Under the Surface - Home Wins and Road Losses

Welcome back to Under the Surface, this month I come to you in a new format that I plan to approach in the same way that I do with my post-match content I share on Twitter that has been received well on the newly minted Tyler Tweets™ segment on the Tide Talk pods. I hope to make this a more digestible blog going forward with some more interesting nuggets.

August 2nd: Birmingham Legion 1 - Rhode Island FC 0

Jojea Kwizera created 7 chances in this match, equalling his own club record that he set in the 3-0 home win over Hartford Athletic on August 10th, 2024.

In the month of August, Jojea created 16 chances, which was twice as many as the next closest player, Amos Shapiro-Thompson. He accounted for 27.1% of all of Rhode Island FC’s chances created in the month of August. His teammates were unable to convert a single one of those for a goal.

August 8th: Rhode Island FC 2 - Colorado Springs Switchbacks 0

Frank Nodarse’s 16 defensive contributions against the Switchbacks were tied for the 5th most in a single match in club history. That’s not particularly interesting, but what I did find was that the top 3 single match defensive contribution totals have occurred in 3 separate matches against RIFC’s next opponent, Louisville City FC by 3 different players:

1. Frank Nodarse (21 contributions) - June 22nd, 2024 (5-2 away win)
2. Hugo Bacharach (19 contributions) - September 6th, 2025 (1-0 home loss)
3. Grant Stoneman (18 contributions) - June 11th, 2025 (2-1 away loss)

JJ’s goal in this match being the first scored in 2nd half stoppage time in league play for over a year feels like there has to be some correlation between the lack of draws that RIFC has accumulated since their league record season in 2024. In their past 2 seasons, the Tide has drawn 12 league matches, 3 fewer than their debut season where they finished a club-best 5th in the table (tied with 4th place Indy Eleven on points, but lost the tiebreaker). 

In fact, Rhode Island FC scored 16 goals in the final 15 minutes of league matches in 2024, but has only scored 12 since. They have managed to double their 2025 total of 4 this season, so at least there’s progress to some degree.

August 15th: Tampa Bay Rowdies 2 - Rhode Island FC 0

Rhode Island FC tied its club record by blocking 9 of Tampa Bay’s shots. The only other time they did that was in the 2-1 comeback win against FC Tulsa on September 21st, 2024, which just so happens to be the last time that RIFC came back to win a match from a losing position.

Yutaro Tsukada’s 6 shot attempts tied the club record for a single match. JJ Williams (3x), Maxi Rodriguez, and Leo Afonso are the only two players to have done it previously.

August 22nd: Rhode Island FC 3 - Monterey Bay FC 1

Rhode Island FC has been allergic to fast starts this season. Leo Afonso opening the scoring in the 5th minute of this match was obviously the fastest to start a match, the next closest also scored by Leo in the 17th minute to equalize against Birmingham. The next closest goal to open a match this season by Rhode Island FC was Frank Nodarse’s goal against Hartford Athletic in the 20th minute on July 18th.

There were 24 shot attempts in this match by Rhode Island FC, tying the club record in league play set on July 4th against Orange County SC. This was the 7th league match in 2026 in which Rhode Island FC recorded at least 20 shots. They had only done so 5 times across their first 2 seasons as a club, all of which occurred in 2024. The season high in league play in 2025 was 17, which they did 3 times.

August 29th: FC Tulsa 1 - Rhode Island FC 0

FC Tulsa’s shameless time wasting helped them earn a whopping 6 yellow cards. That is a new record for an opposition team across all competitions against Rhode Island FC.

Rhode Island FC has lost 4 of its last 5 matches in the Wave kit and 1 win in its last 7 in all competitions. While this stat is mainly about our away form this season, it can’t be understated how poor we have played wearing white. We have only won 4 of our 18 matches in all competitions in the kit and cumulatively average less than a point per game. Though as poor as we are in the Wave kit, the playoff runs in 2024 and 2025 have done a lot of heavy lifting to boost the reputation of the Rhode kit which is actually our worst kit in league play with a dismal 1.04 points per game to the Wave kits equally unspectacular 1.08.

Rhode Island FC capped off the month with its worst single match duel win rate in club history and cumulatively won 49.4% of all duels in the month of August. It is the first time since July 2024 that they have won fewer than 50% of their duels in a single calendar month in league play.

Thank you for checking out this new format of the blog! Come on back next month for some more RIFC stats content! Feel free to connect with me in the Defiance 1636 Discord, Twitter (@TylerJHatch), or Instagram (@tjhatch2001) if there’s anything you would like to see come of this blog! There are a lot of massive home matches (and highly anticipated away days) against conference opposition that we as a club and we as supporters need to take advantage of to offset the poor away form. Get out to Tidewater and let’s keep those good home vibes going all the way from M7 to the final whistle. Don’t hesitate to come over and say hi! Until next month, Up The Tide!