RootsBlog

It was a disastrous night for Oakland Roots, falling 3-nil to Las Vegas Lights at Pioneer Stadium to sink their record to 1-1-2 through four matches, suffering their second straight loss. It started with a Coleman Gannon shot taking a deflection off of Niall Logue and into net right after halftime in the 46th minute, then Gaoussou Samaké scored just four minutes later, followed by Valentin Noel putting the game away in the 66th.

The big change coming out of halftime was Justin Rasmussen suffering an injury. It forced Neveal Hackshaw to the left center back spot and, in-turn, forcing an important midfielder further back.

“It’s difficult to say or point out just one thing. We had to make a change at half with Justin injured and had to make a couple of changes throughout the lineup. We have to look at film, there were some individual or collective mistakes,” coach Noah Delgado said.

Roots had the better of chances in the first half after finishing the opening 45 minutes with seven shots and three on target, but could only amass one more shot on net in the second half. Both attempts came from Baboucarr Njie within minutes of each other; the first a right-footed shot from the left side of the box to to the far post and the second was a header after receiving a cross by Memo Diaz from a set piece.

“First half, I thought we created some nice stuff and I thought we looked pretty good. We knew the second half was going to be tough, them getting the early goal in the second half really put us on our heels,” Delgado said.

Oakland was already without Camden Riley, while Bryan Tamacas and Koze Donasiyano never saw the field after returning from international duty on short rest. Johnny Rodriguez was also out due to a groin injury he suffered against Phoenix.

Here are our talking points coming from Saturday’s match.

Four straight matches with different lineups

Delgado has now deployed different lineups in each of the four matches to start the regular season. This is all attributed to different factors; international duty has taken away Tamacas, Hackshaw, and Donasiyano. Injuries have also began piling up, including Johnny, Camden Riley, Napo Matsoso, and Lindo Mfeka missing time. Mfeka and Matsoso were able to return on Saturday.

In addition, a non-covid illness kept out Gagi Margvelashvili, Baboucarr Njie, Trayvone Reid, Koze and Riley from the 1-1 tie with Charleston. After all of that, the season-opener against Indy Eleven was the only time Delgado had a full roster at his disposal, meaning he’s been unable to deploy his ideal lineup.

“It’s tough. Obviously, with the sickness that went around and international duty [it’s made things difficult]. The international guys weren’t ready today. Maybe they could’ve gone a little bit but its only game-four, we have a long season to go. It’s important that we keep them rested and healthy” Delgado said.

Delgado mentioned Tamacas and Koze were dealing with some small knocks.

“They both have had a couple knocks. Hack only played one game in short travel, Tamacas was involved in three different trips, and Koze had one really long trip,” he said.

Lack of continuity has been an obvious outcome from all the switching around. The start of the season is a time where teams are figuring out what their best lineups are, but for Roots, it’s been a matter of just getting through each game. Without Johnny, teenage CAM Etsgar Cruz is forced into action. For the back line, Ilya Alekseev is hurled into action when the center back rotation is impacted.

In the end, rotation is something Delgado sounds prepared for, meaning several combinations will likely continue be required to quickly get acclimated together.

“Getting a lineup in and getting continuity is going to be key. But we’re a team that’s moving players around; there’s rotation, there’s younger players in, so that’s going to be a part of it. There’s some good things there with the younger guys getting minutes. People are dealing with adversity, so we’ll continue to build on that,” Delgado said.

When asked if the current roster situation is holding back how the system operates, Delgado thinks the position variability for players will help them out as the season gets deeper.

“It’s little mixes in there. We have different pieces we can put in there to do different things. I think Justin is playing well at the center back position. Cam was out, so it forced different lineups to go from there. You want to get wins and continuity, but when you look at the long run, this will help us out to have players in different positions in the system,” Delgado said.

Delgado looks to turn the page on this week and hopes to get a full roster back into training.

“Some of the changes we knew with the international break that we plan for. The illness that went through the locker room set us back a little bit, but I think getting the whole group into training, that’s key to building. We really just need to get everyone back in healthy and go from there. It’s a setback tonight, but we got another game next week, and it’s a big one,” Delgado said.

Reid starts over Chéry

One big decision to open the match was Delgado starting Reid over Miche-Naider Chéry. Instead of a target man in Chéry, Reid got the not to give Oakland some speed and technical ability atop the attack to pair with Jeciel Cedeño.

“We thought he could be dangerous and I thought he was. He’s been out a while and he was one of those guys who got sick, so we pushed him to his max capacity today. We would’ve loved to play him more and I thought his performance deserved more,” Delgado said.

Reid tied with Hackshaw as Roots’ highest rated player on Saturday night with a 7.0 after exiting in the 69th minute. His stats show he had an efficient night, completing 72 percent of his passes, created three scoring chances, had both of his shots go on target, won four of five ground duels, drew three fouls and finished with 30 total touches.

Given Delgado’s praise of the 24-year-old Jamaican, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get a second straight start if Johnny is still unavailable.

Impact of Rasmussen’s injury

The big switch in the second half seemed to be a catalyst towards their downfall. They held Lights to just two shots with one on target through the first half, but struggled to keep their defensive shape once Rasmussen left the game. It forced Delgado to rotate Hackshaw to the left-side center back spot, pushed Matsoso deeper into the midfield, Cedeño to the CAM spot instead of higher up the field where he started, while Chéry moved back into the striker position.

“We had to move a couple of players around with our personnel at the moment. We had to move Hack back, move Jeci into the midfield, moved Napo back and put on Miche. It maybe took some time to adjust and it hurt us,” Delgado said.

In addition to changing around the formation, Delgado thinks the switch from Rasmussen took away the back line’s organization.

“It was just a big change and a change in formation,” Delgado said. “We were trying to get a look at [Rasmussen], he was sprinting right before and it got pretty close to half when he couldn’t play. Maybe we weren’t as organized as we should’ve been.”

Update on Johnny & Riley

Rodriguez and Riley are undoubtedly huge parts of the lineup as routine starters. Delgado is hopeful both return to training this week.

“Hopefully they are back next week at training. We’ll see how it goes.”