The Riptide Report: FC Tulsa vs Rhode Island FC - 8/29/2026

Rhode Island FC fell 1-0 to FC Tulsa tonight. An early goal from Jeorgio Kocevski was all Tulsa would need to get the victory and three points. Here are my quick takeaways from the loss:

Hugo, Amos, and Klein

No, that isn't a law firm. It's what Khano chose to go with in the midfield tonight. Yutaro Tsukada was unavailable due to the birth of his child, which meant the team had a void on the left wing and needed to adjust. Khano ended up putting an additional player in midfield and pushed Pity out wide along with Jojea.

For me, it didn't work. Amos never looks as good when he's further forward and Klein didn't impress me next to Hugo. As for the left wing, I would've rather seen Noah or Busy fill in there. Regardless, the team was always going to miss Yutaro and his absence was noticeable tonight

Conceding Early

It's never good to concede early. And it's especially bad for this RIFC team that struggles to overcome deficits. So when Tulsa got on the board in the 8th minute, it was a bad sign:

This was just a great attacking move from Tulsa that Kocevski finished off well. The defending probably needed to be better on the wing but you really can't take away from the goal.

Foyo and Stas

Osman Foyo and new loan signing Stas Korzeniowski came on together in the 58th minute. It was good to see them both on the field and you have to think they'll both be very important players as we head into the last couple months of the season. But neither were able to make the difference we were hoping for tonight. I don't hold it against them though because they just got here and will clearly need some time.

Out of Sorts

My biggest takeaway from this one was that RIFC were just out of sorts tonight. Particularly once subs were made. It feels like when players get subbed on in attack there's no real sense of what their positioning is supposed to be. We very rarely see like-for-like changes. And that was the case again tonight. I don't mind shifting guys around a bit but by the end of the game, we had Leo, Foyo, Stas, Noah, and Busy all on the field and the only player who I could tell you what their position was was Stas. He was playing as a central striker. This general approach never seems to work. It's like we're throwing a bunch of players out there and hoping they'll figure it out on their own. I do have to give some credit to Tulsa though, as they were very good defensively tonight. All three of their starting CBs (Pierre, Cissoko, Ian) were fantastic and so hard to get past. Still, it's frustrating that RIFC weren't able to break through.

Overall, this was a pretty frustrating game. But the more rational side of me knows that this team will need time to adjust in the attack without JJ. You have to hope that there's enough time for the guys to put it together for the stretch run.

As we always do, there will be player ratings and the podcast tomorrow to go over this one. And I'll be back later in the week to preview RIFC's upcoming home game against Louisville City. Until then, UP THE TIDE!