Rising FC's eventful mid-season year gives way to growth

Halfway through the season, Phoenix Rising FC is still trying to come to terms with a season of change that left the club with a 5-6-7 record and ninth place in the USL Championship’s Western Conference.

The Rising’s 21 points put the club three points behind Orange County for the final playoff spot in the West with 16 games remaining. The club returns from a week off and will resume action this Saturday at home against last-place El Paso Locomotive at 8 p.m.

Last season’s USL championship title seems like a distant memory. This year, the club has featured a stellar defense and a struggling offense, but has had to adapt to big changes.

Eleven days before the start of the 2024 preseason, former head coach Juan Guerra left the team to join Houston Dynamo FC of Major League Soccer. Assistant coach Danny Stone was promoted to his first-ever head coaching position.

The club struggled to score goals early in the season, scoring just one in their first four league games, and have struggled to create chances throughout the season. The club are currently on a four-game winless streak, which includes defeats in their last two games and two draws before that, totaling three goals in those four games.

One of those was a crushing 5-1 loss to Memphis on June 28. The next day, Stone was fired and assistant Diego Gomez, who joined the team in February, was named interim head coach.

So, will the Rising manage to turn the situation around from Saturday?

Gomez takes over a struggling attacking group that has scored 19 goals this season while conceding 23. Only five teams in the 24-team USL Championship League have scored fewer goals.

Situated in the middle of the pack in the USL in terms of shots on goal, Phoenix has shown that it can create chances. In their last match against San Antonio, the Rising controlled 55% of the game and created more shots on goal. They also have four players who are among the best in the league in terms of distribution.

Forward Remi Cabral is the team’s top scorer with six goals, and forward Dariusz Formella is second with four. In last season’s league campaign, midfielder Danny Trejo, who left for Poland in the offseason, finished joint second in the league with 19 goals. That attacking powerhouse hasn’t been replaced, but the club clearly needs to continue to find ways to generate change.

Rising goalkeeper Rocco Rios Novo — who has excelled throughout this 2023 title race — has been one of the biggest reasons the season hasn’t been worse.

Currently third in the Western Conference with 58 saves, Novo, 22, is having another top-tier season for the Rising. Gomez, a former goaltender, said working with Novo has been “an absolute joy” since he joined the coaching staff in the spring.

“Rocco has been very good this season. He has been very consistent, preventing us from scoring many chances and giving us clear chances,” Gomez said. “But he has also been very good with his feet.”

“As a goalkeeper, we share a lot of things and we talk a lot,” Gomez said. “I think he’s a player with huge potential. He’s had an incredible season.”

While Novo has been excellent in his key saves (five clean sheets), he hasn’t been perfect, as the scoreboard against Memphis FC showed. Yet as a team, this year’s roster is one of the strongest defensively the program has put on the field since its inception in 2016, allowing Phoenix to stay in the game most days.

In the 2023 Rising Championship, Novo finished with a -6.7 goals against average. Through fifteen games this year, he was in the top four of the league, posting a -2.46 rate among regular starters, indicating an improved defense in front of him. According to USL Tactics, Novo is a mid-season candidate for USL Young Player of the Year and an honorable mention as a candidate for Goalkeeper of the Year.

This year, the Rising defense has one of the lowest goals-against rates in the franchise, at 1.3. Despite conceding just 23 goals so far, the Rising’s stingy defense has a 69.2 success rate on tackles, which are when a player manages to take the ball from an opponent who is controlling it.

If the defense can maintain its level of play and the offense can find a way to increase the pressure on opponents, Phoenix will still have a chance to crack the West’s top eight for a playoff spot.