El Paso Locomotive vs. Oakland Roots - Match Preview (November 5, 2021)

Against all odds, the Oakland Roots will travel to El Paso to face the Locomotive on November 5, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. PST.  The match will be broadcast on ESPN+.

The Club

El Paso Locomotive F.C. made their USL debut in the 2019 season.  Locomotive play at Southwest University Park, which is called (at least by the people on the Seriously Loco Podcast) the "Swup."  Locomotive share the Swup with the El Paso Chihuahuas the San Diego Padres Triple-A affiliate (Tatis Jr. never played there, he jumped from AA to the majors).

The Locomotive website claims that their colors are "West Texas Sky" and "Desert Dusk" and "High Noon Sun."  Oakland Roots' gear gets worn on Blindspotting.  Per their site, "the Locomotive is the engine that drives the train.  It is strong, loud and its booming sounds can be heard from miles away."  

Anyway, their logo is pretty dope, but the color names are incredibly lame.

Interestingly (I will not be reading the comments), FC Lokomotiv Moscow is named because it arose out of the the Lokomotiv Voluntary Sports Society owned by the Soviet Ministry of Transportation.  Other Voluntary Sports Societies included Zenit (as in Zenit St. Petersburg) which was the defense industry, and Spartak (as in Spartak Moscow) which was "others" [thanks wikipedia]. I used to have some great trivia about the "Dynamo" team names, but it turns out it was wrong.  Anyway, El Paso Locomotive F.C. is a subsidiary of the Soviet Transportation Ministry which makes them, unfortunately, the USL team with the best leftist credit.  A shocking blow to the Roots right on the verge of their first playoff run, but the Atlanta-Houston World Series makes me think this is a good year to be the reactionary team in the playoffs.

Locomotive finished 14th overall in the 2019 season, good enough for sixth in the Western Conference, and knocked off Fresno FC in the first round and Sacramento Republic in the second round before falling to eventual champions Real Monarchs in extra time in the Western Conference Final.  

Locomotive finished fourth in the Western Conference in 2020 and eliminated FC Tulsa in the first round on penalties.  Locomotive then had penalties again in the next match, eliminating New Mexico United.  You're really not going to believe this, but Locomotive were then eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals by Phoenix Rising on penalties.  Our beloved Memo Diaz, who is from the El Paso region, featured for the Locomotive both season, but got relatively little playing time.  He appeared in all three 2020 playoff games, each time coming on after the 96th minute, and twice getting a yellow card.  Absolute legend.

Locomotive's 2021 Season

El Paso ended their season on top of the Mountain Division with 64 points, an 18-10-4 record.  El Paso are third in total goals scored, with 56, and have the fourth best goal differential with +22.  This is really perplexing to me, but it appears that Locomotive played twice as many non-divisional games as the Roots.  So that's weird.  Anyway, their non-divisional opponents were not great.  In eight non-divisional games, they only played two playoff teams in FC Tulsa and Orange County (LOL Galaxy).  Obviously the Roots can't be in the business of saying wins against Vegas don't count, I'm just saying that it's not obvious from this metric that the Mountain Division is better than the Pacific Division.

Lawson went into pretty great detail on Locomotive's strategy.

On October 17, El Paso got thrashed by Galaxy II in Carson.

El Paso have had a lot of injuries this season, but the team was not rotated all that much for this match.  Preston Judd's goal to make it 2-0 was a long range low effort that keeper Logan Ketterer really should have saved.  I don't know much about Ketterer, but the third, fourth, and maybe fifth goals also should have been saved.  If only the Roots had someone good at testing a keeper from distance.  The commentators in those highlights appear to be saying at one point that Galaxy II were "peaking at the right time in the season" which is hilarious.

The next couple of sets of highlights are maybe not what your blood pressure needs going into tonight.

Lucho Solignac's distance effort for Locomotive's second was apparently deflected a little bit, but still a shocking long-range effort.  New Mexico ended the season on 46 points, which is obviously a respectable tally, but they had a pretty good defensive record, so this 3-0 Locomotive win was quality.

Oklahoma City FC would ultimately finish fifth in the Central Division, so they aren't great, but still, 4-0 is a great result for El Paso, and they netted all four in the first half.  

El Paso ended their season with a 1-4 stumble into the playoffs.  To be fair, RGV Toros needed the win a lot more than Locomotive did.  Again, El Paso have had some injuries, but this match did not feature an unreasonable amount of rotation.  El Paso has some weaknesses.  You could also see the Roots scoring three of the four goals that RGV Toros put past them (the first was a penalty and, well, let's hope Bokila is on if the Roots get one).

Roots 2021 Season

We'll do a season recap when the season is over.  Here's a couple things you should know:

This match was absolutely unbelievable pressure.  Chuy's goal at the 2' mark was just perfect, and exactly what the Roots needed, but they still had to not blow it for 88 minutes and they did not.  

In my preview of the August 14 match against Galaxy II at Merritt College, I said:

Excuses don’t win games, but the Roots are (1) in their first season, (2) probably out of the playoff hunt, and (3) not at risk of relegation.

Welp:

[Source: FBRef]

What a season.

Predictions

Comeaux - You’d be crazy to bet on the Roots. John Morrissey of USL Tactics has El Paso coming away with a 3-0 win, mentioning that Roots’ midfield will have to deal with an aggressive press. It all becomes more daunting when throwing in that El Paso hasn’t lost a home match in 470 days. As Lawson noted in his breakdown of Locomotive, the Roots SC is going to need at least two goals. Lawson also keyed on the possibility of Roots having room down the wing with its elusive group of wingbacks. With that, an X-Factor for Roots could be Matias Fissore and Wal Fall’s ability to hold off defenders and spring runners out wide. My prediction: El Paso goes into halftime leading 1-0. Memo Diaz draws a penalty kick, Roots tie 1-1. Oakland scores the game-winner in the last 15 minutes, and hang on for dear life. Roots win, 2-1.

Bloom - For once, Lawson wrote his prediction before me, but this was all his idea, so I'll let him have the final word.  This team had one win on the morning of August 14.  It is completely and totally preposterous that we will be watching them tonight.  But the reason they're in this position is also why we should have hope for tonight--injuries, scheduling, and luck conspired to make this team 1-3-8, but the team always had talented players, always had a coach and staff with great ideas, and always had a front office ready to go out and add the players needed to get things back on track.  Sure, the Roots enter the playoffs with the fewest points, but certainly not the fewest since August 14, and the team that will play in El Paso tonight is the team that took the league by storm over the last couple months.  This is the team that beat Phoenix and San Diego (twice).  Roots 2-1 in extra time.  Fight like hell.  Up the Roots.  

Lawson - Based on what I saw while watching El Paso, I think this match goes one of two ways. Either Locomotive blitz Roots out of the gate and run them off the pitch (something like a 4-0 final line) or we get a tense, cagey affair that is decided by something silly like an own goal, or heads to extra time or penalties. Because I see the world through mosaic-tinted glasses, I'm going with the latter. Here's why I think it's possible: The Roots have a pretty good press by USL standards while El Paso is less good at dealing with the press than they are in other facets of the game, and the Roots are equipped to attack the side of the field that El Paso leaves most vulnerable. I'm going with a 2-2 final line, with El Paso advancing 4-2 on pens.