Rising falls in midweek, cross-conference matchup at Phoenix Rising Stadium
Phoenix Rising suffered its first regular-season home defeat of 2026, dropping its midweek match to Louisville City FC on June 10 at Phoenix Rising Stadium. Following the match, Head Coach Pa-Modou Kah and midfielder JP Scearce spoke about the result, bouncing back in El Paso on the weekend and more.
HEAD COACH PA-MODOU KAH
On his thoughts on the match…
“It was not good enough, just not good enough.”
On the attack setup and efficiency in possession…
“The attack was set up so that we could also have speed; otherwise, we only have people coming to the ball, so that was part of why we put Collin (Smith) higher. I don’t think we were efficient enough with the ball, so we just weren’t good enough in all parts of the game today.
We all saw the game; we didn’t move the ball well enough, we didn’t move the ball quickly and allowed (Louisville) to settle into its block. There was not enough penetration; it was not enough movement, and our defense was just okay.”
MIDFIELDER JP SCEARCE
On reflections after the game…
“We’re a bit disappointed with the result. In the first half we lacked a little bit of urgency; we weren’t moving the ball quick enough, you know, to try to get them tired. At halftime it seemed like we were the ones tired, and we spoke about that. We need to flip the ball a little bit quicker and keep them moving. I thought we did well in the second half. We found some pockets inside and broke them down but just weren’t good enough on the final third.”
On current training.…
“One of the things we’ve been working on a lot is that fluidity, just everyone filling in spaces, you know, making the other team move around and try to, I guess, chase shadows. When we have (Damian Rivera) back in the lineup, he’s probably one of the best one-to-one players in the league, so we want to have him out wide, and you saw Luke (Biasi) last game against New Mexico fill in as a midfielder, and I think he did well. And today he had the liberty to play in the middle, and I think he did well. He had a few moments where he got the ball in the pocket; he had a shot in the first half which was good, but yeah.”
On pressure from Louisville…
“Louisville was a very, very good team tonight. To be honest, I think a lot of times when we were defending, when we were chasing the ball, was because we were making mistakes. They were getting the balls easily at the head times, which resulted in us chasing and getting a bit too tired, but the plan was for us to remain in possession and just move them around, and I don’t think we did good enough.”
On bouncing back the next few games…
“Obviously it’s a three-game week. We have to be smart in our recovery, and this game’s over now. We just have to recover and focus on the next game, and El Paso is one of our rivals so it’s always a good game against them.”
