The Injury Bug is Killing Rhode Island FC: Club Suffers 2-0 Defeat to Sacramento Republic

What is going on in the treatment room at Centreville Bank Stadium?

Photo By Alex Roldan

Rhode Island FC ended Saturday’s match in the last of the playoff spots, still well in the race. RIFC came into the match off their first home win of the season last weekend, with a good crowd and beautiful weather at home to back them up, while their opponents, Sacramento Republic FC, came into tonight’s match scoreless and winless in their last three matches. You might think that lines up for Rhode Island FC to get a result from this match, but instead they lost 2-0.

This is, in large part, an injury problem. Rhode Island have been badly bitten by the injury bug this season, with the result being that it also came into tonight’s match without starting goalkeeper Koke Vegas.

As such, Rhode Island came out against Sacramento looking more than a little confused. It lacked many of the best players and struggled to move the ball forward in possession and to generate truly dangerous chances.

This is partially the result of selling and not properly replacing wingback Stephen Turnbull, who was one of RIFC’s most aggressive attackers last season. Even so, they’ve managed to create more chances than their opponents in general this season. Again, we can go back to injuries for this, with striker JJ Williams out.

With Rhode Island FC already dazed and confused, Sacramento looked more up for it from the jump. It had two great chances early, in the 29th and 32nd minutes, respectively. RIFC goalkeeper Jackson Lee made a good save on the first shot, and the second shot was fired just a whisker wide of the goal.

Despite that, Albert Dikwa did notch a major chance in the 40th minute, slicing through Sacramento’s defence off a header from Rodriguez. His shot was denied by Sacramento goalkeeper Danny Vitiello, and Rhode Island FC had to have walked into the locker room grateful to not be down by as many as two goals.

In the second half, however, the story remained much the same. Rhode Island FC used its major substitute, Noah Fuson, in the 59th minute, but his introduction unfortunately just did not improve RIFC’s play meaningfully.

The first goal Rhode Island allowed, in the 55th minute. Defender Karifa Yao, who fouled just outside Rhode Island’s box and Sacramento midfielder Rodrigo Lopez stepped up to take the free kick, and lobbed it beautifully over RIFC’s (genuinely tall and well-composed) wall, where the ball soared past a leaping Lee into the top corner of the goal.

Once Sacramento took that initiative, there was no going back, and scored again in the 63rd minute, as striker Russell Cicerone cut through a miscommunicating Rhode Island defence for a two-on-one against Lee. Cicerone passed to a wide open Cristian Parano, who tucked the ball in goodnight past a diving Lee.

RI’s Rodriguez had a good chance in the 72nd minute off a defensive miscommunication by Sacramento, but he failed to score, and the game petered out afterwards. The result was Rhode Island’s seventh loss of the season.

Rhode Island FC needs to get healthy again quickly if they are going to turn this around. They are back in action in the USL Jagermeister Cup next Friday, June 27th, at home against the expansion USL League One side (and regional rival!) Portland Hearts of Pine, who in this writer’s opinion have the best team name in the whole sport, at 7:00 PM ET.