Preview: Rhode Island hope to keep defying the odds

If ever there was a perfect case study for ‘peaking at the right time’, it might be Rhode Island FC.

The team finished the 2025 regular season with a 10-8-12 (WTL) record, good enough to slip into the playoffs in 7th place in the Eastern Conference. That left them with a tough first round away game matchup against Charleston Battery. But the anchormen* grinded out a 0-0 draw and beat the Battery, 5-3, on penalties. Then in their Conference Semifinal matchup, away again to North Carolina, they dominated possession to come up with a 2-0 win.

RIFC have been the away underdogs in two straight playoff upsets. Can they come to Pittsburgh and do it yet again to book a spot in the USL Cup Finals?

Personnel

I’m not sure there is a single standout player on Rhode Island this year; to use the old adage ‘the team is the star.’ To wit: four players on the team have 7 or 8 goal contributions (a goal or an assist) and five players have either 2,3, or 4 goal contributions. Sixteen different players have 1,000 or more minutes – which makes them more of a rotating cast of role players rather than a predictable lineup of reliable starters. By comparison, the Riverhounds have only 13 players with 1,000+minutes. Charleston also has 13 players at 1,000+; North Carolina had 14.

The three-man backline of Hamady Diop, Karifa Yao, and Hugo Bachrach have started 3 of the last 4 games. Bachrach or Yao play at the center, and sometimes Bachrach plays more in front of the back line as the first passing outlet. Rhode Island’s 29 Goals Against was 4th-best in all of USL in 2025, so they’re a stingy team that is hard to break down. Diop and Bachrach are more recent installations at centerback: Aimé Mabika and Grant Stoneman were starting there back in March. Head Coach Khano Smith clearly keeps his players on their toes with regards to the starting lineups.

Midfield is also a bit mix and match. USL veteran Zachary Herivaux, journeyman Maxi Rodriguez, and Cuban player Frank Nodarse have played some in the middle of the pitch. Herivaux has played as a wide mid too; while Nodarse has started at centerback and fullback.

The one virtual constant on this squad is 25-year-old central midfielder Clay Holstad, who leads the team in minutes with 2,295. He’s your prototypical ‘do everything’ box-to-box midfielder. If the best jazz music is comprised primarily of ‘the notes you don’t play’, then Clay Holstad is ‘the player you don’t see.’ He’s not often on the ball, or making the tackle, but his movement and where he is on the pitch often dictates for Rhode Island the tone of play that they are engaged in. If he’s in the box, RIFC are all-in to score. If he’s midfield, they’re in a possession and buildup phase. When he’s deep, Rhode Island are in preservation mode. Holstad came to Rhode Island in 2024 from Columbus Crew 2, and he logged 2,761 minutes, third on the team, as the anchormen went all the way to USL Finals where they lost 3-0 to the Colorado Switchbacks.

There are a pair of familiar names to Riverhounds fans on this roster who have been mostly role players for Rhode Island: Marc Ybarra and Dani Rovira. Ybarra played for Pittsburgh in 2022 and 2023 before moving on to Rhode Island where in his first year he played nearly every minute. This season he was out with injury for all of May and June, and has been mostly an off-the-bench option since. Rovira has just 88 minutes all year for RIFC.

A former Hound that is far more integral to Rhode Island since he left the stadium on the banks of the Monongahela is none other than Albert Dikwa. The Cameroonian led RIFC in goals in 2024 with 10; but in 2025 he’s had a quieter year, with just 3 goals and 4 assists to his name. From March to July he was the defacto starting striker for Coach Khano Smith. But with just two goals over that stretch, he was benched in favor of JJ Williams. Dikwa, shockingly, roared to life in RIFC’s last game, grabbing the go-ahead goal in the 82nd minute with a perfect back-post header off a set piece; and then chipping in an empty net goal off of a recovery in Extra Time to seal the deal just minutes later. And that was coming off the bench. Bruh had just 3 goals in 1,691 minutes this year – only to bag 2 goals in about 12 minutes total. Soccer is a weird game.

JJ Williams, Dikwa’s understudy-turned-replacement, has a lot of goals, but he has almost as many former football clubs. Starting with his pro debut with the Birmingham Hammers of USL League 2 back in 2016, Williams has suited up for 11 different clubs in 10 years. The two consecutive seasons he’s been with Rhode Island marks the first time the man has ever returned to a club after the offseason in his career. When his soccer career ends, he should seriously consider starting a moving company: nobody knows their way around bubble wrap and packing tape as well. Oh yeah, JJ led the lobstermen in goals this year with 7, and 5 of those were scored after August 29.

Tactics

Against North Carolina, and in a lot of Rhode Island’s matches this year, they like to dominate possession. Their set up in attack is a 3-4-3, although it really looks more like a 3-6-1. They like to hang around in the middle third of the field and when pressed, bring four or five players to one side on an overload to work the ball past defenders. When pressed, they will hit the bit diagonal switch to one of their wide wingers, Noah Fuson or Amos Shapiro-Jackson.

They pressed North Carolina a bunch, but also simply made it really hard to play through the midfield with all those bodies jamming up the lanes of traffic. NCFC pretty much either got out in transition or … got stuck and turned it over. I think (sigh) unless the Riverhounds score early and first, they should be prepared for another grinding nil-nil draw with penalties. I know, it’s not the most exciting way to win soccer matches. But I think we’ll be ok with it in the end if Robbie Mertz, Rob Vincent, and Beto Ydrach are sipping champagne** from the USL Cup in another week and a half.

I didn’t mention RI goalkeeper Koke Vegas in the ‘personnel’ section, so I suppose I will now – having a brick wall of a goalkeeper is a tactic of sorts. Vegas is a big reason the anchormen have been so good, as he has tallied 11 clean sheets in 2025. He was formerly a backup for Levante in La Liga, Spain’s top league. When he was 20 years old, he was sitting on the bench at away games at the Camp Nou in Barcelona or the Bernabéu of Real Madrid – the modern cathedrals of the soccering world. But now he’s finally reached the pinnacle experience in all the world of football: an away match at Highmark Stadium, where he will be subjected to the Steel Army calling him a jagoff for 90 minutes plus. <Sniff>, *wipes away a single tear*. God bless football.

Last week’s Starting XI

Game Info

Time: 6:30 pm EST

Location: Highmark Stadium, Pittsburgh PA

Betting line as of 11-13-25: Hounds +100, Draw +205, Rhode Island +255

Streaming: ESPN+

Live Match Updates: PittsburghSoccerNow.com, USLChampionship.com

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*- Not their official nickname. They have an anchor on their crest, so that’s what I came up with. Personally, I’m cool with workshopping an alternative name. ‘The Lobstah-men’? ‘The Quahogs’? ‘The Not-So-City Islanders’? Wikipedia has their nickname as RIFC, and that’s just the most boring thing ever.

** I have no idea what the cup looks like. It’s a cup, right? Can you drink from it?