RIFC drew Birmingham Legion 1-1 in front of a sold-out crowd at Centreville Bank Stadium. While a draw isn’t the worst result in the world, it leaves RIFC with 16 points halfway through the season. At the time of writing, that puts RIFC 9th in the Eastern Conference, outside of the playoffs. As always, I’m going to give my quick, immediate reaction to tonight’s game
Turnbull Haunts Former Team
RIFC started the game slow and disjointed. They were made to pay in the 27th minute when our old friend Stephen Turnbull blew past Frank Nodarse and set up Ronaldo Damus for the game’s first goal:
As much as I love Frank, he was largely to blame for this one. It looked initially like he had Turnbull covered, as he usually does when tracking back. But he seemed to just let Turnbull go there and allowed him to provide an easy assist for Damus. It was an extremely disappointing and avoidable goal.
Fuson Fires Back
Though RIFC couldn’t collectively keep the momentum from last week’s 4-1 win over Portland Hearts of Pine, Noah Fuson continued to look good starting in a central area. This was most evident late in the first half when he drew RIFC level:
It was a nice finish and the team will need more of the same from Noah moving forward into the 2nd half of the season.
Not Quite Enough
The header says it all here. It just still isn’t good enough. I don’t think RIFC had a poor performance, but it wasn’t great either. I saw some encouraging things but not enough to feel really confident about the team moving forward. Marc Ybarra looked good when he came on in the 2nd half and I thought Jojea Kwizera looked a little better out wide taking defenders on. But the team offered very little down the right side in attack. Overall, I find it a little tough to assess this one. It’s not all doom and gloom like after the Sacramento loss, but the vibes also aren’t that great. It doesn’t feel like this team is back or that they’re even headed to where we all want to see them.
Up Next
We will be back with the Postmatch Pod Sunday night, and Timmy will have his player ratings for a deeper look at this one. I will be back later in the week to preview next weekend’s matchup with Indy Eleven. Until then, as always, UP THE TIDE!
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