It wasn’t the start that Pa-Modou Kah would have hoped for, as Phoenix Rising failed to take any points at home in the 2025 season opener against FC Tulsa.

Alex Dalou’s first half effort would ultimately prove to be the difference as Rising fell 1-0 in their first loss to a Tulsa side since July 2017. A true game of two halves, Rising played sluggishly before the break, before dominating the second half with very little reward to show for it.

A slow start

“We know what we’re gonna be.” Those were the words from Pa-Modou Kah in midweek as he looked ahead to the season opener.

As the game kicked off, it seemed that Rising’s players hadn’t gotten that memo.

Rising played a stagnant game out of the back, punctuated by slow passes between the center-backs, their goalkeeper and occasionally featuring a full-back or defensive midfielder. It was a slow, ponderous, pedestrian approach.

“It’s normal because it’s the first real, real game; real, real test,” Kah said after the match. “It was a game of feeling. We were feeling them. They were feeling us. Obviously, goals change games, and that was the little momentum that they needed. I believe they came to slow the game down, not get into a fast-paced game with us.”

FC Tulsa chose to sit back, not putting too much pressure on Rising’s backline on the ball and instead taking out options downfield. The outcome was that 103 of Rising’s 414 passes all match long were solely between some combination of center-backs Pape Mar Boye and Mo Traore, and goalkeeper Patrick Rakovsky.

“They probably had some video, they saw how we want to play,” Rakovsky said. “In preseason, it worked really well to play through the middle. They closed it down.”

Rising created a few chances in the first half, most notably Collin Smith’s effort which was cleared off the line by Lamar Batista in the 17th minute. Ultimately, though, they weren’t creating anywhere near enough.

“We could have played quicker on the ball and switching the point of attack, and I think other little things could have helped us as well,” winger Damian Rivera said.

In the end, it was Tulsa that would capitalize off a sloppy giveaway deep in Rising’s end.

“We tried to be brave, and a lot of times it works out and we take the risk of playing from the back,” Rakovsky said. “This time it didn’t work. Unfortunate touch.”

“We lost the ball maybe in an area where people would say you shouldn’t, but for me, I’m not going to change who we are,” Kah said. “[Mistakes are] part of the game.”

Rising would only take one more shot for the remainder of the half, and that was a long-range effort from outside of the penalty area.

Close, but not close enough

According to Pa-Modou Kah, his words to the team at the break were to “keep believing.”

“We never lost belief, and [also to] keep playing our football,” Kah said. “We’re not going to change just because we are one down. It is a long season, and in football, if we start changing because we’re chasing a goal… that’s not who we are. We’re going to continue to play our brand of football, our identity, and we’re going to get wins. I don’t doubt that.”

After the break, Rising did begin to threaten more, and the numbers reflect that. Their final third entries in the second half were more than double the tally for the first half, and the same went for number of touches in the opposition box. Tulsa, for their part, sat back and barely offered anything on the attack themselves.

The problem was that Rising never managed to turn that pressure into any great deal of real chances. In fact, the team actually took fewer shots in the second half, and went for a spell of 31 minutes without a shot of any variety before Dariusz Formella’s opportunity at the beginning of of stoppage time.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t create enough,” Rakovsky said. “We’ve got to be honest about that as well. [Their] keeper did not need to make any big saves.”

For all of their dominance, and a total of 20 attempted crosses in the second half, Rising just couldn’t find a way to connect on the final pass in.

“I don’t think it was more of a disconnect, I think it was just part of the game,” Kah said. “It’s part of the game where we will get sharper. The boys will get sharper. I think we created, but obviously we need to put the ball in the back of the net. [On] that, I’m not worried. Like I said, it’s the first game.”

“A little bit of luck, not on our side as well. I think it wasn’t a bad performance from us,” Rivera said. “We were creating the chances, and especially in the second half, we had opportunities to score. Like I said, we just need to have a good week of training and put the chances away next week.”

A young debutant

When Ryan Flood went down in the second half, Phoenix Rising didn’t have many options.

Emil Cuello, who often featured for the club at left-back last season, was out of the matchday squad due to injury. Mo Traore could, at a pinch, be moved across from center-back. Instead, Pa-Modou Kah looked down his bench to the youngster Braxton Montgomery, a 17-year-old local who had yet to make a professional appearance.

“For us as a club to have one of our academy players make his debut at home is massive, and we’re not afraid to play them,” Kah said. “We needed players in the position, and we knew that he could do the job, and he did his job fantastically, so he just has to continue to build off that.”

Montgomery became the first player on an academy contract to see the field for Rising since Liam Mullins in May 2023. An academy contract is an amateur deal that allows youngsters to feature for USL Championship teams while retaining their college eligibility.

After entering the field in the 75th minute, Montgomery won possession of the ball four times, one of which was in the final third. He recorded a perfect 100 percent passing accuracy over his 18 attempts.

“He did a great job,” Rakovsky said. “Coming on the field after never really playing with us. 1-0 down, home opener. We want to push. A lot of pressure on him: a counter-attack can cost the game. So, really good game. Really calm, pushed forward, defensively really solid, so really good job from him.”

Now, the question is if Montgomery can continue to contribute to this team, especially if those others usually ahead of him in the lineup remain doubtful in the weeks ahead.

“I’m not worried about Braxton, because if you play Olivier Giroud in one of your games in preseason, you’re not going to be worried playing in USL Championship to be honest,” Kah said.

Owain’s take

Phoenix Rising starting the season with a loss against FC Tulsa was always going to leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The nature of how the match played out only makes it that bit harder to swallow.

At the same time, while this was a match of frustration, it shouldn’t be a match to make the fans too concerned. At least, it shouldn’t be quite yet.

This was the season opener, and the team in a season opener is never going to be a finished product. This wasn’t a match in August; it was a match in March. You can also add that Jearl Margaritha and Emil Cuello, both key parts of this team, missed the match through injury.

At the same time, the reason this match was so frustrating is that it felt like a game that took place in an August not too long ago, at surface level.

Rising started with very little creation and a slow tempo. After the break, they picked up the tempo, but while they huffed and puffed, they barely threatened Johan Peñaranda in the Tulsa net.

Seem familiar? I could have probably copied and pasted those two sentences, swapped out the names, and applied them to a vast number of 2024’s matches. It’s an unwelcome trend, and Rising fans aren’t going to want to see anything that vaguely resembles that.

After the match, Kah emphasized his focus on performances over results, and his belief that the team had put in a good performance. But that viewpoint is a luxury that only comes at the start of a season, with near unlimited potential ahead of you. Yes, performances matter, and at this stage of the season, they matter quite heavily. Results do ultimately, though, define you, and it wasn’t as though Rising could really argue that they should have won that match on the performance they put out.

If Phoenix Rising is a team that sees itself in the top four at the end of the season, then a home match against Tulsa is a match that they’d be expected to win. If the margins are tight at the end of the season, then three points in March count just the same as three points in September.

Plus, while Rising may point to its roster upheaval, let’s not pretend they’re unique in that regard. Exactly half of Tulsa’s outfield starters were new signings. Rising was in exactly the same situation, presuming you count Ryan Flood as a returner.

Again, Rising will improve. The product we saw on the field against FC Tulsa is almost certainly not what we’ll be expecting to see come the middle of the summer. Players will find their feet, adjust to their new teammates and their new opponents. There is time — plenty of it, in fact — and if Rising’s team is good enough for a playoff berth, then last night alone will not deny them that place.

The frustration comes from the fact that Rising couldn’t break away from a recent past that still haunts its fans. They could have come out strong from the start. They could have forced Peñaranda into save after save. They could have lived up to all the preseason talk about goals and excitement. They may well still do so as the season progresses, and yet they couldn’t manage that on a competitive stage for the first time in 2025.

Saturday night offered a chance for Rising to send a message. The Pa-Modou Kah era could have started with a clear delineation from the club’s prior failures.

Instead, on the night that the rest of the nation moves its clocks forward, Rising’s narrative felt very much stuck where it already was.