Two images that encapsulate my feelings after this match:

Anyway, let’s start with the positive takeaways from this game:

Alright, and now let’s move on to the bad. I don’t want to hear any more excuses for this team – they are playing far below their level, and it’s not acceptable.

I don’t subscribe to the excuses that 1.) it’s early in the season, or 2.) we’re dealing with injuries. Sure, we started slow last season. But we were a brand new team. This season, we brought back nearly our entire roster to avoid this exact issue. Why do we look like a team that’s never played together, and eerily similar to the team that started last season (but, in a lot of ways, worse)?

As for the injuries… yes, it’s tough to have Dani Rovira and Hugo Bacharach start the season injured. But most fans were aligned on the idea that we needed another depth-level center back on this roster to start the season – especially knowing that Bacharach has been injured all preseason, if I’m not mistaken.

Now, we’re seeing our center backs struggle and only options to replace them are… Clay Holstad? Zach Herivaux? We’ve made 14 substitutions so far this season, and 10 of them have been midfielders. Sure, they’re versatile players and cover many positions, but it reeks of flawed squad building.

We’ve got Oakland Roots next weekend – one of the only teams that’s started 2025 worse than we have – followed by a relatively in-form Detroit City team. The grand opening at Tidewater on May 3rd is not going to be the celebration we’ve all been waiting for if we’re entering it with only two or three points in the league, going up against current-league leaders San Antonio FC.

Let’s get to the player ratings… it’s not going to be pretty.

Rhode Island FC Player Ratings:

Koke Vegas (GK) – 4/10

On shot stopping alone this has got to be a 3/10… Koke made zero saves. Neither goal was an easy save, but between the two of them I think Koke could’ve at least got something on one of them. I think Jackson Lee gets something on at least one of them. Koke also appeared to be beat a third time on a tight angled shot but, mercifully, the shot hit the side netting.

Koke’s distribution, however, was quality as usual (I sometimes underrate this skill), and he made at least one good read to come off his line and save our defense from shaky situations.

Grant Stoneman (D) – 3/10

Always reliable Grant Stoneman put up maybe his worst performance for Rhode Island. Multiple overcooked long balls, misplaced passes into the midfield (one of which led directly to Loudoun’s first goal) and – worst of all – he looked slow defending, as he was passed around or run past all game long.

Karifa Yao (D) – 5/10

This score might be highly controversial. Yao was certainly our best defender on the night (not exactly high praise). He didn’t cover himself in glory with his failure to step to Aboukoura on the first Loudoun goal, but he made several other successful last-ditch efforts to stop Loudoun attacks that could’ve otherwise made a bad result even worse. He led all players with five successful tackles.

Frank Nodarse (D) – 3/10

I didn’t think Frank was that bad in the first half… but the second goal was inexcusable. Frank falls asleep and lets Aboukoura drift into the space behind him (where have I seen this before?), then makes a decent recovery run to close him off at the edge of the box and gets absolutely turned inside out.

I can live with occasional individual errors from a defender, but when Frank has been the main culprit in at least one goal across all of our games so far this season… I think he’s awfully lucky we don’t have any depth at this position.

Aldair Sanchez (MF) – 4/10

Sanchez had only 11 touches in the first half, and then made way at half time for Jojea Kwizera. The sub was probably a combination of his picking up a yellow card in the 43rd minute, and the team needing a new look after a sloppy and toothless first half.

Clay Holstad (MF) – 4/10

Someone has to ask the question on everyone’s mind. Is our right wing back position cursed? First Kwizera had a stinker here in Charleston, followed by Noah starting here last weekend and having one of his worst performances. Now Clay – usually one of the most involved players on the pitch – had a quiet game against Loudoun.

Taimu Okiyoshi (MF) – 4/10

Taimu’s performance was fine, but he needs to do more to pick up and progress the ball from our center backs. Especially in a game like this, where Loudoun was sitting back and the ball was stuck at our center backs feet for long periods of time.

Maxi Rodriguez (MF) – 5/10

Maxi’s set piece delivery was improved in this match, and with a game-high 71 touches he was more involved than his first two appearances. He played as a number 10 in the first half, and then dropped into a double pivot with Marc Ybarra in the second half – from both positions, Maxi was pushing the ball but the final product just wasn’t quite there.

Maxi did produce our only two shots on target in the match – including this shot in the 42nd minute that could’ve got us back into the game right before half time.

Marc Ybarra (MF) – 5/10

For such a putrid team performance, Ybarra actually quietly looked pretty decent in this match. He finished with 30/34 accurate passes and 48 touches – which is more like the stat line I want to see from our defensive midfielder, and what I hope Taimu can grow into in matches where he’s replacing Ybarra in the starting XI.

Ybarra also had the third most defensive actions in the game with 11, including four out of four tackles won.

JJ Williams (F) – 4/10

The service to our forwards was close to non-existent last night. Loudoun started the game basically double-teaming JJ on every aerial ball, so they took that option away early and we didn’t really seem to have any other ideas. Nonetheless, JJ still won a game-high nine duels. He had a decent headed chance in the second half that went narrowly wide.

His passing accuracy was only 42% – which can be passable (no pun intended) for a forward – but in this case, was symptomatic of how the link up play with our forwards was simply not working against Loudoun.

Albert Dikwa (F) – 3/10

Brutal night for Chico, completing just three out of 11 attempted passes – the fewest of any player in the match, including subs, despite his playing 75 minutes. He also didn’t manage a single shot.

His cutback pass that led to a Maxi shot – our best chance of the night – was a bright point, but otherwise think he was very ineffective. To be fair, the team really didn’t create much for him to work with.

Subs

Jojea Kwizera (MF) – 4/10

Not a great showing from Kwizera on his return from Rwandan international duty. He hit a few crosses that looked threatening, but ultimately completed just one out of his five attempted crosses, and only one out of four attempted dribbles. Again – the crosses into a completely empty box reminded me too much of early 2024 RIFC.

Noah Fuson (MF) – 4/10

Fuson came on to play as the number 10 and dropped Maxi into a double pivot with Ybarra. We haven’t had too many looks at Noah playing centrally behind both of Dikwa and Williams. It didn’t look great last night, but neither did anything about our performance – so I’m open to seeing it again.

Fuson was improved over his performance at RWB last weekend, but I still have a hard time finding nice things to say about almost any of our second half players, considering how ineffective and bereft of creativity we looked in 20+ minutes of playing with an extra man.

Zachary Herivaux (MF) – 5/10

Herivaux replaced Frank Nodarse and played as the left-sided center back. Surprisingly, I liked how he looked. He completed 34 out of 35 passes (which you want to see from a center back), and was comfortable carrying the ball and progressing it forward.

Given our complete lack of centerback depth, I wouldn’t mind seeing this again. Of course, Herivaux won’t be available for selection next game after his “red card offense” in stoppage time.

I don’t see this as a red card offense, since Grant Stoneman was also back alongside Herivaux, making it not a “clear goal scoring opportunity” for me. However… the game was long dead by now, so why even make the referee make this decision in the first place?

Amos Shapiro-Thompson (MF) – 4/10

I don’t think Amos is a right wing back… but we’re short at multiple positions, so it’s the only place we’ve really been able to deploy him so far. Based on this, it’s not entirely his fault, but he seemed relatively easy to get past for the left-sided players on Loudoun

Joe Brito (MF) – 4/10

I really have nothing to add here – even Brito couldn’t spark this team to life when he entered.

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Rating Scale:

• 1/10 – Abysmal. You might as well have me on the pitch.
• 2/10 – Very bad
• 3/10 – Bad
• 4/10 – Below Average
• 5/10 – Average. The player did their job.
• 6/10 – Good
• 7/10 – Very good
• 8/10 – Great
• 9/10 – Outstanding
• 10/10 – Transcendent performance. Watch out, because Real Madrid may come knocking.