Tacoma Defiance 0-0 Oakland Roots

 

I think that if you had to sum up the Oakland Roots’ season in 90 minutes of football, you couldn’t do better than what we saw on Wednesday night in Tacoma: Brilliant attacking shape, effective press, occasional moments of brilliance (Kai Greene, where did that inch-perfect long ball come from, and can you do that more often, pls), but overall not enough chances, a poor conversion rate, and, finally, boned by an unbelievably bad refereeing decision.

Oakland dealt with the absences of Jose Hernandez and Lindo Mfeka by slotting in Joseph Nane in the defensive midfield role, allowing Matias Fissore to slide forward, inserting Chuy Enriquez into the right wing role, and starting Quincy Amarikwa up top. The squad had a lot more attacking ideas in this one, and for my money that’s down largely to two things: the return of the real Memo Diaz (who was simply off against Orange County), and the insertion of Chuy Enriquez.

As for Memo, while the reinvigorated midfield is the engine of Roots’ success, he has been Roots’ most consistent distributor, initiating a bunch of the passing sequences that lead to good outcomes for Oakland. He found that magic again against Tacoma, after briefly losing his way against OCSC, and was deservedly Man of the Match according to FotMob.

As for Chuy, his positioning on the right wing is a little different than what we typically see from Rodriguez in that spot, and it opened up some different opportunities for Oakland. Rodriguez typically plays (on the right) like an inside forward, whereas Chuy is more like a traditional winger. Thus, there is different space available for runs from the midfield. Like so:

One downside to this is that you need to bring someone in from the midfield to fill the inside channel that Roots like to exploit. And given the personnel Oakland used on Wednesday, that was always going to be Fissore or (much less likely, since he sat deep nearly his entire time on the pitch) Nane, since Wal Fall rarely ventures into that right-side channel in the attacking third. But according to FBRef, Fissore does not have a goal in his professional career, so this is maybe a little outside his comfort zone. (I think, personally, that this may be a big part of the reason that Rodriguez came to be preferred in this spot to Enriquez, i.e., that what Rodriguez offers on that side coheres more with what Roots are trying to do tactically--something that, to be fair, was less true before Danny Flores left for Va Tech. But I’m still shocked we went 8 matches between starts for Chuy.)

The other big downside is that you get more crosses, something Roots are not great at converting into goals. Roots attempted 26 crosses in this one. I did not review the season comprehensively, but that is more crosses than they’ve attempted in several weeks. A couple of these almost connected, though, and Enriquez worked some serious magic to get out of the situation depicted below to send one in that nearly found the heads of both Rodriguez and Amarikwa, and may have been one of Roots’ best opportunities from open play:

Still, Roots looked lively, especially in the first half. So why didn’t Roots score any goals here? For my money, if there’s anyone to blame for this result, it’s the color commentator, who declared 52 seconds into the match that “there will be goals tonight.” Buddy, keep it to yourself next time.

For their part, Tacoma sat extremely deep in the first half. Frequently, only the diminutive, practically jockey-sized, Ray Serrano pressed over the halfway line. This was notable mostly because it wasn’t Big Sam Adineran in that spot. It was a little bit like Tacoma had watched the small but speedy Ronaldo Damus give the Oakland back line fits just a few days ago.

In general, Tacoma’s brief in the first 45 seemed to be “deny Wal Fall the ball.” They did decently well with that, not really taking him out of the game but denying him space in dangerous areas. But they decided to press higher in the second half to prevent any chance of service to him, and it worked. Fall had only 21 touches in the second 45.

Despite their higher press, Tacoma couldn’t even manage 50% possession in the second half, and rarely asked questions of Paul Blanchette.

So we were all knotted at zero when the match entered second half stoppage time. And that’s when this happened:

That’s Blog “favorite” Tom Brewitt blatantly handling the ball while in the box. Now, a pen being awarded here (as it should have been) wouldn’t guarantee a Roots win. As we’ve seen, Roots consider penalties unsporting. But come on. You shouldn’t get to have an attendance in the dozens and still get this kind of home cooking from the refs.

Roots have at least one more match of meaningful football given Galaxy 2’s loss away to Charleston Battery. The last two matches are must wins. If Oakland wins both and LA2 earns only a single point from here on out, Roots are in the playoffs. (By drawing to Tacoma, Roots took the season series, so if both end the season on 41 points, Roots have the tiebreaker.) And there have been enough instances of Oakland wasting chances on their own. But with things this tight, Roots’ entire margin for error has now been used up by dodgy officiating in this match and Oakland’s last match in Irvine, California. (Not to mention that both of the *other* matches in these venues were marred by very questionable calls.) You never want to leave things up to the refs, they can only disappoint. But some of these calls have been...outrageous.

Still, Roots are in a goal drought at the moment. They have not scored from open play in 350 minutes of football, and not at all in 297 minutes. That will need to change, regardless whether they start getting calls. Unfortunately, San Diego have something to play for on Saturday, as their loss to OCSC means their hold on second place in the division (and a first round home game in the playoffs) is tenuous. The good news, as I’m sure Bloom will discuss on Saturday, is that Oakland seem to match up well with San Diego. Each squad has scored 2 goals across their three contests this season. A slight uptick in conversion rate at the weekend, and you have to like Oakland’s chances.

If there’s one good thing to come out of this match, though, it’s that the draw also keeps Tacoma’s playoff hopes alive. They host LA2 next with everything to play for, in a match that kicks off 90 minutes before San Diego-Oakland. If I have somehow survived Man United-Liverpool at the Theater of Nightmares that morning, the afternoon may end me. Please spare a thought for my heart this weekend.