From Good to Great
MD9 — Athletic Club Boise vs Fort Wayne FC — 2026
Match Recap & Analysis
Fort Wayne Football Club defeated Athletic Club Boise 3-1 at Athletic Club Boise Stadium, with Lilian Ricol’s brace lifting the club to fifth in USL League One and extending its league unbeaten run to six matches.
Athletic Club Boise 1 – 3 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 Athletic Club Boise Stadium 📅 May 23, 2026 ⚽ Gasso (69’) / Ricol (9’, 83’), Healy (58’) 📋 FWFC Record: 4-2-3 · 15 pts · Matchday 9
The Match
Fort Wayne Football Club defeated Athletic Club Boise 3-1 at Athletic Club Boise Stadium in the clubs’ first professional meeting, handing Boise its first home defeat of the season.
Fort Wayne broke through in the 9th min. It was a fantastic team goal that started with a recycled ball through Javier Armas and our defense, who found Armas once more. With his trademark Pirlo impression, he placed a perfectly weighted long pass down the right channel to find Kabiru Gafar in stride, beating his man. With a deft touch and a well placed pass, Gafar cut the ball back across the six yard box to find Lilian Ricol, who finished with a one-touch shot.
Both clubs lost key players to injury in the first half. Boise’s Charlie Adams pulled up early in the 5th minute and was replaced by Dominic Gasso. Fort Wayne’s Javier Armas needed to sub out in the 30th minute, with Emerson Nieto on in his place. Both subs would provide impact later in the second half.
Taking a 1-0 lead into halftime, Fort Wayne doubled it in the 58th minute when Taig Healy pounced on a ball that fell between defenders. After an initial shot was blocked, Healy continued to hunt for the ball, and his persistence was rewarded with his sixth goal in his last eight matches.
AC Boise pulled one back in the 69th min. Substitute Dominic Gasso struck from 30 yards out to beat Bernd Schipmann, and the Fort Wayne defenders in front of him. It was a shot taken from a low probability area on the field, but good things happen when you keep shots on target.
Fort Wayne restored the two-goal cushion in the 83rd min. Boise, caught a little too high up the pitch, turned the ball over to our hometown kid, Emerson Nieto, who played the ball forward to Ricol. Ricol timed his run to stay onside and carried the ball the full distance from the halfway mark, putting his second goal of the night past Boise’s goalkeeper. It was Ricol’s fifth goal of the season, sixth in all competitions.
Schipmann finished with five saves on six shots on target; Boise’s Jonathan Kliewer stopped one of four. Fort Wayne improved to 4-2-3 in League One play, climbing to fifth in the 17-team table with 15 points, and is unbeaten in its last six league matches.
The Defender’s Verdict
Now that’s a statement win. Picking up away points isn’t easy, and to pick up all 3 points in Boise was a tall task. Today, the players, the coaching staff and Fort Wayne stand a little taller. Give us a stage and we’ll sing. And maybe, just maybe this team will be singing late night, champagne-soaked karaoke as USL League One Champions in November. Before we get ahead of ourselves, the stars do need to align, and that takes endless and tireless hard work across a season. It will take stars, individual and collective talent, to produce a special season, and last night’s statement win fuels these flames.
Lilian Ricol makes easy goals look easy, and that’s not always easy. It’s the sign of a true center forward. You make your living keeping everything in the box, on target. Ricol continues to be invaluable for this Fort Wayne side, and I do believe he’s playing his way onto a bigger stage.
We’re at the point in the season where the opposition has enough data points on us. Without Lilian Ricol on the pitch, Fort Wayne is not as dangerous. Take Javier Armas, the matador, out of the midfield, and we lose the effortless flow that connects our defense to attack. He can regularly pick out a pass that would land him Pass of the Week, if there was such a thing. Healy’s pestering of opposing defenders is the engine of our chance creation; without that engine, our attack quiets.
These are the stars of Fort Wayne Football Club.
The defense possesses that Fort Wayne grit Mike Avery and his coaching staff have built. A well-coached back line, a veteran between the sticks in Bernd Schipmann, and an impressive captain in Tiago Dias. To see Dias’s continued growth from USL League Two to USL League One: he leads by example, and he now knows he can compete at this level. The ceiling is still higher, and his confidence is matching the climb. As a centerback, he has the full field ahead of him. Week after week, he scans, reads the flow of the match, and finds how his own rhythm matches the pace of play. The same can be said about many of our first-year professionals: growing in confidence, and growing into their full potential.
And once more, the stars of the match include our coaching staff. Boise outshot us 28 to 7 on the night. Boise outpossessed us 63 to 37. Boise drew 9 corners to our 1. Boise lost 3-1. The reason was a 64th-minute reshape: Juan Solís on as the aerial tower to lock the box, Daniel Oyetunde on to keep a counter-attack outlet on the pitch. Boise eventually overcommitted in chase mode, the trap sprang, and Ricol broke from halfway to bury the dagger. This staff continues to draft the right gameplan, manage the full 90 minutes, and has shown adaptability all season. They have shaped this roster into a group of young men willing to play a team game. The right combination of soccer IQ, in-match tactics, and the mentality needed to go from good to great. This is the next evolution for a young Fort Wayne FC side. A team Fort Wayne can be proud of, and a team creating the next stars in the sport.
The way Mike Avery and his staff are going about their business, they have created enough stars to make a constellation. Up Fort Wayne!
Always FWD