Roots fans, game day is upon us again, and the Roots are celebrating Juneteenth with a 7:00 p.m. match against a resurgent(?) El Paso Locomotive at Pioneer Stadium on the campus of CSU East Bay in Hayward, California. Roots come into this match off of their two biggest victories since their last playoff run, which have vaulted them for now into a three-way tie for FOURTH place, five points off the leaders New Mexico United.
El Paso Locomotive
El Paso started the season dreadfully, picking up only two points in their first nine matches, including a 2-3 loss to the Roots in El Paso on April 13.
Before the Sacramento match, this was the only game where the Roots reached the three-goal mark. El Paso’s two goals were a cheap goal from scrappy play on a failed clearance by the Roots defense and a penalty. Roots’ goals were a banger by Niall Logue on a volleyed free kick, a banger from Johnny Rodriguez from about 30 yards out, and a penalty of their own.
El Paso have been better since that nine game run, going 3-1-2 including quality wins over Charleston and San Antonio (who are not in their usual kind of form) and a draw against Phoenix Rising.
El Paso have the fewest goals scored in the Western Conference, with fourteen, five of those coming from Amando Moreno, who tallied against the Roots. Moreno came up with the NY Red Bulls academy, played three season (with minimal minutes) as a youth player for Tijuana in Liga MX, came back to Red Bulls II, had an ineffective stint with Chicago Fire in 2019, and then four productive years with New Mexico United before moving to El Paso this past winter. Moreno got callups to the US youth national teams, but ultimately chose to represent El Salvador.
El Paso’s defense is okay, conceding 21 through 15 matches (Roots have conceded 22). Fotmob lists their best player overall as goalkeeper Ramon Pasqual, who appears to have taken over as starting keeper in June. The best outfield player, per Fotmob, is Lucas Stauffer, a full back most recently of Las Vegas Lights, who played 2020-2022 for Carl Zeiss Jena, to my knowledge the only team in the world named for (and formerly associated with) a lens manufacturer.
I don’t know if this is unusual or not, but El Paso have the most yellow cards in the league, with 51, but have yet to receive a red card.
Roots’ Form
As I said above, these seem like the Roots’ two biggest wins since eliminating San Diego in the 2022 playoffs. USL’s Coach of the Week Glinton has turned something around with this team. For one thing, he has them playing hard. When they decide to press, they are pressing hard and reasonably effectively, creating a bunch of turnovers, some in dangerous areas.
For another, he has found either a lineup or a strategy that allows the ball to play through the midfield. Two factors stand out to me there. One is Riley finding his feet as a midfielder in the new formation (a feature that John Morrissey highlights in his power rankings this week, where he has Oakland up to twelfth). The other is having both USL Player of the Week Lindo Mfeka and Jeciel Cedeño on the pitch. Those two are probably Roots’ best ball-handlers and while Cedeño was often under too much pressure to hold possession when on the field alone, in Glinton’s new-look formation Cedeño has had more opportunity to recycle possession instead of just forcing a poor attack.
This was such an exciting game. The first goal is my favorite, I think.
Riley fights so hard for this and the Republic backline just does not know what to do about it. I wonder whether his pass is a “put it in the middle and hope” (which seems unlikely since he had a little time), or a miskick that ends up behind Johnny instead of in front of him, or whether it’s intended to catch Reid in stride crashing the box and Johnny gets in the way. It’s essentially inch-perfect if it’s intended for Reid. In any event, live I thought that Johnny had screwed up his touch, but on replay it’s clear that he is attempting (successfully) to chest the ball down for Lindo, not for himself. None of the three Sacramento defenders have recovered from chasing Cedeño to the goal line, and Lindo punches the ball between them and out of Vitiello’s reach.
Roots have now missed penalties in back-to-back matches, which is a thing we would all be fuming about if the results had not still gone Roots’ way. Johnny can take a good penalty, but this was not that. Reid’s hard work in earning the penalty came to nothing.
I’m sure that Republic fans are fuming about the Tim Syrel foul that their players were so certain was in the box.
lol.
Coming out of half-time, the Roots looked the better team, but had a narrow advantage thanks to the missed penalty. Luckily, early in the second half, Lindo did one of those Lindo things where he is suddenly wholly unplayable. A long free kick from down-field reached Johnny, who couldn’t quite win the ball but prevented his defender from winning it either. It fell for Reid who played the ball with a jumping kick on the volley, for some reason, but it looped into an empty area where Lindo controlled it. I think everyone else, including Johnny, thought Lindo had passed the ball to Johnny, but he scampered forward, in front of Johnny1 and through a (somehow) gaping hole in the Republic backline, and then just had to pick his spot to beat Vitiello.
I missed Lindo’s shot off the underside of the cross-bar while doing laundry. The Republic defense just could not hang with him and they were lucky he didn’t complete the hat trick. Roots got their third twelve minutes later in the 65th. Some Roots’ possession on the attacking right could not get any purchase, so Gomez cycled the ball out to an unmarked Justin Rasmussen. Rasmussen found Njie creating maximum width about a yard from the left sideline. The extreme shift forced in Republic’s midfield created some space for Mfeka to run into, and he and Njie played a marvelous give-and-go that got Njie about one second to cross the ball in before being closed down at the goal line. Like with Cam’s cross for the first goal, having two runners into the box meant that the trailing runner was in more space, and by the time the Republic defenders tracking Johnny realized the ball was behind them, Cedeño had slotted in Roots’ third. Njie and Mfeka made this opportunity with the interplay, but Johnny had to make a run to create the space, and Cedeño was under pretty significant pressure by the time the ball reached him. A great team effort here to give the Roots a three-goal cushion that, disappointingly, they would need. Through 65, the Roots had dominated the class of the Western Conference.
Republic’s first came in the 79th. Substitute Christian Parano left Justin Rasmussen on the ground (I think legally, Rasmussen may have also been the victim of the turf monster), and Gomez could not quite cut out the forward pass into Parano’s path, but either way, Parano was loosed into acres of open space down the Republic attacking right, forcing Hackshaw to come out to close him down and putting two Republic defenders in the box against Riley, Gagi, and Diaz. The first runner went near post and Diaz lost the second runner behind him, and Parano’s cross found his head for the goal at the back post. The defense claimed offside, and it was close, but I think he was on.
Roots saw out another 13 minutes, but in the second of six minutes of stoppage time, Trevor Amann found some space on the edge of the Roots’ 18-yard-box and scored on a low diagonal shot that Syrel could not get down for. Republic ended up getting eight and a half minutes of stoppage time, but could not find a third. Roots won 3-2.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
I don’t think you changed what’s working, and what Gavin has been running out is clearly working, but I don’t see this lineup as a change in style, just personnel.
If Blanchette isn’t ready, I have no problem with Syrel getting another start. I think his distribution has (at times) been better than Blanchette’s, and I think he’s had some good shot-stopping and good commanding of his box. Overall, if Blanchette is ready, though, I run him out. If Logue is ready, I think moving Hack up into midfield and dropping Gomez is the better choice. Hack may be a more defensive player than Gomez, but I think he contributes better passing that Gomez does, to be honest, and that will free Riley up a little bit going forward. Up top, I think you keep the wingers and the central midfielder the same–that is clearly getting some traction. I start Dwyer at home against a weaker team and figure you can always yank him for Johnny or Chery later.
I don’t think we should sleep on El Paso but I think the Roots have something going here and I don’t think it ends on Juneteenth in front of the Oakland faithful. 3-1 Roots.
Jon
I think there is going to be some squad rotation on short rest, I’m just not entirely sure where. Because Johnny played a full game against Sacramento, I’m going with Chéry up top but renewing everyone else around him with Reid, Cedeño, and Lindo. In the midfield, I have Koze in the lineup given he should be back from international duty. At right back, I’m going Tamacas after Memo got a full game in Sac. Interestingly, I’m going Niall Logue after Gagi looked like he exited the Sac match with a limp, something to keep an eye on.
As for my prediction, El Paso is wiping its roster with three cuts this week and are in full rebuild mode under Wilmer Cabrera. I’m going with a convincing 2-nil win.
Aaron
That first Dom Dwyer goal will hit like crack. Forget that, though. Dwyer has 28 minutes and 2 yellows in his first 2 Roots appearances. The story I’m watching now is whether he can receive a suspension for yellow card accumulation before even playing 90 minutes. I think he’s got it in him. Anyway, 2-1 Roots.
- On further review, Johnny might actually get a touch, but Lindo takes it back–it’s honestly somewhat lucky they did not trip each other up. FBRef lists an assist for Johnny, so I suppose I’m just wrong. ↩︎