Update:
Oakland Roots announced they have officially transferred Johnny Rodriguez to Las Vegas Lights for a club-record free.
Shocker!
Oakland Roots have finalized a deal to transfer striker Johnny Rodriguez, he announced on Instagram.
He’ll land with Las Vegas Lights, per sources with knowledge of the move. An official announcement is imminent.
It’s an astonishing move before the start of the regular season. Johnny has grown to be a face of the organization, plastered on the billboard outside the Coliseum and muralized over the Longfellow Fields project.
Rodriguez was coming off a career year, where he recorded 12 goals and three assists for a high of 15 goal contributions. Pulling the trigger now, it’s clear Oakland received an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Oakland penned Johnny to an extension this offseason following his fifth year on the team. After two consecutive career-best seasons and set to turn 27 in June, this may have been a “now-or-never” moment to sell the striker for his peak value.
Rodriguez’s transfer will hurt many fans after seeing favorites like Memo Diaz and Paul Blanchette leave the team this offseason. However, the deal is emblematic of Roots’ growth; identifying Johnny in 2020 as a bottom-division side and developing him to become an in-demand USL Championship starter.
The move solidifies Swedish and Liberian striker Peter Wilson to lead the way in the center forward role and EJ Johnson as the primary backup. Johnson, only 21 years old, could represent the club’s next long-term project at the striker spot, having already earned USLC minutes. Similar to Johnny, Oakland now has a chance to see how far they can take EJ’s game. It’s also a good sign that Project 51O Luis Saldaña is ready for a bigger role.
Rodriguez, 26, originally signed on with Roots back in September 2020 ahead of the NISA Fall Tournament out of CSU Northridge. Oakland re-signed him to an extension in 2022 and finalized another multi-year deal with him this offseason.
He goes down as Roots’ longest-tenured player.
In his four years in the USL Championship, Rodriguez has 103 appearances and 59 starts, recording 28 goals and seven assists in 5,367 minutes.
The blog would like to wish Rodriguez the best of luck on his journey, it was a pleasure to watch his career develop. Below is a slide show of Johnny over the years.
