Roots fans it is game day again! Roots travel to Birmingham, Alabama, to take on Legion at 5:00 p.m. at Protective Stadium. Roots have their second away game in a row, accommodating the Coliseum’s use as a cricket pitch.
Around the Western Conference
From a purely standings perspective, it could not currently be worse for the Roots.
Legion’s Form
Mostly not great! Legion started the season in truly terrible form, although they have two wins in the Jagermeister Cup which is some consolation. After a league win over Miami they fell at home to Indy Eleven and on the road to Louisville City. On short rest, though, they managed to take down Sacramento Republic 1-0 at home midweek.
Sacramento did not muster a single big chance, but nearly escaped with a point, conceding in the 94th minute. The winner was a gorgeous counterattack with the three Legion players perfectly interplaying the ball through the retreating Republic defense and ultimately the goal came on a first-time effort pounded in in-stride by Sebastian Tregarthen. The win catapulted Legion up into 11th place in the East.
Roots’ Form
Not ideal, but still an improvement on the end of the Glinton era.
Roots have conceded one goal under Feilhaber and it was a beauty of a free kick. I want someone who is good at video editing to make a compilation of the goals the Roots have conceded this season because I just have this feeling like 50% of them are goal of the week contenders. Roots have definitely conceded more freekicks than they should have just on the edge of their own penalty box, but you don’t expect your opponents to convert 100% of them. That said, while FotMob had the Roots conceding 0 big chances against El Paso, they have Roots conceding 4 against Colorado Springs, so perhaps the result was not as big an injustice. USL Analytics (@uslstat.bsky.com) had Switchbacks on 1.11 xG to the Roots’ 0.35.1
What I think there is to like about the Feilhaber era so far is the presence of something that looks a little more systematic. Panos has been looking somewhat better, I think, and the defense is on the whole looking a little more solid. These games have also been without Bobosi, who was the biggest difference between the early early season when we were terrible and the middle early season when we were okay. If we’re okay without him now, we may even be decent when he’s back! Decent! Decent! Decent!
Match Predictions
Peter
I am not fond of the cross-country travel, which I think bit Sacramento mid-week in their version of this fixture. Still, Roots had a full week of training and Birmingham did not, so maybe it balances out. Jon asks some interesting questions about the lineup below. I would add–is Cam ready to contribute again? I wish we had two right backs and two left backs instead of, like, five right backs, but what can you do? Anyway, Legion aren’t clicking and I think this is the time for Feilhaber to get his first Roots win. 2-0 Roots.
Jon
I’m curious to see what possible alterations Feilhaber has planned. I think we’ll see Bobosi back at the CM spot alongside Tyler Gibson, but the question is where the width comes from. Does Wolfgang Prentice continue on the left side, or does Benny bring him inside to a more central location? Does Baboucarr Njie make a return to the lineup if Wolfgang isn’t patrolling the left side? Or does Benny discover a lineup that features Morey Doner and, say, Jurgen Damm?
Oakland, 1-nil.
Aaron
Congrats on making it through another week, friends. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, as they say. (Apparently, this is from The Handmaid’s Tale? A friend of mine from college (it doesn’t matter how many years ago but long before the TV show) loved to say it, and I saw it on several No Kings rally signs before learning of this phrase’s apparent provenance. Seeing it on those signs was a good reminder.)
I’m excited for another defensively stout performance from the Roots. A goal or two would be nice, but in these times one can always appreciate the consistency of the Oakland Roots. Still, one gets the feeling that one of these days they are just going to show up and blow the doors off their opponent. Will today be the day? Probably not. But maybe! 4-2 Oakland.
- oof. ↩︎