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Oakland Roots’ playoff likelihood takes hit in 2-nil loss to Pittsburgh Riverhounds

Jonathan Comeaux

Oakland Roots’ playoff viability took a hit on Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum, losing 2-nil to the Pittsburgh Riverhounds after Augie Williams scored in the fourth minute before slotting home his brace from the penalty spot right before halftime.

The result keeps Oakland in 11th place with 24 points, which stays tied with Monterey in 10th and Las Vegas in last.

Pittsburgh got its first goal in the fourth after forcing a turnover around midfield. The ball worked down the left side to Luke Biasi, who sent a cross into the box. Charles Ahl took an initial header that smacked off Neveal Hackshaw’s shoulder, falling conveniently to the feet of Williams for the strike.

Riverhounds got its penalty kick in the 45th after Roots committed a sloppy mishap in front of their own net. With Hackshaw and Kai Greene playing passes back and forth to each other, Greene took a heavy touch, allowing the ball to roll free to Williams. Greene, in an attempt to win the ball back, swung into Williams’ shin to give away the foul. The striker stepped to the spot, firing it into the top netting.

Oakland’s best look came in the 41st following a corner. A cross from Danny Gomez bounded to Panos Armenakas in the middle of the box, leading to the Greek-Australian to attempt a shot. Panos’ shot hit into the back of Biasi’s arm, but no handball was called, and play resumed.

Things don’t get any easier for Roots. They head to Eastern Conference second-place side, Charleston Battery, next Saturday, September 13th, before returning to the Coliseum on September 20th to host Western Conference top seed FC Tulsa.

Here are our talking points coming out of Sunday’s match.

Not quite dead… yet

Sunday against Pittsburgh was an important match, representing a big step for their potential playoff qualification. Riverhounds hadn’t won a match since August 2, which was the last time they scored two goals in a game when beating Rhode Island 2-0.

Roots remain six points behind the playoff line and four teams with 30 points. Oakland has gained just 24 of 66 possible points.

“Our staff and our players knew how important this game was,” coach Benny Feilhaber said. “We’re running out of home games and games in general. Pittsburgh is always going to be a tough team to play, but they aren’t in the greatest run of form. We could have utilized last week’s result to springboard ourselves with two wins in a row and get into that mindset.”

Following their loss to Pittsburgh, Feilhaber took an uncharacteristically long time to arrive at the postgame press conference, spending a little past a half hour with the team before speaking to media.

“At halftime, it wasn’t as nice a message,” Feilhaber said. “After the game, I asked them what the second half looked like in terms of space. Everybody said we had more space, so I asked them, ‘Why do you think that is?’ It’s because we played the ball in behind, and they were aware of that. It brought Pittsburgh’s back line further back and opened up the middle of the field. I told them that I didn’t question the effort, but we didn’t play in an intelligent way.”

It’s been a difficult task to string positive results together since before Feilhaber’s arrival. This time, Feilhaber felt Oakland was slow to react.

“It doesn’t help when you give up a goal early off a pretty simple cross,” he said. “Again, on a moment where they’re high pressing and we’re kind of slow in what we want to do, and not all on the same page. We haven’t shown the ability to do so since I’ve been here to come back from multiple goals, and I think even one, so it puts us in a really difficult situation.”

With eight matches left, the remaining matches equal Roots’ current point total. Six points behind eighth through fifth, Oakland still has some life, but things have to turn fast.

“At the end of the day, we still have quite a few games left to turn it around. We’re not done by any means,” Prentice said. “We just got to keep looking forward. I think the boys are frustrated, but we’ll be able to turn it around.”

Voices on the field

Throughout the offseason roster-building process, Roots added several players who were coming from winning teams or had backgrounds in captaincy at different organizations. Greene was a captain at Monterey, and likewise with Tyler Gibson at Indy Eleven. Jürgen Damm, Peter Wilson, Abdi Mohammed, Bobosi Byaruhanga, and Panos Armenakas each lifted trophies at some point in their careers as well.

But on Sunday, Feilhaber made an interesting inclusion in his postgame presser. Despite Roots making an effort to identify players with backgrounds in leadership last offseason, Feilhaber said he’s unsure if there are enough people who are “confident” in their voice on the field.

“If I had to pick, [Neveal] Hacksaw can most offer that. When Tyler [Gibson] is in there as well, he gives organization from a coach-on-the-field perspective. But you can’t have just one guy; I don’t think we have enough guys, I really don’t,” Feilhaber said.

“People don’t feel confident enough to say it. You need guys who are intelligent to understand the message, and confidence to put players in the right spots. We have a few, but I don’t know if there are enough guys who feel confident in their voice. We try to cultivate that, but it’s a difficult job for the coaching staff to identify that.”

Wolfgang Prentice was asked about the topic, responding that there are certainly people who could vocalize their opinion.

“He makes a point. There are some people who stand out as the leadership type. There are probably more people who can speak out more and voice their opinions if they’d lie,” Prentice said.

Building Benny-ball

When Feilhaber arrived in Oakland, he spoke about wanting to implement a style of play that fans could come to know. That system is front-footed, sometimes dominates possession, and can get into the box with high frequency.

There have been glimpses of Benny-Ball taking hold, but at the same time, the last few matches have left more to be desired.

“There have been flashes and there have been inconsistencies. One of the things we had to focus on early on was the defensive posture of the team. I thought we naturally picked that up, but it’s fallen recently. The reason why is not extremely evident. We’re giving up goals in different ways. In the beginning, a lot of the chances we gave up were on shots outside the box, so then we worked on that. Definitely, there have been inconsistencies. From the perspective of how we build out, I think teams have adjusted as well. I still think there are opportunities there that we haven’t seen,” Feilhaber said.

On Sunday, Oakland found it difficult to move the field.

“We wanted to play on the front foot. We knew that with a 1 p.m. game, the field is going to be a little drier and make it harder to play through in the middle. Pittsburgh is a team that likes to high press and be involved in those areas. Our intent was, in the first half, to really make them come and high press us, but also play balls more direct. What we talked about was forward momentum. Always balls forward, runs forward, facing forward as much as we can. We don’t want to be playing backwards and into their press. And I just didn’t think that we did that,” Feilhaber said.

Benny’s first batch of results included clean sheets against El Paso, Birmingham, Detroit, and Loudoun. He thinks that when the team is committed to “defensive duties first,” it leads to success, especially on some of their results on the road.

“We are a team that is better when we are committed to defensive duties first. We have enough quality going forward for,” Feilhaber said. “I have noticed, that not every game. Some of our wins away, we defend really well. I do think there’s an inevitable mindset that you’re the driving force and more reactive in away games. I think we’re better reactive, and when you’re chasing points at home.”

In the end, Feilhaber doesn’t think their attacking pieces have come together quite yet. Oakland was notably without Peter Wilson and Danny Trejo against Pittsburgh.

“The last two games have been a grind. Peter is a big reason for our success. Trejo hasn’t been able to play yet. Attacking pieces aren’t there yet, the guys we need there haven’t played as much. It’s difficult to expect him to do the same thing Peter is doing with Wolfy,” Feilhaber said.

Press Conference

Starting Lineups

One change to Oakland Roots lineup from the previous match; Wolfgang Prentice starts in the striker spot with Peter Wilson out after getting married yesterday (congrats!) We’ll see how that impacts the operation. Tyler Gibson is out, he was listed as questionable and evidently unable to go.

Timeline

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