“We basically gave away the game.”

After holding a 2-0 lead going into the 87th minute, Phoenix Rising collapsed to a 3-2 loss at home to Detroit City. Goals from Collin Smith and Hope Avayevu were ultimately cancelled out by three goals in three minutes and 35 seconds to see Pa-Modou Kah‘s side slump to a second home loss in three to start 2025.

The good: Goals for Smith and Avayevu

Last week, Phoenix Rising recorded its first lead under Pa-Modou Kah, with Rémi Cabral‘s effort from the penalty spot putting the club 1-0 up against San Antonio. This week, Rising found itself leading before the half-time break for the first time in 2025.

Jearl Margaritha‘s cross from the left-hand side found defender Collin Smith at the far post, whose 30-yard run seemed to go completely undetected by the Detroit defenders.

“Marga doing his thing, one-v-one,” Smith said. “That’s one of his strengths, so once we get him the ball, we know that he’s going to beat his guy. For me personally, once I saw he got the ball, I was like hey, I’ve got to get there because I feel like it’s going to get there somehow with his strength beating the guy one-v-one.”

Rising would later double their advantage in the 71st minute. Substitute Darius Johnson probably should have buried his own effort, but instead found himself setting up Hope Avayevu for the midfielder’s second goal of the year.

The bad: Another failed clean sheet attempt

In the 85th minute, it looked as though Phoenix Rising was on the way to a second consecutive victory. It also looked as though the team was set to record a clean sheet for the first time in 2025.

There were some cracks, though. Rising’s midfield had struggled to get much of a foothold defensively throughout the match, leading to Detroit recording 20 more final third entries than Phoenix by the match’s end. The visitors were outshooting Rising, too.

Eventually, Rising’s defense fell. Darren Smith found the breakthrough in the 87th minute, and Detroit had a foothold back in the match during the closing stages.

When questioned about his level of concern at the club’s failure to keep a clean sheet so far this year after the match, Pa-Modou Kah replied “none” before seven seconds of silence.

This isn’t the first time that Rising has struggled to keep clean sheets at the start of a season. In 2023, when Rising ultimately won the playoff title, it took until May for the club to hold an opponent goalless in league play.

The ugly: Pa-Modou Kah’s side throws it all away

After conceding in the 87th minute, Phoenix Rising still should have been on course to claim all three points on the night. But that isn’t what happened.

“Even at 2-1 you can say that, alright, we still should have managed the game better,” Pa-Modou Kah said. “We did not manage the game better and we got punished.”

In the 89th minute, Darren Smith added a second goal to his tally. Then, just 75 seconds later, Jeciel Cedeño’s strike from distance sealed all of the spoils for Detroit.

“I don’t think Detroit came out pushing,” Kah said. “I think we did it to ourselves, and it’s about time that we learn.”

That marked the first time for over a decade that Phoenix Rising blew a lead of two goals or more to lose in a league fixture. That match — played by the clubs then known as Arizona United and the Orange County Blues — was played in Peoria Sports Complex in June 2014.

“I think it’s [down to] the maturity of the group,” Collin Smith said. “We’ve been in games where we’ve started behind. Luckily, this game we start ahead, and so now, we just have to be smart enough to really manage the game. Maybe in those moments, maybe go to the corner. Do the things that are necessary to keep that lead.”

“It’s just that little bit of responsibility and accountability that we are still gaining through our process,” Kah said. “But this game, when you’re 2-0 up, you don’t allow the opposition to come back in the game.”

Owain’s Take

Sometimes it feels like I’ve seen it all at Phoenix Rising over the years that I’d been covering this club. This was something new.

In front of a stadium that was less than half-full (4,861), Rising found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They did so in a way that they hadn’t previously done for more than ten years, stretching back into the dark days of Arizona United.

Listening to Rising’s coach Pa-Modou Kah and Collin Smith, mentality and maturity were the reasons behind the late collapse. But these are the same players who’ve been playing throughout the season to date, and that’s not an issue that we’d seen previously from a group that often ends games better than it starts them. I suppose we haven’t seen Rising hold many leads this season, but if this really is the case, you’d have to question why the club invested in quite so many players that were unequipped to actually hang on to a two-goal lead with five minutes to play.

Rising did threaten at times on the counter-attack throughout the match, but in honesty, it felt like a team that was often reliant on Jearl Margaritha to spark panic. Margaritha created two chances — one of which resulted in the assist for Collin Smith — and his five successful dribbles were more than the rest of the squad managed combined. In fact, no other player on the team recorded more than one successful dribble.

Margaritha has established himself as probably the best player on the team, but it’s also worth remembering that he started the season injured and is likely to be off to the CONCACAF Gold Cup with Curaçao later this summer. Rising needs to diversify, finding different threats in the attack if they’re going to be dangerous as the season goes on. Yes, Hope Avayevu creates chances as well, but who else can Rising really lean on quite so strongly if Margaritha is unavailable?

Equally, Detroit City found ways to threaten on the counter-attack. Rising’s midfield may have recorded a handful of interceptions, but at times it felt as though Detroit simply could play through them with impunity. A trio of Carl Sainté, Noble Okello and Hope Avayevu is, on the face of it, this team’s first choice midfield, yet you have to question if that should remain unchanged if they fail to make things difficult enough for their opponents to play through them.

Finally, Rising continues to struggle with injuries, with players like Mo Traore still out injured, and other such as Casey Walls available only off the bench. But those injury struggles have not, for the most part, come on matchday in games. Instead, they’ve come on the training ground. When the list of training injuries has, over the past few weeks, stretched incredibly long, you have to question if that’s something that could be better controlled.

That’s a lot of questions remaining at this point, and in fairness, there’s still a long way to go. As Kah often says, trophies aren’t won after however many games we seem to have played in that given week (for now, it’s after six).

Still, one-fifth of the regular season is already in the books. The club only has one win to its name. It may be more exciting to watch than last year, but the club hasn’t proven themselves tough to break down because they can’t keep a clean sheet. The club hasn’t proven themselves tough to beat because they’ve lost half of their matches.

There may well be time still to go, but you also can’t wait forever for things to finally click. At some stage, you dig yourself a hole that you have to climb out of, and at that point it doesn’t take long for it to only finally click far too late.

Phoenix Rising doesn’t, and hasn’t ever historically, accepted just making the playoffs as a target sufficient in itself. This is a team that expects, and frankly demands, finishes in the top four. Soon enough, “next week” turns from a target for steady progress into must-win games. And when you’re a club that fired a coach after 17 matches last season, you’ve also set the expectation for how little patience you’re going to offer a manager.

Obviously, we’re not at that point where games are true must-win fixtures, but that time will come. And if this club can’t hang on to leads of multiple goals late in matches? They may well find themselves once again in the chasing pack.