Roots family it is game day, and this week you do not need to drag yourself to Hayward because the Roots are traveling to El Paso to face Locomotive FC at 6:00 p.m. at Southwest University Park (“the SWUP”, if you’ve forgotten). The Roots are off to a lousy start to their season but somehow, El Paso are off to an even worse start. So this one might be a real barnstormer.
El Paso Locomotive
Locomotive’s History
Locomotive have been competing in the USL since the 2019 season. USL is like a job, where it feels like everyone there before you started has been there forever, and everyone that joined since seems like “the new guy” forever. That’s only two more season than Roots. Like the same game between El Paso and Roots as between Roots and Monterey Bay. Anyway, here’s some incredible chart work from the Locomotive wikipedia:
These teams first met in the Conference Quarterfinals in 2021, when the Roots beat El Paso on the road with a 76th minute Jeremy Bokila goal assisted by Chuy Enriquez and what I recall being a standout defensive performance from Kai Greene. You guys want to see the goal again? Yeah, me too.
Roots got a win and a draw against El Paso in 2022 and they each got a win in 2023. Three players have scored multiple goals in the history of this fixture, and they are all Roots: Ottar, Anuar, and Formella. Hard to believe there’s a team that Anuar scored against twice.
Locomotive’s Form
There’s rough starts and then there’s rough starts. El Paso have one point through five games, a draw at home against Monterey Bay. They have 1-0 losses to Hartford (home), Louisville (home), and Lights (away). In their most recent match they lost against one of their main rivals, New Mexico United.
God, this camera angle is brutal. New Mexico’s opener was a vicious shot from distance that the keeper barely had a chance on. Things were largely quiet, maybe more big chances for New Mexico than El Paso, and in the 78th minute, Joaquin Rivas came on. Rivas scored just two minutes later, assisted by Justin Dhillon who was 3 yards past the last defender by the time the camera caught him. No way of knowing if he should have been called offside. That information is lost to history. Dhillon played the ball to the goal line under pressure, then forced a pass through to Rivas to slot home with momentum. Another five minutes later, Justin Dhillon won a penalty when a New Mexico defender clipped Dhillon’s heel from behind. Amando Moreno converted it for what surely seemed to El Paso like their first win of the season. Was it to be? Lol no.
Two minutes after the penalty was converted, New Mexico lobbed a ball over the top of the defense and the United player looped a simple header up to the far top corner. Then less than two minutes after that, New Mexico kept in a ball that looked like it had gone out over their goal line, played straight through El Paso and beat the keeper from the edge of the box.
This will not be the first time that the Roots go into a game with the lesson–test this opposing keeper from distance, he’s vulnerable. Will they take advantage this time?
Players to Watch
Justin Dhillon #9 – Justin Dhillon is a big old 6’4″ striker that I have featured in this segment every time the Roots have played against him and he’s never scored against the Roots and I now see has not hit double-digit goals in a season since 2019. Dhillon hatty–basically guaranteed. Dhillon is from Rancho Santa Margarita, which is the primary filming location of Real House Wives of Orange County and, per Wikipedia, the approximate location of the Bluth Company’s Sudden Valley development.
Joaquin Rivas #7 – Rivas has barely featured for El Paso (just 13 minutes), but two of three goals they have scored this season where during his cameo against New Mexico. Rivas is a creative forward with 31 caps for the El Salvador national team and a long history in USL. Starting in 2015, he has played for, in order, Republic, FC Tulsa (when they were the Roughnecks with a knock-off Oilers badge), St. Louis FC (before they elevated to MLS), FC Tulsa again, Miami FC, and now Locomotive. Rivas netted ten with three assists last season for Miami. At 31 years old he may not be Locomotive’s plan A in attack, but he almost won El Paso their first match against New Mexico.
Roots’ Form
Not great, Bob.
The two silver linings here are that Vegas are clearly better than they looked, having gone on to beat San Antonio, and that the Roots did not really look overmatched against Monterey Bay. Sure, at home against Monterey Bay, the Roots should be comfortably in control, and they were far from that. But they weren’t getting bossed, either. The Union goal only came when Gagi went in for a challenge high up the pitch to try to create a turnover and keep pressure up, and he not only didn’t win the ball but he hurt himself as well. Then Union’s break was a 2-2 with the Roots’ defense back-pedaling, and ultimately a tap-in goal with Hackshaw stuck in no-man’s-land, unsure if he needed to cover the front post run or the back post run. Critically–right in the position Gagi would normally be helping with. It sucks to get punished on that. This was a much better performance than the Lights match. Or at least it was in the second half.
It’s still not great, though. The Roots’ midfield continues to struggle to do anything. They don’t particularly effectively hold possession and build through the center, and they don’t hit fast breaks either, meaning they just… lose possession a lot without even getting into dangerous positions very often. The defense (and the midfield to an extent) do a reasonable job of winning possession, but the movement up the field is sporadic at best. It improved a lot in the second half with the introduction of Jonny Rodriguez and Memo Diaz. Memo was everywhere, playing well into midfield at times to maintain possession. I would start Memo this weekend regardless of Njie’s suspension. Likewise, Johnny had a fire in him, and he immediately started causing headaches for the Union defense.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
I will keep predicting wins until the Roots get one. I think I said 2-1 on the pod and I stand by that (unless I said something else, in which case I stand by whatever that was).
Aaron
1-0 Roots.
Jon
Johnny is back in the starting lineup after returning on spot-duty last week against Monterey. With that, I’m pairing him opposite of Lindo Mfeka, who played his first minutes of the season last Saturday, perhaps he can give the attack some better fluidity opposite of Rodriguez. In the midfield, I have Cedeño in the CAM role, and Koze and Gomez as the pivoting midfielders. For the back line, Riley is still ruled out, so I have Logue central, Gagi to the right, and Rasmussen to the left.
3-1 Roots.