Roots fans it’s derby weekend! The Roots host the return fixture of the I-H80y Derby at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 21 at Pioneer Stadium on the campus of CSU East Bay in Hayward, California. The match will be on CBS. Honest-to-god, I-Love-Lucy, Walter-Kronkite, M*A*S*H, James-Brown-and-Bill-Cowher, Bazinga, CBS.1 But if it’s less than a two-hour drive, don’t watch it on CBS. Just be there. Tailgating starts at like 9:30.
Watch this video:
Around the Western Conference
Roots’ result last weekend was lousy, but most of the rest of the Western Conference tread water, so it could be worse.
The Rivalry
Remember this game? Take some time for yourself to remember this game.
That brought the all-time head-to-head between the teams to Sacramento 4 (including USOC), Oakland 2, with a beautiful, perfect 5 draws. It will take years to get Guerra’s prints off the H2H. Not counting the Open Cup game (which does not have its stats integrated on FBREF), the all-time leading goal scorer in the rivalry is Ottar Karlsson (three), and three players are tied for appearances on nine: Memo Diaz, Lindo Mfeka, and Luis Felipe. All three are good candidates to register appearances on Sunday.
In somewhat related rivalry news, there’s movement on a soccer stadium in Reno, which folks are taking to mean that 1868 might be back on the menu. I was giving some thought to where I would put them in my California rivalry ranking. I think it would go like this:
| Hate Tier | Team | Reason |
| Extreme | Sacramento | It’s not just the khaki, although that doesn’t help. A lot of it is jealousy about their budget and stadium. The main reason is definitely the 2021 Juneteenth game. The second reason is the hours of my life wasted sitting in traffic on the causeway, for which I hold the entire region responsible. |
| Moderate | Orange County | Was Paul off his line? No and you cannot make me admit otherwise. |
| Moderate Lite (crisp, cool, moderate lite) | Reno 1868.2 | The team that made a huge, tiny mistake. The iron-clad guarantee for six degrees of separation between any two USL players over 28 years old. Like Las Vegas’s Sacramento. |
| N/A | Monterey Bay | Roots’ adorable little brother. |
You might be saying, “Reno isn’t in California! If we’re counting Reno why aren’t we counting Vegas or Phoenix?” What I’m saying is “make your own damn chart.”
Sacramento’s Form
Not very good. Since losing to the Roots in Sacramento, Republic have two 0-0 draws to Tulsa and North Carolina (both outside of the playoffs in their conference), a 1-0 win over Hartford (11th in the Western Conference), and 1-0 loss to a remarkably resilient Las Vegas Lights team. Sac also lost to Sounders in the Open Cup during that run, which USL people told me I should have been rooting against and I absolutely was not rooting against. Sounders ran out their starters, though, so Republic fans have that to console themselves.
What might be a bigger concern to Republic than just the bad results is that they aren’t apparently getting unlucky. They created 1 big chance (per FotMob) against each of North Carolina and Tulsa, 0 against Vegas, and 2 against Hartford. So they are converting their chances, but they aren’t making chances.
Republic are still missing Russell Cicerone and Rodrigo Lopez, but Jack Gurr got 30 minutes in their last game, so we should assume that we will see him in this match. Annoyingly, the Roots traveled something like 6,000 miles round trip for the game in Pittsburgh that they would have been better off forfeiting, and Sacramento have not left home since June 22. So the travel schedule definitely benefits Sacramento.
Roots’ Form
Uh oh.
Pittsburgh play in a beautiful stadium, that we got to see a lot of because the cameras couldn’t keep up with the action, the angle was impossible for understanding what was happening, and understanding what was happening was a net negative mentally.
Tamacas looked terrible. The midfield couldn’t keep the ball or transition the ball. The forwards may have gone to the wrong San Francisco International Airport and missed their flight entirely. The defense looked out of sorts, which is somewhat understandable as both fullbacks were rotated and because it was basically a 90-minute offense-versus-defense drill. The Roots looked like ass, and essentially the only positives to take from this are (1) if you’re going to utterly blow a game, do it against a team in a different conference; and (2) if you’re going to utterly blow a game, do it on one of your cross-country trips when you still have a lot of season left.
A real test of what Glinton is made of, and what he can get from this team, is if they come out on Sunday and play like they took some lessons from Pittsburgh.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
That game in Pittsburgh was a little bit of a reality check for the Roots, but I still think they are more the good team we’ve seen under Glinton than the bad team they were pre-Glinton. Its only been a month, and this remains the vulnerable Sacramento team we saw in the last match-up, only this time the Roots have home field advantage. I don’t see why Rasmussen would not be back (his concussion two weeks ago was not so bad that he had to leave the stadium). Diaz is hopefully back from “rest,” and Gagi got 20+ minutes against Pittsburgh, so is hopefully ready to start. I’m bringing Reid back in just because his speed caused them problems last time.
A loss would be disappointing. A draw would be a little disappointing, but is overall a fine result for the Roots’ season, and is probably a reasonable righting-of-the-ship following that catastrophe in Pittsburgh. Still, it’s hard not to want a win, and if they could do it a month ago they can do it now.
We’re home. It’s on national television. The Roots are better than Republic. We’re going to do them. Up the fucking Roots. 3-1.
Jon
I was tempted to bring a lineup similar to the 3-2 win with Reid and Cedeño on the wings, but with Jack Gurr back on the left side, I think providing service to a pair of strikers might be the better approach. Overall, I really like the potential in this lineup; it has solid long-passers and dependable crossers out of nearly every position, which should benefit both Chéry and Johnny.
Glinton stays perfect at home, 2-1 Roots.
Aaron
Life got in the way this week, so we didn’t get a chance to talk about this on the Pod (because there was no Pod), but I think two things are true of that Pittsburgh match: (1) cross-country travel is fucking difficult when you are expected to perform as a professional athlete, and we should probably remember that while thinking about that Louisville win, and (2) Roots absolutely threw that game because they are more concerned about not shitting the bed against/beating Sacramento on national television. They probably were thinking “we are way better than Pittsburgh” which may or may not be true, especially on the road, but its also true that a loss here or there is basically meaningless when 8 of 12 teams make the playoffs. As long as losses here or there don’t become losses nearly every week, you’ll be fine. So, like, whatever.
I fully expect Oakland to be ready to go against Sac. And you know what that means with this team: A deeply frustrating first half where the back line/keeper rescues the team on 1-3 occasions while the Roots get approximately 0.25 chances of their own, some savvy halftime adjustments, the scruffiest goal you’ve ever seen, and a few minutes of a butt-clenching rear guard action to close the game out. The Roots love a winner around the 70th minute (see, e.g., Cedeno against Rowdies, Alekseev against El Paso, Johnny against Lou City, and to a slightly lesser extent Johnny against OCSC), and that seems like the likeliest path to victory again here. 1-0 Roots.
- lol when Joe Biden drops out of the race on Sunday and the Roots’ game ends up not airing at all. ↩︎