Know the Enemy: Orange County SC
Before we get to this weekend’s opponent, let’s briefly revel in last week’s win for Oakland Roots. Look at this goddamn picture:
Put it in the Louvre.
We don’t have a new enemy to get acquainted with this week, as Oakland’s conference semifinal is against old foe Orange County Soccer Club, the squad nice enough to do us the favor of beating LA Galaxy II so that Oakland could take the final playoff spot in the USL. This is currently the only playoff soccer being played in the state of California. We need a name for this, like the “Copa Calafia” or something.
In many ways, last weekend’s opponent was the perfect matchup for Oakland. But we have plenty of evidence that that will not be true again this weekend.
Orange County are on a bit of a tear, having now won 6 in a row. During that stretch they have surrendered only one goal. But if you were watching their quarterfinal matchup against Colorado Springs, you may have heard the play-by-play announcer say that their expected goals against over the last 5 regular season matches was not quite as stellar. No citation was provided, but 538 have OCSC as surrendering 5.1 xGA over those 5 matches, and their expected goals statistic suggests that OCSC may have stolen 3 results in their last 6, including last weekend against Colorado Springs. American Soccer Analysis has similar numbers, with OCSC at 5.8 xGA over those last 5 regular season games. So this defense is not impregnable. Unfortunately, one of the no doubters in OCSC’s favor was against Oakland Roots. The final score of that match was 1-0, but OCSC really should have put that one away by the halftime interval. OCSC was dangerous early, things got really bad for Oakland when Lindo Mfeka went down with some type of soft tissue injury, and then got even worse when Jose Hernandez picked up a red for kicking Mikko Kuningas in the nards right in front of the ref.
Oakland have faced Orange County four times this season, earning zero points in the process. We can throw away the first two results. For one, OCSC had a different manager for those games. For another, the Roots were still a work in progress during those games. Oakland’s starting XI in the first featured two players who are no longer even with the team, Luis Barraza and Danny Flores. The second matchup was Oakland’s second game following the covid outbreak, also featured two lads we for sure will not see on Saturday (Danny Flores and the now-injured Brandon Allen), and was one of the few games in which both Matias Fissore and Chuy Enriquez were not even available.
You might recall that Oakland deserved much more out of their third clash with OCSC. A Quincy Amarikwa goal was erased by an absolutely awful offsides call, and a WWE-style takedown of Jose Hernandez in the box went uncalled. So what can we glean from all of this?
Under Richard Chaplow OCSC plays a 4-3-3 but generally likes to defend in two banks of four, with Damus and one other forward (likely Brian Iloski or Eric Calvillo) staying high. Damus is a problem. Damus has 14 of the team’s 44 goals. He is the only one with more than 4. The players with 4 goals are Eero Markkanen, who is injured, and Chris Wehan, who now plays for New Mexico United. Damus is incredibly fast and skilled with the ball at his feet. OCSC can be quick on the counter because the only strategy needed is to just send the ball in Damus’s general direction. Obviously what they do is more nuanced than that, but “send it to Damus” gets you like 90% of the way there. He celebrated his goal against Colorado Springs by mimicking the celebration of his much more famous namesake, and honestly, he deserved it. This is a second straight game where we should see benefits from the decision to play Joseph Nane and Matias Fissore together. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Max Ornstil on for one of them as a late game substitution, because, again, Damus is fast, and some fresh legs will probably be necessary.
Further back, OCSC’s midfield seems to default to narrow. They want to pinch in, and I think one of the biggest issues in the fourth game against these guys was that Oakland offered nothing out wide that needed to be respected. Because there wasn’t any threatening movement in the wide areas, OCSC stayed compact, and really frustrated Oakland’s attempts to play through the half spaces.
One thing that has changed since that last match with OCSC is that Chuy Enriquez has recovered his spot as a regular fixture in the starting XI. I think that will continue as his movement along the wings has to be tracked. The combination of Chuy and Memo Diaz down that flank, plus Jose Hernandez in central midfield, and whomever happens to be the center forward at the time (Quincy/Johnny/Jeremy) should be enough to prise open the otherwise compact OCSC defense. I certainly hope so, because otherwise there is very little room to run or pass.
Midfield movement and positioning will also be key. Another big change between matches 3 and 4, from Oakland’s perspective, was the movement and positioning of the midfield off the ball. In match 3, the midfield was very fluid, allowing players to get into the half-spaces, and other pockets of real estate, to receive progressive passes. In match 4, we saw much less of that. The positioning of the midfield was too deep, and the passing was too passive. Part of this is down to how OCSC play, of course. Orange County are masters at getting an opening goal and then powering the game down. And in match 4 they sat back in their shape until they got their goal, and then expended much more energy harassing the Roots midfield. But without good positioning and decisive movement in the midfield, Roots will be fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
One potential weakness of teams defending in two banks of four is vulnerability to runs between the lines. And, in fact, about the only decent chance Roots had in the last match before things went pear-shaped came when Johnny Rodriguez popped up in an unexpected spot between the lines:
You can also see in this shot that OCSC’s midfield has been pulled slightly out of shape by the movement of Ariel Mbumba, who is the Oakland player along the touchline near midfield, and Wal Fall, who is just inside of him. That allows the pass in the frame from Matias Fissore to Rodriguez, who in turn is able to release Mfeka.
He also did something similar to help Oakland score it's only goal this season against OCSC:
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| Source: Oakland Roots SC |
In many ways, last weekend’s opponent was the perfect matchup for Oakland. But we have plenty of evidence that that will not be true again this weekend.
Orange County are on a bit of a tear, having now won 6 in a row. During that stretch they have surrendered only one goal. But if you were watching their quarterfinal matchup against Colorado Springs, you may have heard the play-by-play announcer say that their expected goals against over the last 5 regular season matches was not quite as stellar. No citation was provided, but 538 have OCSC as surrendering 5.1 xGA over those 5 matches, and their expected goals statistic suggests that OCSC may have stolen 3 results in their last 6, including last weekend against Colorado Springs. American Soccer Analysis has similar numbers, with OCSC at 5.8 xGA over those last 5 regular season games. So this defense is not impregnable. Unfortunately, one of the no doubters in OCSC’s favor was against Oakland Roots. The final score of that match was 1-0, but OCSC really should have put that one away by the halftime interval. OCSC was dangerous early, things got really bad for Oakland when Lindo Mfeka went down with some type of soft tissue injury, and then got even worse when Jose Hernandez picked up a red for kicking Mikko Kuningas in the nards right in front of the ref.
Oakland have faced Orange County four times this season, earning zero points in the process. We can throw away the first two results. For one, OCSC had a different manager for those games. For another, the Roots were still a work in progress during those games. Oakland’s starting XI in the first featured two players who are no longer even with the team, Luis Barraza and Danny Flores. The second matchup was Oakland’s second game following the covid outbreak, also featured two lads we for sure will not see on Saturday (Danny Flores and the now-injured Brandon Allen), and was one of the few games in which both Matias Fissore and Chuy Enriquez were not even available.
You might recall that Oakland deserved much more out of their third clash with OCSC. A Quincy Amarikwa goal was erased by an absolutely awful offsides call, and a WWE-style takedown of Jose Hernandez in the box went uncalled. So what can we glean from all of this?
Under Richard Chaplow OCSC plays a 4-3-3 but generally likes to defend in two banks of four, with Damus and one other forward (likely Brian Iloski or Eric Calvillo) staying high. Damus is a problem. Damus has 14 of the team’s 44 goals. He is the only one with more than 4. The players with 4 goals are Eero Markkanen, who is injured, and Chris Wehan, who now plays for New Mexico United. Damus is incredibly fast and skilled with the ball at his feet. OCSC can be quick on the counter because the only strategy needed is to just send the ball in Damus’s general direction. Obviously what they do is more nuanced than that, but “send it to Damus” gets you like 90% of the way there. He celebrated his goal against Colorado Springs by mimicking the celebration of his much more famous namesake, and honestly, he deserved it. This is a second straight game where we should see benefits from the decision to play Joseph Nane and Matias Fissore together. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Max Ornstil on for one of them as a late game substitution, because, again, Damus is fast, and some fresh legs will probably be necessary.
Further back, OCSC’s midfield seems to default to narrow. They want to pinch in, and I think one of the biggest issues in the fourth game against these guys was that Oakland offered nothing out wide that needed to be respected. Because there wasn’t any threatening movement in the wide areas, OCSC stayed compact, and really frustrated Oakland’s attempts to play through the half spaces.
One thing that has changed since that last match with OCSC is that Chuy Enriquez has recovered his spot as a regular fixture in the starting XI. I think that will continue as his movement along the wings has to be tracked. The combination of Chuy and Memo Diaz down that flank, plus Jose Hernandez in central midfield, and whomever happens to be the center forward at the time (Quincy/Johnny/Jeremy) should be enough to prise open the otherwise compact OCSC defense. I certainly hope so, because otherwise there is very little room to run or pass.
Midfield movement and positioning will also be key. Another big change between matches 3 and 4, from Oakland’s perspective, was the movement and positioning of the midfield off the ball. In match 3, the midfield was very fluid, allowing players to get into the half-spaces, and other pockets of real estate, to receive progressive passes. In match 4, we saw much less of that. The positioning of the midfield was too deep, and the passing was too passive. Part of this is down to how OCSC play, of course. Orange County are masters at getting an opening goal and then powering the game down. And in match 4 they sat back in their shape until they got their goal, and then expended much more energy harassing the Roots midfield. But without good positioning and decisive movement in the midfield, Roots will be fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
One potential weakness of teams defending in two banks of four is vulnerability to runs between the lines. And, in fact, about the only decent chance Roots had in the last match before things went pear-shaped came when Johnny Rodriguez popped up in an unexpected spot between the lines:
He also did something similar to help Oakland score it's only goal this season against OCSC:
So we have very little solid evidence about what works against OCSC, but this particular type of movement from Rodriguez has paid dividends. Our suggestion is to do more of that.
The other thing to know about Orange County is that it isn’t at all clear who will play on their back line. Michael Orozco, who has 29 caps for the USMNT, is nailed on at one center back spot. Rob Kiernan would have held the other but we think he’s out due to a red card against Colorado Springs. Kobi Henry would have taken his place, but he’s training with the USMNT’s U-20 squad at the moment. So this is a pretty good time to be facing Orange County.
The crew from Orange & Black Soccer Cast seem confident that Kiernan’s replacement will be Dillon Powers. Powers is a defensive mid, so this won’t be a huge transition, but it’s not nothing. Once upon a time, Powers was MLS rookie of the year for Colorado Rapids. We hasten to add, though, that that kind of individual success is not nearly enough to erase the stain of having attended the University of Notre Dame. Also, I don’t know precisely what to make of this, but his last two actions on Twitter appear to have been retweeting Elon Musk (yikes), and suggesting that Reece James (who, it should be noted, is not a keeper) shouldn’t have gotten a red or conceded a penalty for saving a Liverpool shot off the line with his hand (also yikes, at least in my book). The tweets plus the Notre Dame thing suggest a guy with questionable judgment. Oakland should exploit that.
Finally, while we have not bothered to look this up at all, we are pretty sure that no team in USL history has ever beaten another team 5 times in one season. So we also have that going for us.
Up the Roots.
The other thing to know about Orange County is that it isn’t at all clear who will play on their back line. Michael Orozco, who has 29 caps for the USMNT, is nailed on at one center back spot. Rob Kiernan would have held the other but we think he’s out due to a red card against Colorado Springs. Kobi Henry would have taken his place, but he’s training with the USMNT’s U-20 squad at the moment. So this is a pretty good time to be facing Orange County.
The crew from Orange & Black Soccer Cast seem confident that Kiernan’s replacement will be Dillon Powers. Powers is a defensive mid, so this won’t be a huge transition, but it’s not nothing. Once upon a time, Powers was MLS rookie of the year for Colorado Rapids. We hasten to add, though, that that kind of individual success is not nearly enough to erase the stain of having attended the University of Notre Dame. Also, I don’t know precisely what to make of this, but his last two actions on Twitter appear to have been retweeting Elon Musk (yikes), and suggesting that Reece James (who, it should be noted, is not a keeper) shouldn’t have gotten a red or conceded a penalty for saving a Liverpool shot off the line with his hand (also yikes, at least in my book). The tweets plus the Notre Dame thing suggest a guy with questionable judgment. Oakland should exploit that.
Finally, while we have not bothered to look this up at all, we are pretty sure that no team in USL history has ever beaten another team 5 times in one season. So we also have that going for us.
Up the Roots.
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