A scoreless draw at Highmark Stadium on the final day of the regular season proved enough to clinch a place in the USL Championship playoffs for Phoenix Rising.

Rising would have hosted a first playoff game since 2021 had they found a way to come out on top against Pittsburgh Riverhounds thanks to results elsewhere. Instead, they’ll travel to El Paso Locomotive as the 5th seed in the Western Conference.

Pittsburgh in control

For large spells of the match, Phoenix Rising found itself on the back foot.

Pittsburgh Riverhounds were the only team to truly threaten in the first half, with Augustine Williams missing a couple of chances and Luke Biasi hitting the woodwork. Pittsburgh ultimately had 60% of the ball before the break, and Rising managed a weak 0.06 expected goals and entered the Riverhounds final third just 19 times — less than half of their opponents’ tally.

In the second half, Pittsburgh would squander a golden chance once again, with Augustine Williams failing to make clean contact just yards away from goal.

handful of Late chances

After struggling to create much in the way of chances, Phoenix Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah made his first substitutions at around the 75th minute mark. On came Ihsan Sacko and Rémi Cabral, two attacking options.

The impact was immediate. Within minutes, Sacko was presented with a golden opportunity off a long ball, but his first touch let him down, allowing goalkeeper Eric Dick to make the save. Later, Rising almost capitalized off a penalty area scramble, but couldn’t find a way to put the ball into the back of the net.

Phoenix Rising’s Playoff route confirmed

Phoenix Rising went into Saturday night’s match knowing that a win was needed — but not necessarily enough — for the team to host its first playoff game since 2021. A draw would lock in a fifth place finish, but send the team on the road to face El Paso Locomotive in Texas instead.

In the end, a 5-2 San Antonio victory meant that Phoenix would have hosted a playoff match had they won in Pittsburgh.

FC Tulsa had already sealed top spot ahead of Saturday, but will now face a rematch of their 3-0 final day victory at home against Colorado Springs. The winner of that rematch will await either Rising or El Paso in the next round.

San Antonio’s 5-2 victory confirmed that they will travel to third place New Mexico, while Orange County’s 2-1 win over Indy Eleven booked them a trip to face Sacramento. A 3-0 away defeat to already eliminated Oakland Roots meant that Lexington SC were the odd man out in ninth place.

Owain’s take

On the road we go.

Any faint hopes we had of seeing Phoenix Rising play postseason football at 38th & Washington were dashed in the cold Pennsylvania night, and not for the main reason we all expected.

Rising came out with a very similar look to recent weeks, albeit with a few personnel changes due to injury. But Pittsburgh was a completely different test to the prior to matches, and ultimately, Rising didn’t really match up to it.

Put simply, Pittsburgh was by far the better side on the night. On another day, if Augustine Williams wasn’t as wasteful as he proved, the Riverhounds would have won by several goals, and Rising would be sitting in 7th with a Sunday trip to Sacramento on the agenda.

The thing that frustrates is that a home playoff game was there for the taking. San Antonio’s win wouldn’t be known until well after the final whistle, but I’m not sure there was ever a point where I felt that Rising was going to make it necessary for them to do so.

The most charitable view is that Rising’s attack, lacking a true out-and-out striker and with other players also absent, was simply nullified in almost all aspects by the Riverhounds’ play. A less charitable view would be that Rising, willing to admit to it or not, lacked the urgency on the night to play for anything more than the draw that meant they’d book their playoff place at least.

In fairness, injuries to Collin Smith and Daniel Flores didn’t help. To get the best out of Rising’s current approach, playing without a true striker to aim for, you need attacking threat from the wing backs. Ascel Essengue has been an important piece for Phoenix in the defense this season, but he’s inevitably going to be limited as a makeshift left back. That’s just not going to make things easy against one of the better defensive sides in the league.

Will Phoenix Rising be healthier next week? That’s the big question, and it’s one that could prove critical to the outcome of this season.

But facing a team that Rising has drawn three times against this season, all of which have been high scoring affairs, Phoenix will need to put out a better showing in front of the opponent’s net than they did in Pittsburgh. If they don’t, that’ll likely be it for Phoenix Rising’s 2025 campaign.

Top image: Pittsburgh Riverhounds