There’s no short of buzz around the matchup that should have been last season’s playoff final, but Rising won’t be taking inspiration from that according to coach Rick Schantz.
“The unfinished business is the fact that we need to get back to the final and we need to play in a final again,” he said. “It’s not playing Tampa Bay Rowdies. It’s winning the USL Championship.”
For Schantz, changes to the two sides plus the significantly lower stakes mean it can’t truly replace the cancelled match from 2020.
“It’s the third game of the year,” he said. “It’s not the championship game. We all know that. I think it’s fantastic the way it’s set up that we can play Tampa and the way things ended last year, I’m sure everybody wants to watch the two teams play but they have new players, we have new players. I mean, we have almost an entire new coaching staff except for my old body.”
With Andre Rawls expected to be sidelined for at least another week, Ben Lundt looks set to enjoy another game between the sticks. When the German keeper arrived last week, he made a solid impression on his coach that could only have been boosted by his clean sheet performance on the weekend.
“I was blown away the first day of training,” Schantz said. “He knew everyone’s names. He was really asking a lot of questions. He did two hours of film with our goalkeeper coach. He really put a lot of work in, and that was, to me, a sign of a really good professional and he really cared.”
Now, Rising faces the challenge of making it three wins in a row to open the season, albeit against a tougher opposition than they’ve faced to date.
“[The boys are] fairly confident, but I think this team has enough experience to know that it’s just six points,” Schantz said. “The best thing about winning those two games was they were division opponents and we have to play them three more times. So it’s really, not only did you get three points, you didn’t let the team get any points.”
Rising faces Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday at 5 p.m. Arizona time. The game airs live nationally on ESPN2.
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.