Rhode Island FC opened up their inaugural USL Jägermeister Cup campaign with a convincing 4-1 win at Westchester SC.

Since only the winner of each group will advance (plus two wild card teams from the rest of the field), it’s crucial to win every game during the group stage – and even better to do it with a strong goal differential. Khano was obviously aware of this as he went with a basically full strength lineup, making only one outfield change due to Karifa Yao appearing on the injury report, and replacing Koke Vegas with Jackson Lee in net.

My colleague, Matt Hands, who is so deeply married to the game that he wrote his post match blog from The Stadium at Memorial Field, pointed out the main tactical tweak in this one; we (mostly) played a back four with Rio Hope-Gund at right back, Aldair Sanchez at left back, and Stoneman and Nodarse as the central defenders.

This is a departure from the usual back three in defense. While Khano’s hand may have been forced by the injury to Karifa Yao, we had been experimenting with the flat back four leading up to this match… although, again, mostly out of necessity due to having players sent off in our previous few matches.

I try – and often fail – to keep the intro brief, but I have to touch on Cantinas Lobos in Pelham, NY. What a lovely spot with great food and drinks, and some of the friendliest service you could ever ask for. I really hope that spots like this, offering gameday specials and targeting the gameday football crowd, begin to pop up around our home stadium.

Speaking of our home stadium… see you next week at the grand opening (feels amazing to say that). Until then, time for player ratings.

Rhode Island FC Player Ratings:

Jackson Lee (GK) – 7/10

Jackson Lee was great in this game. Westchester didn’t manage too many shots that really tested Jackson, but he was more than up for it when called upon. He seems to deal with everything so comfortably. Absolutely nothing he could’ve done differently for the Westchester goal, either.

And nobody in the league takes a better post game selfie.

Grant Stoneman (D) – 5/10

Like Jackson Lee, there wasn’t a tremendous amount for Stoneman to do in this match. We didn’t even rely as much on Stoneman’s passing in this match as usual. Stoneman did win just one out of six aerial duels… unfortunately, those are balls that Karifa Yao is usually winning and Stoneman is being asked to contest for them in his absence.

Rio Hope-Gund (D) – 6/10

First start and first full 90 for RHG – I thought he was good and built upon what he has shown in his appearances so far, and showed that he can do it for a full match. Although there wasn’t much defending to do, Hope-Gund made himself very useful in build up play, especially with his nine passes into the attacking third.

I believe this brings us to the end of RHG’s 25-day contract, and I’d love to see us extend him. I still believe we need a starting-caliber central defender, but Rio has proved more than capable of filling some holes for us.

Frank Nodarse (D) – 8/10

Frank had something to prove after his red card in Detroit last time out, and he proved it. Not only was Frank everywhere defensively – as he lead all Rhode Island FC players with 13 defensive actions (including a game-high 6 headed clearances) – he also opened the scoring with a clean header on a Maxi Rodriguez corner delivery in the 25th minute.

Clay Holstad (MF) – 8/10

Is it time to hit the panic button here, with Clay not scoring in this match?

Nope, this may have been Clay’s best game of the season so far. Clay, alongside Zach Herivaux in the midfield, was an absolute nightmare for Westchester to deal with. Our build up play ran straight through the midfield in this match, and Clay led all players with 74 touches and 45 accurate passes including 10 passes into the final third.

Defensively, Clay led all players with four successful tackles and 12 duels won. So not only was Clay making their midfield look like Swiss cheese when we had the ball, he also made it nearly impossible for Westchester to start building any kind of attack.

Zachary Herivaux (MF) – 7/10

Basically everything that I said for Clay was also true for Herivaux at Westchester. While Clay led the team in several attacking and defensive stats, Herivaux was right up there with him in a lot of those same categories. Herivaux also added an assist with a great ball to JJ Williams for our fourth goal of the afternoon.

This was Zach’s better pass on the night, although he won’t be directly credited with the assist for it:

Unfortunately, Zach also gets dispossessed after a bad touch that leads to the only Westchester goal.

Maxi Rodriguez (MF) – 8/10

The reports of Maxi’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Maxi went from being showered with boo’s by his old club (loser behavior) and getting subbed off at half time, to having his best performance of year.

Maxi was arguably our best player during the ~10 minute span when we really cracked this game open. During this stretch, he was progressing the ball and picking up dangerous positions like he was prime Dele Alli.

First, he assisted Nodarse’s opening goal with a strong corner delivery, he then had two more shots (one of which very much could’ve been scored – but led to JJ scoring our second goal) before Maxi himself scored our third goal:

After how Maxi was treated by Detroit last week, there was some anti-Detroit chants coming out of the RI traveling support section. Let’s just say Maxi was… enjoying it.

Aldair Sanchez (MF) – 5/10

Aldair was absolutely fine in this game – but there were so many other strong performances around the pitch that Aldair didn’t really stand out. And that’s perfectly fine, considering he’s been a bright spot for us in other matches where the rest of the team hasn’t looked good.

Jojea Kwizera (MF) – 6/10

While Kwizera was the only attacking player for Rhode Island FC not to hit the score sheet, he had a strong game nonetheless. If you look back at a lot of our goals – and especially some of our major chances that didn’t result in a goal – Kwizera was right there involved in most of them, often contributing to our build up with combinations of Herivaux, Fuson, and Williams.

JJ Williams (F) – 8/10

JJ has picked up this season right where he left off in 2024. He had just 21 touches in this match – the fewest of all of our starters – but he was absolutely lethal with them. One third of those touches were in the opposition box as well, indicating that he was in dangerous positions when he did receive the ball.

First, JJ cleaned up a Maxi shot attempt with a left-footed finish into a relatively open net. In the second half, JJ made a perfectly-timed run to get on the end of a Herivaux through ball, took one touch, before hitting a beautifully clinical shot to kill the game.

Noah Fuson (F) – 6/10

Outside of Noah’s direct goal contribution (a perfect pass to Maxi for our third goal), he looked much more comfortable and confident than in our previous matches. He was more involved and useful in build up play, creating two chances and getting on the end of the ball for a chance of his own in the 8th minute that easily could’ve resulted in a goal.

Subs

There wasn’t much left for the subs to do by the time they came on – but there was a well-worked goal scoring opportunity involving Noah Fuson, Kevin Vang, Joe Brito, and Amos Shapiro-Thompson in the 86th minute:

Kevin Vang (MF) – He’s one of our own.

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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.