After another preseason defeat – this time a heavy 4-0 drubbing by rivals New Mexico United – Phoenix Rising coach Rick Schantz pledged to “get it right” by the time the season starts on Friday.
“It takes time,” Schantz said. “It’s not as easy as people think, that you just snap your fingers and you replace 12 players and you replace coaches and you move to a new stadium and a new training facility. It takes a lot of time.
“One of the things we’ve done very well at Phoenix Rising is we’ve been consistent. We work extremely hard on trying to maintain the consistency, but when you have so much change, that’s difficult. Trust me, I’ll continue to work hard and put everything into it and make sure that we get it right before the season.”
Rising saw a starting calibre lineup, with returnees Darnell King, Joey Farell, Kevon Lambert, Jon Bakero and the expected attacking trio of Solomon Asante, Santi Moar and Rufat Dadashov all featuring for at least 45 minutes. Key additions to the squad in Tobi Adewole, Deklan Wynne, Aodhan Quinn and Arturo Rodriguez starred similarly in the match. Yet Rising’s head coach suggested that lineup was in fact simply full of “presumptive” starters, hinting that changes are possible before the opener.
“It’s still not sharp,” Schantz said. “You hope that maybe under the lights next week it’s a little bit different, but I think we did some good things. Didn’t compete as well as I would have liked coming out of the locker room. Physically, I think we were a little bit, I wouldn’t say weak, just a little bit late to everything today. We’ve got seven days to fix it.”
Harry Swartz found the net within the first ten minutes to give his side a 1-0 lead at the break. Three New Mexico goals in the second half – one from Isidro Martinez, and two from Brian Brown – sealed the heavy victory for United.
“When they got the ball and when they came out to press, we didn’t play behind them,” Schantz said. “We played too negative. If you do that, you invite press and we made too many mistakes.”
Rising is now less than a week away from starting the season against San Diego Loyal at home in a match broadcast nationally on ESPN2. But after a turbulent preseason, what will he say to the boys?
“I won’t need to say anything, when they walk out here and they see the lights and they see the fans,” Schantz said, later adding that: “we’ve got to build that home field advantage and our fans deserve more from us.”