Phoenix Rising “not good enough” in loss to Louisville

A poor showing from Phoenix Rising at home saw the team fall 2-0 to a Louisville City side that had previously been winless for nearly two months.

Second half goals from Mukwalle Akalle and Zach Duncan proved sufficient to deny Rising any points on the night.

Short rest, few substitutes

Phoenix Rising put out a youthful side in its Prinx Tires USL Cup matchup against New Mexico on the weekend, and as the midweek clash with Louisville rolled around, it became quite apparent why.

Of the outfield players available on the substitutes bench, only three were not Rising academy products: Gunnar Studenhofft, Adrian Pelayo and Daniel Flores. That severely limited Phoenix’s ability to launch a comeback as the game progressed, with three academy products seeing the field in the closing exchanges.

A slow Start, and second half mistakes

Phoenix Rising looked sluggish off its previous game, and a variety of errors seemed to open up opportunity for the visitors.

“In the first half we lacked a little bit of urgency, we weren’t moving the ball quick enough, you know to try to get them tired,” midfielder JP Scearce said. “At half time, it seemed like we were the ones tired and we spoke about that. We need to flip the ball a little bit quicker and keep them moving.

“I thought we did well in the second half. We found some pockets inside and broke them down, but just weren’t good enough on the final third.”

His coach’s words, when asked about the performance, were more blunt.

“Not good enough,” was the answer from Pa-Modou Kah.

By the end of the game, Rising had actually created a higher expected goals (xG) figure than Louisville, but failed to seriously test the opposition goalkeeper for much of the match. In the end, a deflected effort from Mukwalle Akalle gave the visitors the lead, and a decent strike from Zach Duncan doubled it to secure the points.

Next up

There will be very little time for Phoenix Rising to dwell on its failures against Louisville City. This weekend, the side travels to Texas to take on a Western Conference foe.

El Paso Locomotive also featured on Wednesday night, playing to a 1-1 draw away against Detroit City.

It remains unclear how many, if any, of Rising’s injured players will be in contention for the match this weekend. Earlier in the week, Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah described midfielder Hope Avayevu as being day-to-day in his outlook after raising concern over his hamstring during warmups in New Mexico. Those issues caused the Ghanaian to miss out on the matchday squad in midweek.

Owain’s take

You just wanted to see more, didn’t you?

Not of that game, of course. I’d be quite happy if I never saw a single minute of it back, and I think the same would be true of most Phoenix Rising fans. What you wanted to see was a little more hunger, a little more fight, producing a little bit more of… well, anything.

Louisville has, undoubtedly, a very talented team. They’ve been that way for pretty much all of the club’s history, yet their recent slide down the table showed that there was an opportunity here and served as a reminder that this team was fallible. Coming off a heavy defeat to a rival, even if it was in a competition that many see as being meaningless, this was an opportunity for Phoenix Rising to make a statement.

Yet they couldn’t.

Poor distribution out of the back at times didn’t seem to help the team, and a series of questionable on-field decisions from players could, on another day, have seen Louisville find another couple of goals. Up top, the team just didn’t seem to threaten that much. It was one of those games that you leave frustrated, not at any individual moment or facet of play, but at the game in its entirety.

That said, I can see the passion in Pa-Modou Kah off his reaction to that match. I’ve seen in the past how he’s instilled it in his players, and I have no doubt that, the odd iffy game aside, he’ll ensure that this is not a long term problem.

If I wanted to point to one of those, you’ll find that it isn’t on the field.

Once again, it was a joy to share the night with some of my best friends for another Phoenix Rising match. There was the gray empty seat next to me. Then the gray empty seat next to that one. And the gray empty seat one spot over again.

Those around USL clubs have, over many years now, preached of the upcoming World Cup boost that is set to hit the lower divisions in this country. I’m not sure if barely scraping 3,000 fans in for a league match against a perennial contender for the only professional football club in a metro area of five million counts as a World Cup boost, but if it does, then I sure am grateful that we’ve all waited so patiently for it to hit.

Based on the numbers I have to hand as I write this piece, which are admittedly incomplete because of matches the club failed to report attendances for in the past, this is the lowest home crowd for a league match under the Phoenix Rising name that was not with a restricted capacity due to COVID-19. What’s sad is that I’m no longer surprised to see numbers like this when they occur.

We can talk about poor performances on the field when they occur, and we do. But there is nothing more frustrating than seeing the issues off the field, especially when they are so easily predictable, only for them to be seemingly addressed by… well, nothing.

A new fan attending on Wednesday night would be met with a substantially reduced offering of concessions, ostensibly due to the low crowd that was coming anyway. There were no real promotions, no buzz, nothing particularly special to draw you in to the match. There is, however, a lovely selection of portable restrooms for you to use, torn and faded facades of the stands that look like they’ve probably been there for years with no attention, and the overwhelming feeling that you’re just kind of hanging out in a swap meet parking lot.

If that’s your first experience, do you come back? If you were on the fence about coming anyway, does it not encourage you to skip midweek games at a minimum? If you’re reading this, then maybe not, because you, like me, care more for the football than any of the trappings and surrounds. But I’m not sure there are sports teams in this country that really survive off of fans of that mentality, and it’s certainly not the way that most seem to be pivoting to, with the constant messaging on experience above all else.

Those declining crowds, the empty seats, the broader loss of what felt like a community that engaged on a day to day basis: that is the thing that worries me. The odd bad result doesn’t, especially. That’s a fun thing to complain about, to have a little grumble and to move on. But as the crowds dwindle, I do worry about the future of this football club.

Because Phoenix Rising Football Club means something. Those 3,000 people who showed up on a Wednesday night care about this club. It is a part of their lives. It matters to them.

Unfortunately, it just feels like they’re being let down off-field. If there are fresh ideas coming out, they’re minimal at best. If they’re making a difference, I’m yet to see it. And if they’re not really trying anything new, or just tinkering around the edges, then what on earth are we even doing here? You can throw out every excuse that you want, but drawing 3,000 people out of a metropolitan area of over five million is simply not up to snuff. It looks tinpot, because it is, unfortunately, tinpot. And those 3,000 deserve better than an acceptance of tinpot.

I remember on many occasions that, when questioned about if he was concerned about criticism of himself from the Phoenix Rising fanbase, club president Bobby Dulle said that he would only be concerned when the fans stopped caring.

As I turn to the empty gray seat next to me, the one next to that, and the other 7,000 or so that go along with them, I wonder if I should ask it if it’s stopped caring yet.

Top image: Phoenix Rising FC