The Riptide Report: Detroit City FC vs Rhode Island FC - 10/10/2026

Rhode Island FC fell 1-0 tonight at Keyworth. A second half goal from Darren Smith was all Detroit City needed to take all 3 points. It was an unbelievably frustrating night and one that that I'm ready to jump right into. So here are my takeaways:

No Hugo and Return to a Back 3

Some uninformed idiot (me) had Hugo as an important player for this match. But unfortunately, he was unavailable due to yellow card accumulation. It used to be much easier to tell if a player was going to be out because the league used to report their tracking of it. But it appears that went away so now it's up to us fans to figure it out.

As for the guys who were available, Khano ended up going back to a back 3 like we saw recently against Charleston. I thought it was an interesting choice and one that signalled Khano wanted to make us tough to beat rather than fully go for a win. Our attack was limited in this system in that Charleston game. So my concern was that we would see more of the same tonight. And that concern proved to be warranted.

Seeing Red

The first huge moment of the game came in the 23rd minute when Detroit goalkeeper Carlos Herrera took out Osman Foyo. Frank Nodarse had played a long ball over the top that Foyo tried to run on to and Herrera came out of his goal and flew into him just outside the box. It was an obvious red card that the Detroit-friendly announcers seemed to have questions about. The man advantage was something you'd hope RIFC could take advantage of but as we know, it didn't happen.

Darren Smith Banger

Detroit looked better after the break despite playing with 10 men and Darren Smith made it count:

It was a great strike from Smith but one that RIFC should never have let him take. You have to be better defensively there, especially when you're playing a back 3.

Zero Adjustment

The worst thing about this game was how we played being a man up. Your opponent should never have the better chances when they're playing with 10. I can somewhat understand this game going into the half at 0-0 but something had to change at halftime. Well, to be honest it did. RIFC got worse. I've defended Khano countless times over these past three seasons but I simply don't understand what he was doing tonight.

The decision to go with a defensive back 3 is something I can accept but how you don't switch to a 4-2-3-1 at the half is beyond me. The easy substitution would have been to just bring either Yutaro or Jojea on for one of the defenders. Instead, no changes were made until the 66th minute, after the team was already 1-0 down. And when those changes were made, we of course got Jojea at LB. It just doesn't make any sense. We've seen what works this year and which positions players perform best in. Yet whenever we need to chase a game, Khano always decides to throw crap at the wall to see what sticks. Usually, it ends up being nothing. This was a major missed opportunity as a win would've put us 5th and level on points with Pittsburgh in 4th, with one less game played than them. Instead, we're down to 7th again. It's completely unacceptable and this entire team (staff and players) need to be held to a higher standard.

We'll have the Player Ratings tomorrow as well as the postmatch podcast, which is bound to be a feisty one. I'll be back here on Tuesday to preview the Wednesday night game against Loudoun United. Until then, despite my anger tonight, it is always UP THE TIDE!