After scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over San Diego Loyal, you could expect Rising’s James Musa to be rubbing it in over his club’s budding rival.
That wasn’t the script he was reading from after training on Tuesday, though.
“San Diego is just another team,” Musa said. “I think the rivalry is more on their end than it is on our end. For us, it’s literally just another three points. We take every game with the same seriousness, the same mentality. I think it’s the other teams that put the onus on themselves to make it a big match against us.”
That view was backed up by teammate Aodhan Quinn, who himself hails from San Diego and whose father coaches at the university where Loyal play their games.
“I think they like to talk a lot,” Quinn said. “I think we’re just kind of doing our business. We’re trying to handle things one game at a time. Obviously I’m new to Phoenix, but I know around the league Phoenix has a big target on their back just because of all the success over the years.
“That’s why guys want to be here. You want to win championships. You want to win trophies. I think you come to Phoenix, and you know that’s a big possibility, as well as the club treats the players properly.”
“Rivalries are for you guys, and rivalries are for the fans,” Rising coach Rick Schantz added. “For us, it’s three points every week. Right now, we have a rivalry with RGV because we play them on Saturday, so we don’t talk about it. Of course we want to beat every team we play, and after you play San Diego four times in 13 games, I’m not sure if it’s a rivalry or if you just get sick of each other.
“I didn’t spend the last week talking about tactics a whole lot. I spent most of the time really trying to make our players angry and kind of make them upset about having to go to San Diego and hearing all the things about San Diego and how good they were, and how they can beat us. For me, it was pretty easy to motivate the guys.”
Rising’s victory at Torero Stadium came with just 29% of the possession, but San Diego failed to register a single shot on target as Phoenix put in a defensive peformance that would be “pretty damn hard to improve.”
“The gameplan was [for] the first 15 minutes to press and play in their half as much as we could, because we know on the road, you’re playing against a hostile crowd,” Schantz said. “You’re playing against a very hostile team that likes to build rhythm. We wanted to, as we said, be the first team to punch them in the mouth and to hit them first and to get after them as hard as possible from the beginning. Once they scored, then they had the responsibility to make the game and we didn’t care if they had possession in their own half any more.”
Rising’s next match is against Rio Grande Valley, who will play at Wild Horse Pass on Saturday.
Want to hear more? Preview Saturday’s game with Rising Matchday – streaming at 9 a.m. Saturday morning on YouTube and Facebook, and available on demand shortly after.