RIFC battered Charleston 4-0 tonight to jump into 9th in the Eastern Conference. It’s easily the biggest margin of victory in what is now the 7th meeting between the two teams. RIFC and Charleston always play each other close, with the 2-0 Charleston win to open RIFC’s 2025 season the previous biggest win in the series. As for tonight, here are my immediate takeaways:
Consistent 11
Khano chose to keep the same starting 11 from the team’s last league game. One of my biggest points of focus coming into this season was I wanted to see a relatively consistent setup and starting 11. It appears we have that with what I’ll call a 4-2-3-1:
I think this lineup is the closest the team can get to getting the most out of their best players. My only gripe is that Leo isn’t really a winger and I think he does his best work centrally playing off of JJ. Regardless, I was really happy to see this lineup return for this one and was very confident as we approached kickoff.
First Half Struggles
RIFC really struggled on the ball in the first half. Charleston’s press made it difficult to play out and when RIFC went long, JJ Williams was well marked. This helped Charleston get 60% possession in the first half and they used it well. They created chances and often had players wide open in and around the box. It took a lot of last ditch defending for RIFC to make sure it got to halftime 0-0. JJ did have a great header saved just before the end of the half, but overall the balance of play had me concerned for the second half.
2nd Half Explosion
For all of my concern after the first half, the team responded by showing there was nothing to worry about. The attack exploded for 4 goals to absolutely blow Charleston away. It got started in the 51st minute:
JJ was all alone there at the far post and it looked close to being offside. A Charleston defender did touch it last and it’s up to interpretation whether it not it was a deliberate touch.
The second came just 10 minutes later:
Great work from Pity and Jojea there to create the two on one and take advantage.
Five minutes later, JJ got his second:
This was the best goal of the night. What a ball from Koke and what a phenomenal hit from JJ. This is the JJ we always knew was in there. If he can keep this up, RIFC will be scary.
Finally, Clay Holstad won a penalty that Busy was able to convert:
The foul isn’t shown here, but Clay did a great job to get a touch on the ball just before Charleston goalkeeper Luis Zamudio could get to it, drawing the contact for the foul. It was a nice calm finish from Busy, who for a moment I thought wouldn’t take it when JJ approached him. I wouldn’t have blamed JJ if he demanded to take the penalty since he was on a hat trick.
All in all, it was an unbelievable second half performance. I was really impressed with the team’s ability to take their chances and bury a good Charleston team. JJ was obviously the Man of the Match but several other players really stepped up as well. Jojea continues to look really comfortable on the right wing and Pity seems to be gradually improving in the middle. I could go on and talk about every player who saw the field, but I’ll leave that to Timmy.
Final Thoughts
I wasn’t able to make it to Tidewater tonight unfortunately. This might mean I’m not allowed back in since the team put forth their best win of the season without me there. Lots of thinking to do on that.
In the meantime, Matt and Ryan will be back with the postmatch pod tomorrow night and Timmy will have his player ratings, which may see some really high numbers. JJ has to be a 9. Possibly Koke too. As for myself, I’ll be back on Friday to preview the Prinx Tires Cup opener at Hartford on Saturday. Until then, as always, UP THE TIDE!
Tide Talk 
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