RootsBlog

Roots fans it’s game day! Roots host Western Conference-leading New Mexico United at 7:00 p.m. Pacific at the historic Oakland Coliseum. Roots are coming off of a trying 4-2 loss away at North Carolina F.C. and United enter off the back of a 3-0 thrashing of Orange County, but otherwise United’s worst run of the form of their strong season so far.

The good news for me is that my mom is in town and staying with us. The bad news for all of us is that that means, with work being very busy, I just have not put together a preview post. Here’s a band from New Mexico:

Pretty sure this is Beirut’s fourth appearance on the RootsBlog preview series in five years.¹

Around the Western Conference

New Mexico’s Form

New Mexico went up 2-0 on two penalties both from really silly handballs. Not disputing that the calls were correct, just very silly.

Roots’ Form

I watched the first half of this game at home and the second half Amy described to me what was happening as we sat in Bay Bridge traffic to try to get to our theater tickets in the Presidio. Her description of the last goal was essentially “Kai passes the ball… to the other t–oh they scored.” Yep. Pretty much nailed it.

The production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Sorceror” was quite good. Utter madness. Like old G&S wrote 2/3 of a story but were pretty happy with the music and just said “oh fuck it, it’s good enough.” I am not exaggerating when I tell you the entire time of the play between maximum conflict and peril and the curtain call was like 6 total minutes. Everything is going really badly and then they decide on a quick resolution by punishing–as far as I can tell–the wrong guy by literally sending him in an elevator to hell, while the most morally culpable main character gets everything he wants, then they reprise the insane opening act finale with the chorus singing:

Now for the tea of our host–
Now for the rollicking bun–
Now for the muffin and toast–
Now for the gay Sally Lunn²

Amy and I were dying laughing for, I think, the reasons the writers and performers were hoping. Although it was only open for the one weekend, you can catch the production company’s upcoming shows including productions of HMS Pinafore.

Oh the game? Yeah, I mean, Roots scored some but it was a lot of travel just to play against a team that the Roots seemed to match up poorly against, all of which we discussed at length on the pod this week. They scored twice which is pretty sweet. My biggest concern coming out of this game is the concussion protocol allowing McIntosh to return to the game for 20 minutes.

Match Predictions

Bloom

I like the match-up against New Mexico, I think, and I think they are maybe not as good as you might thinking for leading the Western Conference. Still, Roots are vulnerable and the attack doesn’t always click. 1-1.

Jon

My change to the lineup would be to start Jürgen Damm after his great work against NCFC, he looks like he’s got more to show. I also would continue the Panos/Sinisterra combination. They look like a duo who could revolutionize the attack with more time to build.

I’m going 2-1 Roots. Goals by Wilson and Sinisterra.

Aaron

I think this is a good matchup for Oakland, and I’m feeling reasonably confident. I’m feeling a couple of counterattacking goals, which I think should be enough against a New Mexico team whose attack actually doesn’t seem better than Oakland’s: They’ve got 10 open play goals in 9 games, and a quick perusal of the Bluesky account of “USL Analytics” suggests that’s about right, and there isn’t much luck in either direction. Give me 2-1 to the good guys.

Also, hey, this seems like it might suck: https://boltsmag.org/alameda-county-ice-scaap/ (tl;dr: Alameda County insists that it doesn’t share information with ICE, but the county sheriff participates in a data-sharing program that is jointly managed by ICE, and in which a third party will verify the immigration status of detainees.)

1. !!! ↩︎
2. “A large bun or tea cake.” ↩︎