The team with the worst home record in the league has unfortunately done it again, as Rhode Island FC drew 1-1 with Birmingham Legion FC on Saturday night. With the draw, Rhode Island have earned a grand total of six points from their first seven league games at Tidewater.

It’s a disappointing result for a handful of reasons. First, Birmingham is direct competition for the final playoff spot right now, so these are crucial points to be grabbing – although RIFC did secure the tiebreaker over Birmingham, if it comes to it.

Additionally, this was a fully sold out match and a new attendance record for Rhode Island FC at 10,734, yet, the team continues to play drab, uninspired football that likely won’t have casual fans dying to catch the next match.

I’ll keep my thoughts fairly brief as I’m running behind this week due to some travel, and really don’t have a great deal to say about the performance. For additional coverage, as always, Matt Hands’ Riptide Report and the Tide Talk Post Match Reaction Pod with Matt and Ryan are both available.

For those who are interested in comparing these ratings to other matches this season – here is a document tracking all of my player ratings for the season so far.

Rhode Island FC Player Ratings:

Jackson Lee (GK) – 6/10

I would say Lee saved us a point with his second half performance, making a couple of big saves, and also snuffing out a few dangerous attacking situations by making smart reads and being quick off his line. The long passing left a little something to be desired.

Karifa Yao (D) – 5/10

No real complaints from me – Yao played competent defense and did his job effectively.

Rio Hope-Gund (D) – 6/10

Another characteristic performance of Rio where he locked down our right side. He was also taking up more advanced positions, especially in the first half, oftentimes overlapping and running past Joe Brito on the right wing. The offensive efforts didn’t exactly come off in this match, but I like that he’s getting more comfortable and adding that dimension to his game.

Aldair Sanchez (D) – 4/10

Not Aldair’s best performance, as he didn’t have many opportunities to whip in his signature crosses. He was also dispossessed four times (tied for the game-high) and lost seven out of ten total duels.

Lastly, as is becoming a concerning trend over the last several weeks, Aldair is caught up field for the Birmingham goal.

Frank Nodarse (D) – 5/10

I’ll start here – I don’t have much of an issue with Frank’s defending on Birmingham’s goal. Admittedly it looks at first glance like he slows down when he gets to the ball – but I think it’s a combination of him trying not to foul in relative close proximity to our box, and Turnbull making a good move to get around him (and using some of the body contact/momentum to create separation).

Otherwise, I think this performance was fine – Birmingham didn’t give us a tremendous amount to deal with on the offensive end.

Maxi Rodriguez (MF) – 6/10

Statistically, this was a very similar performance from Maxi to last week (well, minus the Chances Created) as he occupied a deeper position in a double pivot with Clay for the second week in a row.

Maxi was very good from that position again, as he led all players with 14 passes into the final third, four out of five tackles won, and led all Rhode Island players with 11 defensive actions. While he was largely missing that final, killer ball in this performance – he did start the move for the lone Rhode Island FC goal with a great long ball to Albert Dikwa.

Clay Holstad (MF) – 6/10

Clay looked great this week in the midfield partnership with Maxi, as Clay operated often as more of the metronome-type midfielder with safe passes until an option opens up – and/or, often he would receive the ball from the center backs and carry until he could find an angle to get it to Maxi to try to make something happen.

Noah Fuson (MF) – 6/10

And completing this trio is the third player who has looked dramatically improved since the tweak in formation. Noah is now playing centrally and looks much more comfortable, creative, and confident for the second week in a row.

When he is on the ball in the attacking third, I’m starting to feel again (like last season) that something is going to happen.

Of course, Noah scored our only goal with a great curling shot from outside of the box – and he wasn’t too far off from scoring another goal from a similar position even earlier in the match.

Jojea Kwizera (F) – 6/10

Kwizera was heavily involved on Saturday as the attack mainly ran down the left. I was frustrated in the first half as I felt like he was failing to create chances from dangerous positions (and, to be clear, he did fail to create chances in this match – but so did the rest of the team), but Kwizera grew into the match.

He attempted nine crosses and found his target four times – which is pretty impressive by Rhode Island FC standards. He led all players with four successful dribbles (out of five attempts) and also led all players in duels won with 10 out of 18 attempts.

Albert Dikwa (F) – 5/10

Low involvement for Dikwa as he had the fewest touches (26) out of any outfield player to play the full 90 minutes. Of course, his work rate is very good – but there just isn’t much to talk about from this performance.

He did do well to head the long ball from Maxi down into Noah’s path to earn his assist. Noah still does the hard work to finish the chance, but hopefully this is an avenue of attack that we can explore more now with Noah playing as the number 10 and making those late runs.

Joe Brito (F) – 5/10

Again, the attack mainly ran down the left for this match so Brito didn’t have a huge amount to do or contribute on offense. Incredibly hardworking, and great on 50/50 balls (he won four out of five ground duels), but he’s not a player who is going to create something from nothing… which is a bit of what this team needs right now.

Subs

Marc Ybarra (MF) – 5/10

Ybarra’s first few touches after he came on were spectacular. I thought, “THIS is what we’ve been missing”. After those first few touches, some of the rust started to show – but I still think it’s a huge boost to have him back and can’t wait to see his minutes (and contributions) grow.

We saw some pretty awful set piece and corner attempts in this match – so I was happy to see Ybarra put in a good one after he came on. This could be one underrated area where we’ve missed Ybarra.

Aime Mabika (D) – 5/10

Solid cameo with a few important defensive contributions.

Daniel Rovira (MF) – N/A

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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.