Phoenix Rising was unable to climb into the playoff places after trading wonderstrikes on the road in Monterey Bay.

Daniel Flores gave the visitors a lead late in the match thanks to a shot from distance, before Ryuga Nakamura found the net with one of his own in the 88th minute.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

The headlines going into Phoenix Rising’s clash with Monterey Bay wer predominantly focused on roster changes.

Ascel Essengue, who played in Phoenix on loan last year, re-joined the team on loan from LA Galaxy. Essengue had been playing with Loudoun United in the Eastern Conference, and provides additional depth at center-back. The 23-year-old appeared off the bench for Phoenix in California.

However, several players departed the club. Gilberto Rivera, who was on loan from Houston Dynamo’s reserve team, was recalled by his parent club in midweek. Separately, Charlie Dennis announced his own departure from the team on Instagram, which Rising has yet to acknowledge.

Another recent acquisition, Juan David Torres, made his first start for the team in Seaside, going on to play for the entire 90 minutes.

Phoenix Rising and Monterey Bay play a… match

Saturday nights’ match was… not the easiest on the eye.

Monterey Bay went into the match against Phoenix Rising as the worst team in the Western Conference by a fair distance, and hadn’t won a game in any competition since mid-June.

From Phoenix Rising’s perspective, 2026 has been a disappointing season so far, but recent games had given some hope that the club was headed in a more positive direction.

As the game progressed, though, Rising didn’t show off the quality that they’d like to portray. Instead, both sides looked relatively even over the course of the 90 minutes, recording similar expected goals figures and similar numbers of shots.

Of note, Phoenix struggled to work the ball into the hosts’ penalty area, recording just nine touches of the ball within Monterey Bay’s box. That’s the second-lowest total for the club in league play this season.

Flores and Nakamura trade long range strikes

When Daniel Flores scored from distance in the 79th minute, Phoenix Rising must have thought they’d just about edged it in a game that could have been a potential banana skin for the squad. Flores’ shot, from outside the penalty area, gave Jacob Jackson very little hope of making a save in the Monterey Bay goal as it snuck in at the far post.

However, with just two minutes of the 90 remaining, Ryuga Nakamura responded with one of his own from even further out to deny Phoenix Rising. Nakamura’s effort may not have quite had the same placement as Flores’, but it did evade the head of Ascel Essengue and Patrick Rakovsky was unable to keep the ball out despite getting a hand to it.

Owain’s take

A point on the road is usually a good thing. But there’s more to this one, isn’t there?

Monterey Bay had lost over 60 percent of its games this season going into Saturday. They sat bottom of the Western Conference, ten points adrift of Oakland in 11th. To put it simply, they’re effectively playing solely for pride at this stage, and have no serious chance of postseason contention.

So that should make it a winnable game for Phoenix Rising, shouldn’t it?

That is the backdrop against which we have to assess Saturday’s match for Rising, and against that backdrop, it’s hard to come away feeling good about it at all.

I mean, what exactly is the positive I’m supposed to draw from this? Rising came away with a win? No. Rising played particularly well? No. Rising faced a difficult opponent? Still, it’s a no.

I suppose it’s that there is the potential for improvement on the horizon based upon recent moves that the team has made, but we’re at the stage where potential still just doesn’t seem to cut it. You need to actually cash that in, and the time you have remaining to realize it is dwindling with every week.

You can also point out that it’s close in the West still, and that would be true. But we’ve been talking about how close things are for months at this point. The team didn’t use that to their advantage then, so why should we expect them to now?

For the record, I still think it’s more likely that Rising makes the playoffs than not, but with missed opportunities like we just saw, I do question it. And besides, it’s somewhat of an indictment of this club’s trajectory that making the playoffs is what we’re measuring success by now. Supposedly, it’s an achievement to be just below average. It didn’t used to be in this city.

Phoenix Rising has seven games left to play. Four of those seven games are against teams in the top four of the Western Conference. You may point out that means the team is able to gain ground, and they could, but these aren’t going to be easy matches. They also make up three of the next four opponents for Phoenix.

Tulsa. El Paso. New Mexico. Perhaps they’re not the scariest of teams, but they’re still not the kind of sides I’d want to face at this stage. And they’re a fair bit better than yesterday’s opponent, that’s for sure.

So that is why a Saturday night in Monterey Bay mattered for Phoenix Rising. And when asked the question, against supposedly inferior opposition, the team failed to provide a satisfactory answer.

Top image: Monterey Bay FC