Roots fans, it is game day again! The Roots head to Miami on the heels of two alarming results to try to get a reset on the road versus the worst team in the league, before heading into a two week break. The match is at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time and you can catch it on ESPN+, KTVU Plus, or at the Roots’ official watch party at Two Pitchers.
My mom is in town and this has been a busy week at work, so this is going to be a very brief preview.
Check out this week’s RootsPod for a little more analysis.
Miami F.C.
Jesus. Roots got more points in June than Miami F.C. have gotten this season.
Don’t fuck this up, Roots.
Roots’ Form
lol no.
Here’s the highlight worth watching from that game:
What a spectacular pass from Rasmussen. Beats the back line perfectly and I love that Johnny chooses to score the goal that chip.
Ignore the score line. Ignore the results from the last two weeks. Be unburdened by what has been.
Lineup and Score Predictions
Bloom
Miami are bad, and Roots are not nearly as bad as they have looked the last two weeks. I think that three weeks ago, the above lineup stomps Miami. If they cannot, then the wheels are truly off and the two weeks that could have been rest will need to be spent overhauling the plan.
Hopefully the wheels have not come off so much that they can’t get the comfortable win. 2-0 Roots.
In light of what I found to be a pretty rationale prediction based on timing and the news cycle (although one that eluded both cable and network news coverage and the second gentleman), I have been told that if I predict that Wayne and/or Drew win the lottery, I will receive half of their winnings. I predict that Wayne and/or Drew will win the lottery.
Jack (@kabegapler)
The midfield has been pretty physically run over the past few weeks, so maybe put our biggest guy there. Taking Hackshaw off the back line takes away the team’s best centerback, but with Logue and Margvelashvili behind him, there is just so much more depth there than the midfield. The two-man midfield from the first part of the season never worked, and the double pivot below a #10 has suffered similar problems. There’s one natural, dominant dominant #6 who can patrol the middle of the park for Oakland, and against the most lackluster team in the USL, I’d love to see it tried. And Dwyer should start because it’s getting so infuriating that he isn’t. 1-0, Dom Dwyer goal
Jon (@Jonathan_Como)
We cannot get out: we cannot get out they have taken the bridge and second h(a)ll. Frár & Lóni & Náli fell the re bravely wh(ile the) rest retr[eated to] Ma(zarb)ul. We still ho[ldin]g: but hope u[ndyi]n[g.] (Ó?)in’s party went 5 days ago but (today) only 4 returned: the pool is up to the wall at Westgate: the watcher in the water took Óin – we cannot get out: the end comes soon we hear drums drums in the deep.
They are coming
Aaron (@oakrootsblog)
I think we flew too close to the sun the last couple of weeks. We had a formula that works: play every available defender. Then through injuries, and maybe a soupçon of overconfidence, we decided to mix things up, ultimately bringing the wrath of the thing from high atop the whatever. So let’s get back to basics. All defenders all the time. Two solid banks of four. Miami does not appear to be a particularly technically skilled team, so intelligent pressing and waiting for a mistake should be enough here. I predicted madness on the pod, but on reflection, I imagine the Roots’ first goal here will be to not surrender 5 goals (admirable!) so they’ll be about the defense here, and we could revert to our 1-0 pattern.