And that's why you never surrender the first goal: OCSC 1-0 Oakland

One half of the Blog roots for Liverpool Football Club, and started having flashbacks to a certain European tie with Atletico Madrid. And, of course, the worst thing you can do when playing Los Rojiblancos is to surrender the first goal. It helps, of course, when the line judge is willing to flag the other team offsides.

The Irvinite rojiblancos (los anaranjados?) came into this match with a well-deserved reputation for defensive solidity. Roots were clearly up to the task. They seemed to welcome the chance to control possession: They created several half-chances, had two shots cleared off the line, and forced the OCSC goalie to make a couple saves. Abraham Romero, OCSC’s keeper, didn’t need an Oblak-like performance to secure the three points here, but he wasn’t a spectator either. The second half also saw two penalty shouts; the second was...dubious, but whatever. 

As for the defensive end of the pitch, Roots signed a center-back last week, Emrah Klimenta, and he went straight into the starting XI alongside Tarek Morad. Early returns are positive: Apart from one frantic few minutes, which saw Morad need to clear one off the line, shortly before OCSC slotted one home, the defense was strong. And even on that Orange County goal, we here at the Blog are fairly certain Damus, the goal scorer, was offside. Our current theory is that the line judge was intimidated by the enormous orange orb keeping watch over the stadium.

Tactically, Roots employed a similar formation to their first 3 games, but the starting XI saw at least one significant new wrinkle: Memo Diaz started in midfield, leaving Soya Takahashi at left back, and Akeem Ward at right back. That experiment ended at halftime: Takahashi was subbed off to start the second half, moving Diaz back into the right back role, and shifting Ward over to the left side of the formation. The Blog is fairly convinced at this point that Ward should be a mainstay on the left. The team looks far more threatening when he plays on the left, and he created a golden scoring opportunity with a spicy cross towards Danny Flores in the box as the game wore down.

Among other things we liked, Roots also tried to move Fissore further up the pitch. When Mbumba subbed on for Takahashi at halftime, Mbumba played a deeper role, allowing Fissore some freedom to move forward, and then Ornstil came on in the 62nd minute and he largely occupied the #6 role, fully liberating Fissore to move forward. Perhaps that was a specific response to OCSC’s low block, but we would not mind seeing it more often. 

With the loss, Roots end their season opening 4-game road stretch with 4 points, at 1-1-2. These are not world-beating results, but we think they’re fair. More importantly, if Roots are able to successfully defend their home turf, they’re doing enough right now to be competitive for the postseason.