RootsBlog

Sun Tzu So here’s the thing about El Paso Locomotive: They’re really good. And they’re even better at home. Locomotive are 13-3-0 in El Paso this season, having scored 36 goals in those matches while surrendering 10. They are a thoroughly pedestrian 5-7-4 on the road, with only 20 goals for and 24 against. Unfortunately, Friday’s match will be in El Paso. El Paso's seriously dope  culture flag Roots enter the match at 11-8-13, though that record is somewhat deceiving. They are 10-5-5 over the final 20 matches of the season. If they had gotten results at that pace from the beginning, they’d have 56 points, and be hosting Colorado Springs Switchbacks this coming weekend. At the same time, during that 20-match run, Roots are “only” 3-2-3 on the road, with 10 goals for and 11 against. Their only road win in the “non-Las Vegas Lights” category was the 4-3 barnburner against San Diego Loyal. Locomotive play at a slightly faster tempo than Roots. Their general shape to start the season w...

  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 Root...

  When we here at the Blog gamed out Oakland’s run-in, and the potential ways they could qualify for the playoffs, I think we all wrote off Roots’ matchup with Phoenix as a loss. It takes a lot of hubris to predict a win at Wild Horse Pass, and none of us wanted to tempt the sports gods/set ourselves up for disappointment. And in the end, a one-goal edge for Phoenix is probably a fair reflection of how the match played out (in fact, Phoenix wasted several opportunities to add to their lead). But boy oh boy did Oakland leave some opportunities out there on the pitch. As they did against Sacramento Republic, Oakland again attacked through the half-spaces. We saw early in that game that Oakland’s preference appeared to be to keep the ball central, before Sac adjusted and forced Oakland wide. That preference reappeared in this match, as Oakland regularly advanced the ball through the channels in the first half. Oakland also made intelligent use of the wide areas, though, as Soya Takaha...

  I have to say, I think Sacramento very much had a bead on what Oakland were trying to do Wednesday night. Oakland’s general shape very much resembled what we’ve seen since the squad got fully (or nearly fully) fit, but I thought this played a lot like a 4-3-3 with a false 9, with Lindo Mfeka doing a lot of roaming about the center of the pitch. The gameplan was practically Sarri-esque. Build-up after build-up saw Roots try one of two things: (1) Fall and Hernandez seek to receive the ball in the half-space and then immediately hit a third man out wide or through the middle, or (2) an intricate passing sequence that would switch play in about 4 to 5 passes. The problem was that Sacramento’s physicality really prevented this kind of fluid movement for much of the match. Sacramento aggressively pressed Fall and Hernandez after they received the ball, more often than not forcing a pass back to the center backs. For much of the game, the fullback runs through the wide areas were also ...

  This feels like a game Oakland will eventually rue as a lost opportunity. Oakland came out in their now-expected 4-2-3-1-slash-4-1-4-1. They played an unusually high line in this one, and the fullbacks (Diaz on the right, Takahashi on the left) were given all kinds of license to get forward. The end result was a lot of open space for Las Vegas to run into, and it looked, in the first half, as though Oakland were willing to give up that space in order to put pressure on Las Vegas’s backline. And I understand the bet: if you were betting which of the two backlines would hold up best, you are absolutely putting money on Emrah Klimenta and Kai Greene. This is especially true when you have guys like Jeremy Bokila and Quincy Amarikwa on the pitch, two lads who seem to attract outsize attention and who give USL defenders fits. But the amount of space on the pitch meant a very free and open game, which may not have necessarily played to Oakland’s comparative strengths. Vegas regularly ex...

Well, that sucked. Oakland came out in something resembling a 4-4-2, with the now typical back 4, plus Johnny Rodriguez and Brian Brown up top. The midfield was incredibly fluid: Ariel Mbumba largely stayed on the left side of the field, but Jose Hernandez, Max Ornstil, and Matias Fissore were constantly swapping positions in the center of the park, and Hernandez also regularly joined the front line. This movement was a tad disjointed early on, though it hardly mattered: Oakland’s early chances all came through the movement of Memo Diaz on the right. In the 5th minute, he dribbled out-to-in then found Hernandez sprinting uncovered out into a wide zone, eventually setting up an inviting cross (to no one, unfortunately), and then in the 6th minute Diaz hit two absolutely gorgeous crosses to Rodriguez. The second, in particular, deserved more, but Rodriguez’s first touch let him down. The midfield pretty quickly got in gear. Oakland fired a warning shot in the 13th minute with some contro...

Jordan Ferrell and the Oakland Roots took a calculated risk on Saturday night at home against Los Angeles Galaxy Two, resting both Jose Hernandez and Wal Fall, and starting Matias Fissore on the bench. Following the squad’s covid pause, it had played 14 matches in 52 days, or 1 one match every 3.7 days. During that stretch Fall (who missed the first match of this run) logged almost 900 minutes, including playing the full 90 in 7 of the last 8 matches, and 82 minutes in the match before that. Hernandez had logged 831 over 13 matches. Fissore 849 over 13 matches. This crew, which also demonstrated time and again how valuable it is to this year’s Roots side, was in need of a break. Perhaps thinking that the season’s closing kick will be really vital in terms of making the playoffs, and in view of the fact that the next stretch of games will not allow for much of a break (in order: SD, OCSC, Lights, Sac, Phoenix, OCSC, Tac, SD, and then the closer against Sporting KC II), Ferrell decided t...

Oakland are better than Tacoma. We were briefly deprived of this knowledge by one of the most incompetent ARs I’ve ever seen, but there’s no denying it now: Roots are the superior side. That’s really what it came down to on Wednesday night at Las Positas. They also managed to get a little lucky. It adds up to a reasonably comfortable win. First, the luck: In the tenth minute, Tacoma attempted to clear the ball from their own box, but the clearance went right off the face of Johnny Rodriguez, and then, instead of caroming off his noggin to somewhere innocuous, it fell right to Lindo Mfeka, and it set up perfectly for Mfeka to take it first-time past the keeper. USL is full of weird little yakety-sax sequences that often result in goals. Oakland have not gotten their fair share of those moments this year, so it was nice to finally get one. (Moreover, the quick change in ball direction clearly caught the AR off-guard, and he may well have missed an offsides here. Finally, a close offsides...

  Oakland threw a bit of a wrinkle at San Diego, moving from their 4-1-4-1-slash-4-2-3-1 to a 3-5-2. The benefits were obvious: San Diego have three potent forwards, so Oakland made sure they were not outnumbered at the back. Likewise, utilizing wingbacks meant Oakland could transition quickly from defense to offense, and could commit extra numbers in defense without sacrificing offense. The tactical shift, plus some brilliant individual play (especially from Jose Hernandez and Chuy Enriquez), seemed to give Oakland the early upper hand. On a few early occasions, Oakland outnumbered San Diego in midfield, enabling it to break the normally stout Loyal press. But despite getting the ball to the box early, Oakland asked very few questions of the Loyal keeper. San Diego reacted well, though. After taking about 15 minutes to get a grip on what Oakland were doing, San Diego raised the tempo of the game. They also sought to use Oakland’s formation against them, sending their wingers wide ...

  Oakland Roots got back on track Wednesday night in triple-digit heat and under a weird pink haze(?) in Las Vegas. This game was a real standout USL Championship viewing experience: The main camera, which shook the entire time, was apparently positioned about 20 feet from the pitch, so we were constantly zoomed in on the ball, and the shot had to swing wildly with each pass. The upshot is that we can make, at best, only tentative tactical observations here. Both clubs came out firing. Oakland’s early strategy was to put Las Vegas’s midfield and back line under a lot of stress. Oakland found a lot of joy down their left hand side. Ariel Mbumba simply physically outmatched Lights’ right back, a 16-year-old Dylan Presto, and for whatever reason Lights refused to give Presto any help when Soya Takahashi would make overlapping runs. You would expect maybe the midfielder to that side, usually Christopher Jaime, to track those runs, but Takahashi was frequently allowed to roam free. Oakl...

  Get it? It's a Saint Petersburg joke. Levels, baby. Woof. It’s been a minute since we watched an opponent knock the Roots back like Tampa Bay Rowdies did on Friday night in St. Petersburg. The tone was set almost immediately: Tampa pressed high, had nearly two-thirds of the first half possession, rarely let Oakland make more than 2 or 3 passes, and got opportunity after opportunity. Were it not for some really class netminding from Taylor Bailey this could have gotten completely out of hand. So what was Tampa Bay doing to disrupt Oakland? And, conversely, why was Oakland’s defense so porous? Let’s start with the latter question. It looked like Oakland’s strategy generally was to keep the ball in the middle of the field. Not until later in the first half did the center forward, Brandon Allen, do much pressing. Typically, if you’ve got a single forward up top, you use them to split the center backs, forcing the ball to the touchline, letting your press use the edge of the field as ...