It was a glorious night for Oakland Roots in its 2-1 overtime win over El Farolito in the third round of the U.S. Open cup at Pioneer Stadium in Hayward. Although the visitors from San Francisco were being heralded as this year’s Open Cup Cinderella story with its pack of soccer veterans defeating Portland Timbers 2 and Central Valley Fuego before Tuesday’s clash, Roots’ story was arguably much more special with five Bay Area born-and-raised youth callups in the starting lineup.
Making their impact on Tuesday included central attacking midfielder Etsgar Cruz, right wingback Ilya Alekseev, and goal keeper Tim Syrel playing all 120 minutes. Center back Thomas Camier and central midfielder Javi Bedolla-Vera put in 85 minute shifts. Coming off the bench was wingback Eli Wachs for 59 minutes, and midfielder Kieran Bracken-Serra and game-winning scorer Ali Elmasnaouy for 35 minutes.
“It’s a special night for those boys. We knew El Farolito is a good team, so just going over their resumes with how many players they have who have played professional games. They’re a good team that plays hard with a lot of heart, so we knew it’d be a difficult game… It was great to see them play in a cup game, which has a little bit more intensity,” coach Noah Delgado said.
El Farolito got on the board first in the 12th minute on a goal from Dembor Benson when a ball hung up for him in front of the net for a header goal. Roots had a couple of shaky moments in the 15th minute, including a shot on target and a near giveaway, but Roots began turning things around from there.
“Tough to give that goal up early but we knew there was spaces with our center backs to spread them out and get the ball out wide, then serve the ball. Just getting the ball out wide and serving it in, that’s how both of the goals came,” Delgado said.
After a shot attempt by Cruz, a pair of looks by Miche-Naider Chéry including one off, and a shot by Alekseev, Roots got on the board right before halftime at 45+1. It came on a great buildup, where Ilya sent in a cross from the right side with Chéry soaking up multiple defenders on his near post run, allowing the ball to greet Memo Diaz at the far post for the header goal.
Oakland caught a break with El Farolito’s Edgard Kreye drawing a red card in the 51st minute, but Roots didn’t do much to challenge net in the remaining regulation time. But Roots continued pressing forward in overtime, eventually breaking through on Ali’s goal in the 98th minute.
In the buildup, Justin Rasmussen sent a long ball into the box targeting Elmasnaouy. The pass took a deflection to Trayvone Reid, who redirected back toward Ali in front of the keeper–flicking it in with the outside of his foot over the keeper. Ali, Ilya, Eli, Kieran and Etsgar all celebrated together.
“It was super special. The whole game was hard-fought, a lot of young guys were playing. I was lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time and was lucky to score. We were pushing for it, everyone was fighting,” Elmasnaouy said of the moment.
Here are our talking points coming out of Tuesday.
Project 51O pipeline alive and well
I can hear it now; it’s Roots and Soul’s End of the Year party and technical director Jordan Ferrell tells the camera his favorite moment from 2024 is when Elmasnaouy scored the game-winner against El Farolito with his Project 51O brethren alongside him.
Tuesday was a testament to how much of a focal point youth development is for Oakland Roots’ personnel staff. Delgado didn’t say it outright, but fostering the young players on the roster is a major part of his job.
“With our club, the philosophy is developing players and developing local… I think we just need to get them minutes and overall us just growing within Project 51O,” Delgado said. “I love [youth development]. I coached in the youth game for a while. When I retired, I was with Puerto Rico’s youth national team for a bit and I enjoyed that. I like working with younger players. It’s just finding a balance of development and getting Ws at the same time.
Ilya Alekseev is a shining example of the pipeline from Project 51O to Roots. He’s already had five appearances this season, recording a goal against Charleston and his assist to Memo on Tuesday. The speed of the professional level doesn’t seem too much for him.
The same can be said about Cruz, who never came off of the field on Tuesday. He still hasn’t recorded a goal contribution, but now has five appearances this season and 120 minutes in USL Championship play. Cruz had two of four shots on target against El Farolito, creating one scoring chance and finished with 44 total touches.
“[Alekseev] really stepped up when he got up to the first team. We had him last year in the preseason and we could see there was a ton of potential. Now its getting him consistent reps with the first team. A lot of these guys played against Columbus in the preseason, so they had preparation for high level games,” Delgado said.
It marked the professional debuts for Elmasnaouy, Bedolla-Vera, Wachs, and Bracken Serra. Delgado describes the winning goal scorer, Ali, as someone who can play the center forward and central attacking midfielder spots.
“From what I’ve seen from him, he’s good in the box and he’s good in the #9 and #10 position. We took out a defender and pushed another guy forward, and we felt there’d be gaps in the back line. He almost had a couple, he’s good,” Delgado said.
Tim Syrel was the first from Project 51O to truly make his mark as an emergency sub in 2022. Bedolla-Vera, turning 17 next month, was another player to sign his initial academy contract in 2022.
Eli Wachs’ individual stats were unavailable on FotMob, but he was frequently involved sending passes and never shied away from possession. Bracken-Serra
Delgado mentioning dealing with injuries, short rest from the El Paso match, and a quick turnaround to Saturday’s away game at Detroit meant they needed to make “rotations” to the lineup.
“I’m always nervous,” Delgado said with a laugh. “You always have to be aware, even with 10 they were throwing players forward. But we knew it’d be tough; we have a lot of players injured right now, we flew back from El Paso on Sunday, and we fly off to Detroit on Thursday. So, we’re in a situation where we have to do some rotations.”
It’s worth mentioning that Bracken Serra and Elmasnaouy are Berkeley High Yellowjackets; Serra graduates this year while Ali is a Class of 2023 member. Etsgar hails from Modesto, Wachs is graduating from Bishop O’Dowd, and Syrel is from Leigh High in San Jose’s Class of 2021. El Farolito, I’m told, featured just one Bay Area raised player. So, who was the better story?
Memo Diaz continues strong play
Memo Diaz continued to show why he’s instrumental towards Roots’ success this season. Scoring the tying goal at 45+1′, Diaz’s three goal contributions across all competitions leads the club. He also recorded an assist recently against El Paso, meaning he’s contributed to the scoresheet in two straight games.
“He’s been solid. He’s come in and is getting assists, we knew he can bring good energy. He’s a guy that’s been getting a lot of minutes and we had him start today to get more minutes. I think Memo has really been a leader for us on and off the field,” Delgado said.
In 61 minutes, Diaz completed nine passes with two long balls, one shot on target for his goal and finished with 34 touches. Defensively, he had three tackles, had nine defensive actions, and won seven duels.
Already near halfway of last year’s assists mark of five, it’ll be interesting to see if Memo continues giving Delgado difficult choices at left wingback.
Roots’ center back & wingback dominant system
Delgado explained Roots’ attack was creating offensive opportunities by getting the ball out to “wide areas” and serving passes into the box. One takeaways I made in the ramp up to the regular season was just how prevalent the wingbacks were in Delgado’s system for 2024, and it was clearly on display Tuesday night.
Justin Rasmussen’s usage at left center back in the second half was an example of how Oakland is creating chances with its wide players in its defense. It felt like everything was going through Rasmussen in the second half; he finished with 111 total touches, 59 completed passes, 19 passes into the final third, six long balls, two crosses, and won six of eight duels on the night.
How Roots’ center backs operated against El Paso also illustrated the system. Bryan Tamacas visibly pushed higher up the field similarly to Rasmussen on Tuesday, finishing the win in Texas with 28 passes completed on 61 touches, while also winning all seven of his duels. Memo also completed 24 passes on 59 touches at El Paso.