Roots fans, it’s game day! The Roots host the Las Vegas Lights at 7:00 p.m. at Pioneer Stadium on the campus of Cal State University East Bay. The match will be dimly broadcast on ESPN+ and KTVU Plus if you cannot make it in person.
It’s very important to me that you all google “LVFC” and you will understand why, even though it appears on their badge, Lights do not use that as shorthand for their club. Beautiful stuff.
Las Vegas Lights
Lights’ History
Lights are in their seventh season in the USL and not only do not have a winning season, they only have two seasons with double digit wins. Vegas has done some interesting promotions,
and their reported attendance pre-COVID was pretty good. By the time the Roots arrived on the season, however, Lights were a largely non-competitive developmental squad for LAFC. Nonetheless, the history between the teams is even, 3-2-3, including a particularly gutting 3-1 loss by the Roots last season down the stretch, when essentially any win would have locked a playoff spot.
Lights’ Form
On January 16 of this year, Jose Bautista, famous for hitting the ball extremely far and flipping his bat slightly less far but still significantly farther than you’d expect, became principal owner of the Lights. Relatedly, Las Vegas went through a total ground-up rebuild this off-season, and barely got a full roster announced before the regular season started. The roster they put together is a mixture of guys you’ve never heard and guys you’ve heard of but you wish you had 5 years ago, such as Emrah Klimenta, Solomon Asante, and Loyal-refugee Charlie Adams. The USL Tactics season prediction model rated Las Vegas fourth in the West, but I have to imagine it’s either outright guessing on a lot, or putting in n/a for the guys that you’ve never heard of and overrating guys who really can’t afford another year on the legs. It is bad for the Roots if Lights do well, basically full stop, as it seems doubtful the Roots have the juice to lock in a top-end playoff spot. But it would be a real vindication of the model if Lights come good, as, uh, no one else thinks they’ll be good.
Nonetheless, their start could be worse! Lights started with a 2-1 loss in Memphis, where the two sides were captained by Akeem Ward and Emrah Klimenta. Lights took the lead early on a goal from the top of the box by French midfielder Valentin Noël, on loan from Austin FC. The Memphis equalizer came on a cross that the Lights’ keeper got to but managed to spill out (possibly jammed up by Klimenta) for a tap-in by the Memphis attacker. The winner came on a bad turnover in the Lights’ defensive third, but Nighte Pickering lined up and shot more or less six inches over the keeper’s head, which the keeper flailed at and missed. Beautiful shot; should have been saved.
In week 2, they hosted FC Tulsa. Tulsa went ahead with a simple header by a large man directly in between the two centerbacks (who yelled at each other). Lights were punished from distance again for the second goal, although this one at least was probably unsaveable (although also came from a stupid turnover in the Lights’ defensive third). Yet another bad turnover in their defensive third led to the third goal, although again Wormell maybe could have done more to save it. Lights got a consolation goal from substitute Riki Alba, who tucked away a ball at the back post, put through traffic by Inter Miami loanee Edison Azcona.
Memphis has one other match to date, a loss to Indy Eleven, and somehow it’s almost April and Tulsa has only played the one game, so it’s a little hard to tell whether these are defensible losses or not.
In Week 3, the Lights triumphed 1-0 over El Paso Locomotive, who are usually good, but are off to a wretched 0-1-3 start this season. The loan entry on the score sheet might be the best goal I have ever seen in the category of “GK punished with own goal for sin of occupying space in the material plane.” A simple cross on a second ball from a free kick gets played into Lights’ debutante Fabien Garcia (who the Roots saw with San Antonio in ’22 and ’23). Garcia heads the ball the long way across the goal and the Locomotive keeper fully dives to try to save it, and is airborne and horizontal when the shot ricochets off the inside off the post and catches the keeper’s cleats on the ricochete, redirecting the ball neatly into the net. Nothing else of note happened.
So Lights come in off of their first win of the season, but not exactly a commanding performance.
Players to Watch
Lights have so much turnover through three weeks its genuinely hard to tell. Only four guys have played every minute so far (or even particularly close), and two of them are centerbacks.
Coleman Gannon #8 – [ChatGPT: create an image of of Calamity Ganon as Hank Hill]1. Big Gan2 is a 21-year-old out of Atlanta, Georgia (gotta say, with that name and haircut, that man is from the burbs and has not been within the Atlanta city limits since Turner Field was vacated). He came up through the Atlanta United Academy and played ’22 and ’23 with the Columbus Crew 2 before moving to Lights in the off-season. Gannon is a creative midfielder/winger who appears to be lining up on the right for Lights.
Joe Gyau #7 – Tampa, Florida-native Gyau moved from the IMG Soccer Academy, where apparently everyone played, to 1899 Hoffenheim, my favorite Bundesliga team, where he primarily played for the youth team but got a couple of appearances in the Bundesliga on the pitch with Niklas Sule, Fabian Johnson, Sebastian Rudy, and Bobby-fucking-Chompers himself.3 Gyau did a stint on loan with FC St. Pauli, and then transferred to Borussia Dortmund where he also could not quite make the jump to the Bundesliga, but got on the pitch once, substituted in place of Pierre-Emrick Aubameyang.4 Gyau played a season with a fourth-tier German side, then one with a third-tier German side, then two seasons for FC Cincinnati where he got a lot of game time in their first two seasons in MLS (and were not good). Gyau’s highlight reel certainly makes clear that the guy can run. Fotmob has him as the second-highest rated player on Lights through three games, behind only Eddy Berumen.
Roots’ Form
That game was tough. Roots could barely get a sniff for the first twenty-five minutes, but played Phoenix basically evenly for the remainder of the first half. There were a few bright moments in the second half but they were just that–moments. Mostly it was a rearguard action and heroics from Paul Blanchette. I thought there were some good individual performances, but the Roots just cannot hold the ball in the middle of the pitch at all, and cannot consistently move the ball up the sides. Camden Riley was asked to step up in Hackshaw’s defensive midfield role, and I thought he did pretty well at cutting out attacks, winning the ball. The centerbacks were under pressure a lot, and so just by raw numbers had some nervy moments, but I thought overall did pretty well. I have been really impressed with Gagi so far, which I mention in particular because he did not have any background in American soccer, and it was hard to know how to evaluate his experience in Eastern Europe. Logue and Rasmussen have also done well.
Johnny and Chery could barely get involved in the game, and they just need to find a way to do so. Nothing to date suggests that Noah has more faith in Reid than he had last season, and that means the attacking depth is non-existent. Unless the Roots decide to bring someone in, the goals have to come from Johnny or Chery.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
I’m picking something a little weird here.
This is a wildly defensive line-up, but Riley/Hackshaw in the middle, while not the most attacking-minded, provides a lot of stability with the ball. I could see Noah doing this but swapping Chery for Cedeño as a forward and putting Gomez in. I think the most likely option is probably Riley in for Rasmussen (and swapping sides with Logue).5
I think the Roots win this one. 3-1. Goals from Njie, Cedeño, and Chery.
Jon
I think Johnny won’t be ready from his injury and Cedeño will start in his place. Rodriguez is likely dealing with a groin strain, which could require multiple weeks to fully recover from. Aside from that, not really any surprises with Gomez in the CAM spot.
I’m going 1-nil Roots.
Aaron
I mean, I guess? This is as close to what we started the season with that we can really achieve here. On paper the Roots look better than Las Vegas. Of course, they have been the better team “on paper” and “in the standings” nearly every time they’ve played and it hasn’t amounted to much. Still like the Roots though. 2-1.
- ChatGPT: handle my responsibilities while I watch “best of Hank Hill” on youtube. ↩︎
- “Coil Gan Boyd”? Is that something? ↩︎
- Roberto Firmino, for those of you whose brains still work. ↩︎
- The only player-customized soccer jersey I have ever owned, and one I will never regret, regardless of how it ended. ↩︎
- Please note that I wrote mine before Aaron and Jon wrote theirs, but it’s a pain to edit the image and so mine still is missing Koze. I think Koze starts, I just forgot about him when I was writing in the wee hours. You get what you pay for. ↩︎
