Rhode Island FC suffered a frustrating 1-0 loss to Indy Eleven on Saturday night in Indianapolis.

The biggest takeaway for me is that we absolutely do not have an answer for Eric Dick. This was his fifth shutout in six games against Rhode Island FC. We’ve only ever scored a single goal against him – and it was in the USL Cup, not a league match. Not only did he make six saves (most of them pretty straightforward) but was quick off his line and had a way to stifle every form of Rhode Island attack.

The Rhode Island attack certainly needs to be more clinical. But, ultimately, I didn’t think this was an especially bad performance. A frustrating one, yes – but I’m not overly upset with how we played.

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Rhode Island FC Player Ratings:

Koke Vegas (GK) – 6/10

Indy Eleven managed just two shots on goal – forcing one Koke save, and scoring a goal on the other. Maybe Koke looked a bit flat-footed on the Indy Eleven goal – but in his defense, I think you could give Rendon that chance 100 more times and he wouldn’t get it perfectly in the top left corner like that again.

Aldair Sanchez (D) – 5/10

No complaints with the performance from Aldair. He was reliable on defense, and really didn’t do anything to stand out on attack (nor did he need to). I’ll keep mentioning it, we need to find a way to get this man some rest.

Grant Stoneman (D) – 6/10

I was excited to see what Stoneman could bring to our buildup play with his insertion into the starting lineup, replacing the newly-injured Hamady Diop. While he led the team with 15 passes into the final third, his longball accuracy was exceptionally low since we struggled to win aerial duels on the night.

Karifa Yao (D) – 6/10

Indy didn’t put a whole lot of pressure on the Rhode Island backline, but Karifa was well-prepared and dealt with the threats whenever they did. Yao led all Rhode Island players with 11 defensive contributions. I thought he was reliable both in transition and emergency defending, as well as his usual aerial dominance inside of our box.

Nick Scardina (D) – 7/10

Over the last month-or-so, Scardina has become the player that we all expected him to be when we signed him in the offseason. In Indy, he was exceptional on both sides of the ball. While he was 0/4 on crosses, I thought this had a lot more to do with the players around him than it did the quality of his crosses.

Additionally, in the second half, he made a great recovery run to close down and block an Indy Eleven shot that had a great chance of hitting the back of the net. Scardina may have been our best player, if not for the next man on the list…

Hugo Bacharach (MF) – 8/10

I’m fully prepared for the haters (really just my Tide Talk colleagues) to say I’ve lost my mind, giving an 8/10 in a 1-0 loss. But the Hugo Hive is absolutely buzzing after tonight’s performance.

Without taking the time to go back and individually review Hugo’s performances this year… I’m 95% sure that this was his best of the season by a considerable margin. His ball progression via both dribbling and passing were multiple levels above what they’ve been all season – including several signature gazelle-like marauding runs through the midfield to spring Rhode Island attacking moves.

On the other side of the ball, Hugo led all players with six tackles and winning nine duels (including 7/9 on the ground). It was a truly dominant performance from Hugo like we haven’t seen yet this season.

Clay Holstad (MF) – 5/10

Not as loud or visible of a performance from Clay as we’re accustomed to, though he played perfectly fine. I like the balance of the Hugo-Clay-Amos midfield.

Amos Shapiro-Thompson (MF) – 6/10

I’ve always thought of Amos as more of a metronomic, ball-recycling midfielder, so I’m not sure what he’s really supposed to do with only 23 touches. With that said, he’s doing well to adapt his game to try to play a more attacking style (even if it doesn’t always come off), and his work rate off the ball is likely still the best on the team. He was admittedly limited in this match by the soft yellow that he picked up in the first 10 minutes.

Leo Afonso (F) – 4/10

Leo has been struggling for the last few weeks, and it continued tonight. I don’t have a ton to say about it, but the decision-making and quality in the attacking third was not good enough tonight. Previously, we can at least count on Leo to get shots off (and usually get them on target) but tonight there were no shots and no chances created.

JJ Williams (F) – 5/10

Oddly enough, JJ wasn’t much of an aerial threat on the night but he did manage a game-high six shots and created four chances along with it. Unfortunately, what the game called for was probably for him to get his head on the end of one of the numerous long throws, six corner attempts, or 33 crosses into the box. Despite the strong stats, it felt like he was largely marked out of this game.

Jojea Kwizera (F) – 6/10

I really liked some of the early, half-space crosses that Kwizera was playing into the box during this match. He finished the game 7/13 on crosses and with a game-high five chances created. If the Rhode Island FC breakthrough was going to happen (and I do think if we played that game again, it would have come), it was going to involve Jojea Kwizera.

Subs

Pity Rodriguez – 5/10

Instant impact when Pity and Noah came on, as they created a solid chance right away. While I would prefer to see Pity continue to start (he’s only started two of the last six matches) due to his offensive ability, it’s certainly a luxury to bring him in against tired legs.

Noah Fuson – 6/10

Hard to go higher than a five for an attacking substitute in a losing effort, but I thought this was actually one of Noah’s brighter cameos as he looked dangerous briefly playing centrally, and continued to threaten after moving to right wingback.

Logan Dorsey – N/A

Frank Nodarse – 5/10

Frank looked perfectly solid after he came on, signaling the switch to a back-three for Rhode Island FC.

Dwayne Atkinson – 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.