Roots Fans it is Fourth-of-July-Weekend Game Day! Roots host Detroit City F.C. at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 5 at the iconic Oakland Coliseum. In addition to being the Fourth of July Celebration, this match features a halftime performance from new Roots owner LaRussell:
I love a Tiny Desk Concert. Especially a hip hop tiny desk concert.
Importantly, this match will also feature a prematch performance of the national anthem by Councilmember Ramachandran. I am honestly a little bummed to miss that. She might be a great singer, but if she’s not, that sounds like high comedy.
Around the Western Conference
When the Roots scored their second goal against Monterey Bay last week, I was like, “this is going to suck when I look at the table next week and realize this win isn’t worth anything because we’re basically out of the Cup anyway.”
Sure enough, this is annoying. I am annoyed. I wish we could’ve gotten those three points for this table. With a win against Detroit, we would be a point off of the last playoff spot (although Orange County would still have a game in hand). The Western Conference is just really congested at the “not very good” tier, a lot like it was last season. Lexington’s three wins on the trot, in particular, have jammed things up. The 1-0 loss to Colorado Springs is also pretty jarring when you see that’s their only win in their last five.
Detroit City
Do Detroit City fans tolerate ordinary banter yet?
They do not!
Detroit City’s Form
Since the start of May, in the league, City are 1-3-3, with that win their most recent fixture, a 2-0 victory over The Miami in Detroit. That is a better result than it would have been in recent years, with Miami finding some kind of competence this season.
City’s opener was a really wonderful bit of skill from Jeciel Cedeno, bobbing and weaving into the Miami box, playing a simple give and go, and then beating the keeper to the far post (around 2:30 of the highlights video). Exactly the thing he never seemed to manage to pull off for Oakland. He has a goal and two assists on the season, so I don’t think, yet, that the Roots will feel like they made a huge mistake in letting him go.
Miami went down to 10 men in the 86th minute on a pretty silly challenge that was both late and took out both of the City player’s legs. To Miami’s credit, at least he got his money’s worth on the straight red. Ates Diouf put the game away nearly at the end of five minutes of stoppage time with another great bit of dribbling through defenders in the box and beating the keeper far post.
Obviously this seems like a pretty comprehensive victory, but again, City lost four in a row prior to this one including to Portland Hearts of Pine in the USL Cup.
Detroit have a mid-tier attack, with 19 goals in the league this season. Seven of those come through Darren Smith, a South African striker with time spent in the South African league and most recently in the Finnish league. Smith has not scored since May 3, which you may recall as the date I mentioned that Detroit’s form turned to crap.
Detroit have a good defense having conceded only 18. They are not quite in the elite tier of defenses with Louisville, Pittsburgh, Sac, and Tulsa.
Roots’ Form
Roots are 1-1-1 in the League in the Feilera, plus 1-0-0 in the Jagermeister cup against a Monterey Bay F.C. team who on the one hand heavily rotated but on the other was still very much alive in the competition before losing to the Roots. I’m calling it a meaningful win.
The first goal goes into the book as an own goal (properly) but like in the AV Alta Game, Doner deserves 100% of the credit. Camden Riley snuffed out a very dangerous Monterey counter attack, the ball was taken by Elmasnaouy who made a great forward pass through to Danny Gomez. Gomez plays the ball in stride to Armenakas who makes a beautiful pass to Morey Doner’s path into the box. Doner puts a cross in that the keeper can deflect but not smother or clear, and the deflection rebounds off an MB defender and into the goal.
There was good passing all around on this, with the best probably being Armenakas’s, but man, Ali really looks like he’s ready for this level, coming off of a man-of-the-match performance in the win in Birmingham.
In this match we named Morey Doner man-of-the match, and that was because in addition to that first forced OG, his goal to make it 2-0 was just perfect. Once again, a beautiful pass from Armenakas gives Doner time to get on the ball and make a good decision. Doner curls the ball towards the back post, I think figuring that it either beats the keeper and sneaks in, or has a good chance at finding a Roots’ player for the tap-in.
Roots conceded in the 85th, continuing their really incredible streak of conceding the best goal an opposing striker will hit over a three-year period of their career. Frustrating stuff, but luckily didn’t really matter.
Match Predictions
Bloom
This will be a test. I think the Roots have looked so much better organized under Feilhaber, and the travel and timezones certainly benefit Roots in this match-up. That said, Detroit City are one of the better team Roots have faced under Feilhaber. I think there’s a real likelihood this one ends 0-0 or 1-1. I am going to predict 1-0 Roots, though. I am very curious what Feilhaber’s first choice 11 are right now, with Bobosi and Riley available again, Gagi’s resurgence, Ali’s emergence, etc.
Jon
Very good points above from Peter, Ali Elmasnaouy has certainly proved worthy of another start, but do you play him above Tyler Gibson or Bobosi Byaruhanga? That’s tough, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get the nod. I definitely think Gagi starts with Hackshaw to the left and Kai Greene to the right. Peter Wilson is assured up top, while its shaping up to be Jurgen Damm and Morey Doner at the outside back spots. The question is which two players start between Panos Armenakas, Jose Luis Sinisterra, and Wolfgang Prentice.
Aaron
As usual, my first thought is unrelated, but how embarrassing is it that our elected leaders have decided to name probably the only bill they’ll pass all year the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” (1) Its a ridiculous reminder that we are currently governed by, to a first approximation, the dumbest people, and (2) if there is one Big Beautful Bill it is obviously Bill Walton. (Side note: When I went to bed on Wednesday, it looked like the bill would fail. When I woke up Thursday, the bill was on the verge of passage and Diogo Jota had died. The universe is really getting on my last nerve with this shit.)
Anyway, Peter calls out that Detroit’s form dropped off when the goals stopped coming from their striker, but I’d like to posit that perhaps the correlation we’re looking for is that Detroit’s form dropped off when Stephen Carroll, one of the club’s defenders, had to miss a few games. The fan complaints recently seem to focus on goalkeeping, and apparently they’re pretty shaky back there, so losing an important cog in your back line would hurt more than usual. Just a guess. Anyway, Carroll did, of course, return for the win over Miami, so we just have to hope there’s still some shakiness back there.
My favorite game in football punditry is “let’s all overreact to a meaningless win against a heavily rotated side,” so I’ll be placing undue weight on the Roots’ most recent performance, and predicting that Peter Wilson pounces on a goalie error to provide the difference. 2-1 Roots.