{"id":334499,"date":"2025-10-26T19:36:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T19:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/334499\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T19:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T19:36:21","slug":"phoenix-rising-draws-0-0-sets-up-away-playoff-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/334499\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising draws 0-0, sets up away playoff match"},"content":{"rendered":"

A scoreless draw at Highmark Stadium on the final day of the regular season proved enough to clinch a place in the USL Championship playoffs<\/a> for Phoenix Rising<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rising would have hosted a first playoff game since 2021 had they found a way to come out on top against Pittsburgh Riverhounds thanks to results elsewhere. Instead, they\u2019ll travel to El Paso Locomotive as the 5th seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh in control<\/p>\n

For large spells of the match, Phoenix Rising found itself on the back foot.<\/p>\n

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

Pittsburgh Riverhounds were the only team to truly threaten in the first half, with Augustine Williams missing a couple of chances and Luke Biasi hitting the woodwork. Pittsburgh ultimately had 60% of the ball before the break, and Rising managed a weak 0.06 expected goals and entered the Riverhounds final third just 19 times \u2014 less than half of their opponents\u2019 tally.<\/p>\n

In the second half, Pittsburgh would squander a golden chance once again, with Augustine Williams failing to make clean contact just yards away from goal. <\/p>\n

handful of Late chances<\/p>\n

After struggling to create much in the way of chances, Phoenix Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah<\/a> made his first substitutions at around the 75th minute mark. On came Ihsan Sacko<\/a> and R\u00e9mi Cabral<\/a>, two attacking options.<\/p>\n

The impact was immediate. Within minutes, Sacko was presented with a golden opportunity off a long ball, but his first touch let him down, allowing goalkeeper Eric Dick to make the save. Later, Rising almost capitalized off a penalty area scramble, but couldn\u2019t find a way to put the ball into the back of the net.<\/p>\n

Phoenix Rising\u2019s Playoff route confirmed<\/p>\n

Phoenix Rising went into Saturday night\u2019s match knowing that a win was needed \u2014 but not necessarily enough \u2014 for the team to host its first playoff game since 2021. A draw would lock in a fifth place finish, but send the team on the road to face El Paso Locomotive in Texas instead.<\/p>\n

In the end, a 5-2 San Antonio victory meant that Phoenix would have hosted a playoff match had they won in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

FC Tulsa had already sealed top spot ahead of Saturday, but will now face a rematch of their 3-0 final day victory at home against Colorado Springs. The winner of that rematch will await either Rising or El Paso in the next round.<\/p>\n

San Antonio\u2019s 5-2 victory confirmed that they will travel to third place New Mexico, while Orange County\u2019s 2-1 win over Indy Eleven booked them a trip to face Sacramento. A 3-0 away defeat to already eliminated Oakland Roots meant that Lexington SC were the odd man out in ninth place.<\/p>\n

Owain\u2019s take<\/p>\n

On the road we go.<\/p>\n

Any faint hopes we had of seeing Phoenix Rising play postseason football at 38th & Washington were dashed in the cold Pennsylvania night, and not for the main reason we all expected.<\/p>\n

Rising came out with a very similar look to recent weeks, albeit with a few personnel changes due to injury. But Pittsburgh was a completely different test to the prior to matches, and ultimately, Rising didn\u2019t really match up to it.<\/p>\n

Put simply, Pittsburgh was by far the better side on the night. On another day, if Augustine Williams wasn\u2019t as wasteful as he proved, the Riverhounds would have won by several goals, and Rising would be sitting in 7th with a Sunday trip to Sacramento on the agenda.<\/p>\n

The thing that frustrates is that a home playoff game was there for the taking. San Antonio\u2019s win wouldn\u2019t be known until well after the final whistle, but I\u2019m not sure there was ever a point where I felt that Rising was going to make it necessary for them to do so.<\/p>\n

The most charitable view is that Rising\u2019s attack, lacking a true out-and-out striker and with other players also absent, was simply nullified in almost all aspects by the Riverhounds\u2019 play. A less charitable view would be that Rising, willing to admit to it or not, lacked the urgency on the night to play for anything more than the draw that meant they\u2019d book their playoff place at least.<\/p>\n

In fairness, injuries to Collin Smith<\/a> and Daniel Flores<\/a> didn\u2019t help. To get the best out of Rising\u2019s current approach, playing without a true striker to aim for, you need attacking threat from the wing backs. Ascel Essengue<\/a> has been an important piece for Phoenix in the defense this season, but he\u2019s inevitably going to be limited as a makeshift left back. That\u2019s just not going to make things easy against one of the better defensive sides in the league.<\/p>\n

Will Phoenix Rising be healthier next week? That\u2019s the big question, and it\u2019s one that could prove critical to the outcome of this season.<\/p>\n

But facing a team that Rising has drawn three times against this season, all of which have been high scoring affairs, Phoenix will need to put out a better showing in front of the opponent\u2019s net than they did in Pittsburgh. If they don\u2019t, that\u2019ll likely be it for Phoenix Rising\u2019s 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

Top image: Pittsburgh Riverhounds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scoreless draw at Highmark Stadium on the final day of the regular season proved enough to clinch…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":334500,"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-334499","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\/115442154409318960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334499","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=334499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}