(ed note: New podcast coming next week. Travel disrupted our recording/production schedule this week.)
Roots fans it’s game day again already! At the current rate of decrease of time between Roots’ games, the third Roots game will start sometime around half time. The Roots face off against Charleston Battery at Pioneer Stadium on the campus of CSU East Bay at 7:00 p.m. The Roots are honoring teachers and students. You can do your part by buying a friend who is a teacher a beer, or calling your 10th grade English teacher and apologizing for being such a shit, or by voting to repeal Prop 13. So many ways to participate!
Charleston Battery
Battery’s 2023 season was their best in some time, finishing third in the Eastern Conference. There were some signs of fragility, including only a +4 goal differential, and a 1-0 loss at home to the Oakland Roots on August 4, 2023. That goal differential was symptomatic of a stingy defense, but an offense that inconsistently capitalized on opportunities. Charleston’s 2023 offense was lead by Augi Williams, who notched 13 goals and 2 assists, Nick Markanich, who contributed 9 goals and 2 assist, and 16-year-old wunderkind Fidel Barajas who scored only 4 but assisted 9. Whatever weakness the offense showed in the regular season was shed when it counted. Charleston smashed Indy Eleven 5-0 in the first round of the playoffs, and eliminated Birmingham Legion and Louisville in back-to-back 2-1 home wins, to earn a trip to the USL
Charleston’s reward for a month of playoff wins was a trip to Phoenix to face Rising, who had fought their way through a stacked Western Conference playoff field. Phoenix and Charleston played 1-1 though regular time, with a first half goal from Nick Markanich and a last-gasp goal from John Stenberg to go to extra time. Phoenix took home the silverware after penalty kicks, going down 2-0, and then rallying with three straight conversions and three straight misses from Charleston.
Charleston made some changes in the offseason, letting Augi Williams, Tristan Trager (5g/1a), Fidel Barajas, and GK Trey Muse walk. They brought in Irish midfielder Aaron Molloy and American forward Jackson Conway. They also picked up Josh Drack, who real Rootsheads will remember from his days with Los Dos where he faced the Roots several times.
Charleston’s first match of the season suggests the defense might still be good, and the offense might be even worse. They kicked off their season with a 0-0 away draw to newly promoted North Carolina FC in what many people might be calling the Tidewater Derby. Charleston had 67% possession and did very little with it. The team accumulated 9 shots, 1 on target. Aaron Molloy dictated the pace of the game with 99 passes, 91% accurate.
Because NCFC are brand new its not clear exactly how to evaluate Charleston’s performance, but you’d think the defending league runners-up would mount a little more of a threat. The fact that they let a bunch of attacking players go from a questionable attacking team might mean this game shows exactly what it appears to show—Charleston are going to struggle offensively.
Roots’ Form
Hell yeah baby perfect season so far.
Jeciel Cedeño got the Roots’ 2024 off to a sizzling start with his goal in the third minute, and for a little while we got to believe the Roots had turned a corner offensively. I felt at times last season that Cedeno did not pull the trigger often enough, and that when he did it looked like he couldn’t’ do things shooting that he makes look very simple with his passing. Hopefully this goal is a step forward for him in direct goal contributions.
The Roots lined up with Chery and Rodriguez as twin strikers and there were flashes of it working, but mostly in the first half the Roots just got run over in the midfield. Indy created chance after chance and ultimately were able to equalize near the end of the first half on a trailing run by Jack Blake.
At the half, Delgado gave Chery the hook and brought on Danny Gomez, the 510-graduate who ended 2023 arguably the Roots’ most dependable midfielder. Immediately the midfield battle evened out. Irakoze Donasiyano and Bryan Tamacas had been the bright spots of Oakland’s outfield in the first half, and with the midfield battle no longer one-sided, they drove the Roots’ forward movement in the second half, including combining for the go-ahead and ultimately winning goal about 10 minutes into the second half. Indy players swore Tamacas was offside, and he looked offside, but also fuck that, scoreboard baby, three points.
Starting with the concerning things from the opener, Njie had a game to forget. He lost possession a really incredible amount. Partially, I think he was on an island, with the whole left side just failing to coalesce well. The strikers barely got in the game at any point, I think maybe unsure how much to drop deep to try to assist in build-up, and Njie I think was the biggest victim, forced to choose between dribbles in his own half or long, low-percentage passes. I think Njie also suffered from the weight of the Roots’ play going down the right where Tamacas was having an absolute blinder of a game. I heard that Njie looked reliably like the best player on the team during the preseason, so we’ll call this a concern but not a worry for now.
Chery barely impacted the game, which is disappointing, but the Roots did not really find a way to get much possession around the box, and I don’t think the optimistic case for Chery has him contributing much except around the box. Hopefully the Roots figure out a way to get the ball down there more and take more advantage of the fact that a reasonably-sized centerback needs to bring a step stool to cover Chery.
My last area of concern is that Hackshaw looked a step slower than he needed to be. He found himself under pressure he did not need to be under because he was ponderous on the ball. Going into the season, Hackshaw would be the first midfield name on the team sheet (and was wearing the captain’s armband), so you have got to hope he just needs more time to get up to season speed.
Overall, though, the Roots won and I think the positive outweigh the negatives. We named Donasiyano our man of the match. Donasiyano led from the midfield in a way he never did last season. He was everywhere, and did a great job, particularly in the second half, of turning defense into attack. The new centerback trio looked great as well, with Gagi cleaning up everything and Logue and Riley both contributing in defense and in starting attacks. Riley got into the box at one point, doing his best Danny Barbir impression. Maybe more importantly, it did not look like there were any major communication issues. We know Riley and Logue can succeed at this level, the questions are (a) can Gagi? And (b) can the three of them get game-ready as a unit? Both questions got positive evidence in this match.
Finally, as mentioned above, Tamacas was unplayable at times. The El Salvador captain was one of the Roots’ best players in 2023, and they suffered when he was away on international duty, but he didn’t have many (if any) games where you’d say he looked in the very highest tier of USL players. I would say that about his performance in this game. He seemed to look at Indy’s players and say “well, you aren’t Messi, and I stood my ground against Messi, so who the fuck are you again?” On my re-watch, I might have named Tamacas man of the match.
Players to Watch
Aaron Molloy #6 – Molloy wears the number 6 and as far as I can tell, plays as number 6. The 27-year-old from Ireland came to America to play college ball and played his freshman season at Keiser University, which does not even have a “notable alumni” tab on its Wikipedia. He played out his collegiate eligibility at Penn State. Molloy simultaneously played with the Union’s developmental team in Reading. He was drafted by Timbers in the first round, and played for Timbers 2 in the USL Championship in 2020 before that team went defunct. In 2021 he signed with Forward Madison, and made the jump back to the Championship in 2022 with Memphis 901. In 2022 and 2023 he played just over 2,900 minutes each season, totaling 10 goals and 18 assists (8/10 in 2022, an admirable contribution).
Nick Markanich #13 – 24-year-old central striker Nick Markanich joined Battery last season out of the FC Cincinnati system, where he had been a cusp player during the 2022 season. Markanich’s PR team (I assume) very helpfully updates his Wikipedia page, so I can tell you he was (purportedly) a five-team Team of the Week selection, and was the Week 15 Player of the Week. He scored 13 times and added 4 assists. Markanich stands 6’1” and, well, good luck against Gagi my guy.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
I think the Roots start the same lineup as last week. I think Njie and Hackshaw start, despite my concerns listed above. I also think that Noah gives Chery another run-out, but is quick to change things up again. Indy Eleven wanted to play narrow with a clogged midfield, and they took Johnny and Chery out of the game. We can afford that with one striker, but Noah rightly recognized that we cannot afford having two outfield players excluded from the game. I don’t think Charleston will necessarily play that narrow, so I think you try the Chery experiment again. I thought Rasmussen would start last game, and he looked good when he came on late, but if Noah thinks his best three right now are the guys who started last week, I can’t have any complaints.
2-0. Up the fucking Roots.
Aaron
The guess here is that Roots try roughly the same system in match 2 that they started with in match 1. (Pay no mind to the ordering of the CBs here, I genuinely don’t remember how they sorted themselves out.) I am behind this approach at this stage in the season, particularly since there were flashes of brilliance. It would help if Njie and Hackshaw would bring even their B- game this week. I was encouraged by an actual tactical shift last week at half time, after a whole year of tweaking around the edges when more decisive tactical adjustments were necessary. It will be a very good thing if Delgado is more adventurous in how he changes up the team week-to-week and half-to-half. But its probably too early for any big changes. The biggest issue in the first half (getting overrun in midfield) was definitely a carryover from last year, but I think is less of an issue with a more normal Hackshaw performance, which I think we get this week. 3-2 Roots, and I will continue to predict that 1 of the 3 is an OG.
Jon
I agree with both of the guys that Oakland runs out a the same lineup to start Game 1. I think one game isn’t enough to turn the page on the striker combination and I’m hearing Lindo might still be unavailable, so I’m sticking with Cedeño at the CAM spot. Roots, 2-1.