Goals by Collin Smith and Hope Avayevu weren’t enough for Rising to notch its first home win of 2025
Phoenix Rising scored late in the first half and doubled its lead in the second, but a late offensive surge by visitors Detroit City FC were enough to prevent Rising from celebrating a home victory for the first time this season.
Following the match, Head Coach Pa-Modou Kah and defender Collin Smith broke down the 3-2 defeat Saturday night at Phoenix Rising Stadium.
HEAD COACH PA-MODOU KAH
General thoughts on the match…
“A little bit shocked. A massive, massive lesson. We basically gave away the game.”
On where the game went wrong…
“Game Management. We know 2-0 is the most difficult lead in football, but that was not a game to allow them to come back in. A little bit of desire was needed. Unfortunately, today we took a step back in our progress.”
The team’s second-half substitutions…
“You make subs and the subs were right, and our thing has nothing to do with the subs because we get the goal and assist from DJ. That means we did, but I think there’s just that little bit of responsibility and accountability that we are still gaining through our process. These are games that when you are up two-zero, you don’t allow the opposition to come back in the game.”
On defender Casey Wall’s debut…
“I think it was solid. We didn’t lose because of Casey. We lost as a team, but I was happy with a little bit of the things that we’ve seen from him. Hopefully, he can give us more.”
On the game plan of how to use Remi Cabral tonight…
“As we counted them, the switch of play was always on. For me, when you have a switch of play, you need to have tempo on the ball. I don’t think the tempo in the first half was very good for me. One of the things that I saw that I didn’t like today was body language and belief.”
On his message to the fans after the frustrating loss…
“The fans want to see a team. We want to see a team. This is a part of the progress. I know what the boys can do, and for me, I rally everybody to be behind the team. Their voices and their frustration are great because they believe and want this team to do better. So do we. It’s going to take moving in the right direction and working together to create a team that they can be proud of.
At this moment, there’s a lot of progress made, but also there’s a little bit of progress that still has to be made. Obviously, not the result we wanted, but let me know when you see a team that the title is given out after six games.”
DEFENDER COLLIN SMITH
On his overall thoughts of the game…
“It’s definitely great to score my first goal. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up getting the win, but we’ve trained really hard on working together as a team, and as a whole, in order to create chances. I feel like we did that, but obviously we came off a little bit unlucky. We weren’t too mature with how to really maintain that lead. And so obviously it cost us.”
On the team’s overall strategy entering the game…
“(Counterattacking) is one of the things we’ve worked on for sure,” Smith said. “We work on several things in order to be effective in the games. Then once gametime comes, it’s on us to be able to work on what we worked on in training and exploit the team in the ways that we feel like we can exploit them.”
On if Detroit earned the win or was it team lapses that lost the game…
“I think it’s the maturity of the group, because we’ve been in games where we started behind and luckily this game we started ahead. Now we just have to be smart enough to really manage the game. Maybe in those moments, go to the corner, do the things that are necessary to keep that lead.”
On if maturity is a point of improvement going into the weekend…
“(Maturity) is definitely high on the priority list. I feel we’ve got enough games under our belt where we’ve faced a lot of obstacles, and now that we’ve faced those, that should only prepare us.”
On his first goal and team chemistry…
“There’s a lot of togetherness in the group, a lot of camaraderie, everyone’s bought in, everyone’s with each other, we’re all just as tight as the next. All that’s there. It’s now about once we get in the game, that’s when we have when we have to pick our moments to maybe have a go at each other. Maybe be a little bit more serious with each other, and that’s when it shows in the game.”
On his goal…
“(Margaritha) doing his thing, one-v-one. That’s one of his strengths. Once we get him the ball, we kind of know that he’s going to beat his guy. Then for me personally, once I saw he got the ball, I was like, ‘Hey, I go to get there, because I feel like it’s going to get there somehow, with his strength, beating the guy one on one.’ Then obviously I ran in there.
Next thing I knew the ball came into me, and I thought I was going to fly through the net. I was ready. I was waiting for that one. I was ready for that one. Super excited to be able to get that and of course, Margaritha doing his thing. Super appreciative of him too and the whole group. Now we just have to clean up the small mistakes to turn it into a win.”
