{"id":261919,"date":"2025-09-28T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/261919\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:44:10","slug":"pa-modou-kah-questions-phoenix-rising-players-desire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/261919\/","title":{"rendered":"Pa-Modou Kah questions Phoenix Rising players’ desire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Rising<\/a> came back from a half-time deficit of two goals for the third consecutive week to claim a point<\/a> at home against Oakland Roots.<\/p>\n

After the match, head coach Pa-Modou Kah<\/a> questioned the desire of some members of his squad, saying that they were \u201cwasting their talent\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t know what it is to be a professional football player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another poor start for Rising<\/p>\n

Within one minute, Phoenix Rising was already trailing against Oakland Roots thanks to former Rising man Danny Trejo<\/a>. Within ten minutes, they trailed by two thanks to Peter Wilson.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cVery, very, very, very, very poor first half,\u201d Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah said. \u201cI was missing hunger and desire [from the team]. Some players are full, some players are full.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things only got worse from there, as Wilson added his second in the 22nd minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisappointing to start like that because it\u2019s been a common theme throughout the season,\u201d midfielder Charlie Dennis<\/a> said, who later described the poor starts as \u201cdeflating.\u201d<\/p>\n

That marked the third week in a row that Phoenix conceded multiple goals to start off a match.<\/p>\n

The Comeback came, again<\/p>\n

Shortly before the half-time break, Phoenix Rising found their way back into the match thanks to a Charlie Dennis strike from close range.<\/p>\n

From there, several accounts described the team being asked at half-time how much they actually wanted to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cChallenged them at half-time, and they reacted,\u201d Pa-Modou Kah said. \u201cBut that should not be the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising had several chances in the second half, but it took until the 86th minute for Dennis to double Rising\u2019s goal tally with a free kick just outside of the penalty area.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you put him in, whether it\u2019s for one minute or he plays 90 minutes, he wants it,\u201d Kah said. \u201cCharlie wants it, and you have to commend that. This means a lot to Charlie, as well. Today he walked on the pitch with his daughter. I know what it means for him, and he showcased that on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, in stoppage time, Rising completed the comeback. After referee Elvis Osmanovic pointed to the spot, substitute R\u00e9mi Cabral<\/a> stepped up to tuck away the ensuing penalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cR\u00e9mi will never shy away from those situations,\u201d Kah said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy that if you wake him in his sleep, he\u2019s ready to take the penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pa-Modou Kah highlights missing \u201chunger and desire\u201d among some players<\/p>\n

After falling behind by multiple goals early on in the match yet again, Pa-Modou Kah hit out at the attitude of some of his players in the post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the whistle goes, either you\u2019re ready or you\u2019re not,\u201d Kah said. \u201cMany of them are not ready. Some of them are not ready. They don\u2019t know what it is to be a professional football player. They pretend to be football players, but they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kah mentioned several players, including Pape Mar Boye<\/a>, JP Scearce<\/a>, Daniel Flores, Charlie Dennis, Xian Emmers<\/a> and Ascel Essengue<\/a> who had showed enough desire. Another list of players, left unnamed, were not up to his standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t understand what it is and what\u2019s required to play for a club like Phoenix Rising,\u201d Kah said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s a shame. It\u2019s really a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you play this game of football, it starts with respecting the game. Understanding that you are part of a game, you\u2019ve been given an opportunity to do something with your talent. Some of them right now are wasting their talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owain\u2019s Take<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the positive: R\u00e9mi Cabral\u2019s goal is likely the most consequential we\u2019ve seen from this Phoenix Rising team this season.<\/p>\n

If Cabral hadn\u2019t tucked his penalty away, Oakland would have trailed Rising by just three points while also having a game in hand. Instead, they remain six points behind Phoenix, and Rising can sleep a little easier in the knowledge that their playoff status is a bit more secure.<\/p>\n

That said, they probably shouldn\u2019t. Two points out of two games so far on what is likely a season-defining homestand? That isn\u2019t really making the most of the opportunity at hand.<\/p>\n

And to once again fall behind so badly in the first half? Well, it leaves me feeling like a broken record.<\/p>\n

The thing that\u2019s so frustrating is that Phoenix Rising\u2019s team does have enough talent to do better than they have in some of these matches, even if they shouldn\u2019t be at true contender status quite yet. Instead, every match feels like yet another example of this team shooting themselves in the foot.<\/p>\n

The second half against Oakland shows, just as the second half against Loudoun and the second half against Sacramento did, that this team can come out and cause trouble for opposing sides. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to even ask Phoenix Rising to replicate their second half performances in the first half. A so-so performance in the other 45 minutes would be sufficient to see them claim more points than they have to date. But the first half performances aren\u2019t even reaching the level of so-so. They have been, to be frank, nothing short of atrocious.<\/p>\n

And that is why, even with a seven game unbeaten streak, Phoenix Rising has won only two of its last 14 league matches.<\/p>\n

That leads us to Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah\u2019s comments in the press conference, in which he accused some of his players of \u201cwasting their talent\u201d and of not knowing what is needed to be a professional.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly a bold thing to say publicly. I can\u2019t argue with his comments, because he simply knows these players better than any of us outside of the locker room would. That said, it\u2019s certainly a provocative thing to come out of a head coach\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n

In a couple of weeks\u2019 time, we\u2019re going look back at these comments in one of three ways. <\/p>\n

They could prove to be a masterstroke by Kah, lighting a fire under certain players that, frankly, could do with a fire lit underneath them.<\/p>\n

They could prove to be a disaster, fracturing the squad at the precise time that you need them to come together ahead of the postseason.<\/p>\n

Or, as with last week\u2019s comments<\/a> about needing to stop getting punched in the face by opponents so early in matches, they could prove to have little impact whatsoever.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a crystal ball, so I can\u2019t with any certainty predict which is going to be the outcome. But there will be eyes on training this week, and there will be eyes on the team selection next weekend against New Mexico.<\/p>\n

And with New Mexico being the team up next? Well, I don\u2019t think it\u2019d be a good time to have anyone questioning your desire as you go into that match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising came back from a half-time deficit of two goals for the third consecutive week to claim…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":261920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-261919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115283405415117482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}