Pierce Rizzo makes history as playoff gap closes

On a night in which the team toyed with falling below the playoff line, Phoenix Rising came away with a 1-1 draw from a matchup against the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Al Lang Stadium.

Youngster Pierce Rizzo gave the visitors the lead, becoming the youngest Phoenix player to ever score, before ex-Rising man Manuel Arteaga brought the sides level just two minutes later.

A tale of two Phoenix Rising halves… again

After managing just one shot on target in its previous match against Lexington, Phoenix Rising would have wanted to turn the page heading into Tampa Bay. To try and do so, the team made seven changes to its starting lineup — more than in any other league game for the club this season.

Yet things wouldn’t prove so simple.

Through the first half of the match, Rising managed a total of zero shots on target… or off target. That was in spite of the club having close to two-thirds of the possession before the break.

In fact, Ihsan Sacko, who should have been leading the line, had an average position within his own half of the field before the break.

Things would change in the second half, as the match opened up for both sides. Rising produced 0.86 expected goals after the half-time interval, taking ten shots with two on target.

Despite the mismatch between halves, Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah praised his team’s showing in club-distributed quotes after the match.

“I’m very, very proud of my boys,” he said. “They played Phoenix Rising football that we want to see.

“We’re supposed to win this game, but we’re moving in the right direction. Now we need to continue. We need to make the home games count, but I was very proud of the showing of the boys today.”

Pierce Rizzo becomes Rising’s youngest goalscorer

When Phoenix Rising did finally find a breakthrough, it didn’t come from one of the usual suspects.

Instead, 18-year-old Pierce Rizzo stepped up to etch his name into the history books at Rising’s youngest goalscorer yet.

“I kind of took a bad touch, but I had an opening,” Rizzo said. “I knew if I took an extra step to my left, the defender was going to fall and I would have an opening inside. Then I just did a little Mbappe, cut in with my left and found the far post.”

Making just his fifth league appearance, Rizzo lined up at right-back once again — a position he confessed he hadn’t even played in prior to July. He also came out for the second half of the match wearing a makeshift cast on his left arm.

“We play a young kid in an unnatural position and he’s showing what this club is about,” Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah said. “It’s about giving opportunities and [Rizzo] took his.”

Defensive miscues mean still only one win in eight

While Pierce Rizzo may have given Phoenix Rising the lead, it didn’t last for very long.

Former Rising man Manuel Arteaga entered the match shortly afterwards, and within less than a minute had found a free header to level the scores.

Arteaga’s goal represented yet another in a long line of defensive miscues this season that have seen Rising give away far too many straightforward chances to their opponents.

It also meant that Phoenix Rising continued its streak of just one league win over an eight game stretch. Over a two month stretch, Rising has only succeeded in beating Oakland Roots in USL Championship play.

The result of that stretch is that Rising opened the match sitting below the playoff line, although ends the night sitting in 8th place instead. Below Phoenix is Colorado Springs, who trail by one point with a game in hand.

Owain’s take

As I sat down to write this column, I must confess that I felt an urge to go back and simply copy one from a few weeks ago.

I asked myself: would anybody even notice?

That’s how this Phoenix Rising performance felt, because in reality, we’re seeing the same themes come up again. And again. And again.

In his club-released quotes after the match, Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah said that “nothing has changed” over the last few weeks. He was referencing the mentality in the group, the process they’re following and the work that they’re putting in.

The problem is that saying “nothing has changed” feels equally appropriate when you consider the nature of the performances they’re putting in. It goes back a lot further than just the last few matches, too.

Time and time again, this team has shown that it can’t put together a complete 90-minute performance. They will, however, come out later in a match, throw the kitchen sink forward, and nearly convince you that they’re on the brink of finally, actually, working things out.

That’s all well and good, but we’ve been seeing the same thing since the very start of the season. The entire year has been made up of flashes of what this team could do, but never seems to actually do for any real stretch of time.

With two-thirds of the season gone, it feels less waiting for things to finally click, and more “Waiting for Godot.”

Those aren’t words I want to write about a night when Pierce Rizzo made history. Believe me, I’d far rather celebrate his achievement of becoming the club’s youngest goalscorer, and with it the pathway that’s been generated this year for youngsters to actually break into first team football.

But I can’t focus on that tonight, because we’re at the business end of the season and this team simply isn’t convincing. Frankly, I’m not convinced this team is guaranteed to make the playoffs at this point. For a club of this stature, in a league where almost anybody with a pulse (or half-season caretaker manager, as Phoenix found out last year) makes it to November, that would be a monumental failing.

Kah described the match as the “Phoenix Rising football that we want to see,” and on that point, I simply cannot agree. At half-time, Rising had failed to register a single shot, on or off target. I’ve seen enough partial-match performances this year, and forgive me if I’m not too keen on watching yet another.

The fact that this team suffered another critical defensive lapse even during the half of the match in which they looked better… Well, it just typifies this season, doesn’t it? A step up from their showing in Lexington was needed, but given how poor that match was, a standard of just any improvement over last week doesn’t prove sufficient.

The Tampa Bay Rowdies may be a top-name team in USL, but they haven’t been playing like one this season. They’re at the foot of the East, and are averaging less than a point per game.

Facing that team in St Petersburg — who currently own the worst record in the league, by the way — Phoenix Rising failed to come away with a victory. That result made it just one win in the last eight league games.

If those two things won’t make you question how smooth the road is going forward this year, I’m not sure what will.