago that this team would go as far as Noah Fuson would take them. Nothing against Noah, as he’s been great, but it turns out that this team is going as far as JJ Williams takes them. All season we’ve been crying out for a consistent goal scorer. At least I have. I’ve loved what JJ and Albert Dikwa have done at times this season, but there were plenty of stretches where we had trouble finishing chances. The emergence of JJ Williams is what I think has pushed this team from being a tough out in the playoffs to being a real threat to win it all.

Before having a chance to win it all, we’ll have to go through a tough Charleston team. This is how I think we’ll line up Saturday night:

You may notice a certain left-sided attacking player missing. Jojea Kwizera is unavailable as he is away on international duty with Rwanda. This, along with an injury to Stephen Turnbull, has caused an issue. We’ve typically been able to play one of Turnbull or Kwizera at RWB or LWB respectively. With Turnbull on the right, we’ve moved Morris Duggan out to LWB. With Kwizera on the left, we’ve moved Frank Nodarse out to RWB. It’s allowed us to keep one side defensive and the other side more attacking.

In my opinion, the only way to do this now is to put Noah Fuson at wingback. You still have the option of choosing which side, but right now I’m leaning towards Noah on the right and Duggan moving out to the left. I wouldn’t be surprised however if Noah plays on the left and Nodarse plays on the right. Either way, you have one defensive side and one more attacking side. The other option would be to start Kofi Twumasi at LCB and play Duggan on the left and Nodarse on the right. To me, this is too defensive of an approach and it will limit us going forward.

Overall, I expect us to be strong defensively. We’ll need to rely on JJ’s incredible form to take our chances going forward. If we can do this, along with a strong showing from our midfield, we have a good chance of heading to the final.

Similar to our last opponents, the Charleston Battery have been pretty consistently great this season. They started out 11 games unbeaten before their only major dip in form, going 5 games without a win. They picked it up after that though and were consistently one of the best teams in the league for the rest of the season. Their season as a whole went a little bit under the radar due to Louisville City’s dominance. Aside from Louisville, Charleston had the most points in the league and scored the most goals. They also have a great defensive record, conceding the 4th fewest goals in the league. This team is a formidable opponent.

If you listened to the Quahog Corner, you may know that I said Charleston are a more complete team than Louisville. I stand by that 100%. They may not have had the absurd scoring that Louisville had, but their defense more than makes up for it. I make this comparison between the two teams to try to make the point that while last week’s game against Louisville was an incredible result, I think we’ll have a tougher game in this one.

I have 4 players to look out for from Charleston. I didn’t actually look back, but they’re probably the same 4 as my last Prematch Lookout. It all starts with Nick Markanich, who scored 28 goals this season and has added 2 more in the playoffs so far. He is going to be the main focus for Charleston going forward. They also have another great forward in MD Myers, who had 14 goals this season. Fellow attacker Juan David Torres is also extremely dangerous, with 7 goals and 6 assists this season. Lastly, midfielder Aaron Molloy is the one who makes everything tick for this Charleston team. He is arguably the best midfielder in the league and making life hard for him will be a major key for RIFC in this game.

I honestly don’t know what else to say about this Charleston team. They’re good. Really good. I think for Charleston to win, they’ll need to slow down JJ Wiliams (not an enviable task) and make sure Aaron Molloy can dictate play in the midfield and get the ball forward to their dynamic attacking players.

As I said at the top, the last two meetings between these teams were draws. The first one was played at the very beginning of the season in some terrible weather in Rhode Island. There isn’t much you can take away from that 0-0 draw. The more relevant game was the 1-1 draw in Charleston just a month ago.

We played almost the same lineup as what I’d expect to see on Saturday, except Stephen Turnbull was available and started at RWB. The change then would be to bring Albert Dikwa on up front with JJ Williams and push Noah to RWB. As for Charleston, they rotated a few players in the squad but still started most of their regulars, including Markanich, Molloy and Torres.

Looking back at what happened in this game, I think we played a great first half, denying Charleston from getting any significant chances. Noah Fuson scored late in the half to give us the 1-0 lead. Charleston did better in the second half and finally broke through and got their goal to make it 1-1. A late penalty kick miss from Noah meant that the game ended that way.

I think we can gain a lot of confidence from that performance. We successfully shut Charleston down for 45 minutes and even though they had chances in the 2nd half, the one that they scored came off of a rebound spilled by Koke. We also had a penalty saved late that would have given us the win. If either of those two moments goes the other way, we would’ve come way with 3 points.

This is such a tough one to call, but I’m going with 2-1 RIFC. I can’t bring myself to pick against us now. I think the confidence that we should have from that last meeting will really help us. There is a large contingent of RIFC fans travelling to the game, including myself and my partner Sarah. We’re taking inspiration from my trip with FQB last weekend. I know most of us are flying down there but I’m hitting the road Friday evening and should be in Charleston by Saturday afternoon. I can’t wait to cheer this team on again and hopefully see us make it to the final. As always, UP THE TIDE!