Oakland Roots announced on Thursday that they have officially parted ways with technical director Jordan Ferrell by mutual consent.
Aside from the move from Benny Feilhaber as head coach, Ferrell’s departure marks the first real sign that big changes are coming to Oakland’s technical staff. There is still no word on the status of director of player personnel Nana Attakora and vice president of soccer Eric Yamamoto.
The Blog reported earlier this month that Oakland is interested in former Loudoun United head coach Ryan Martin. Perhaps Ferrell’s departure is a sign that the next head coach will have a larger say in personnel decisions than coaching predecessors, like Gavin Glinton and Noah Delgado.
It could be considered that Ferrell’s largest impact on the club was the development of its academy, Project 51O. Ferrell has overseen several breakthroughs to the first team, including Daniel Gomez, Luis Saldaña, Timothy Syrel, Ilya Alekseev, Thomas Camier, Etsgar Cruz, Tomás Caminos, and the biggest hit, Ali Elmasnaouy.
Ferrell, 38, originally joined Oakland Roots as an assistant coach in 2019 under former HC Paul Bravo when the club played in the National Independent Soccer Association. He was promoted to head coach the following year and then to technical director in November 2020.
After their surprise firing of former HC Dario Pot before 2021’s debut in the USL Championship, Ferrell stepped in as interim head coach. He led the squad to an 11-8-13 record and reached the Western Conference Semifinals.
He returned to the technical director role in 2022, leading to the hiring of Juan Guerra. After Guerra left the organization for Phoenix Rising’s head coaching job, the club named Noah Delgado interim head coach before promoting him to the full-time job in 2023. Delgado was fired during the 2024 season, leading to Gavin Glinton assuming the interim tag before his promotion to head coach in 2025. Glinton was fired early on last season, resulting in Benny Feilhaber being brought on as head coach for the remainder of the year.
Ferrell is a local of Stockton and played collegiately at Cal State East Bay from 2005 to 2008. He continued his playing career in Germany at SG Quelle Fürth in 2008-2009 and SpVgg Ansbach the following two years. He began his coaching career as Ansbach’s U17 assistant in 2010.
He became Manteca FC’s technical director in 2011 before joining San Joaquin Delta College as its head coach for the next two years. From there, he was an assistant coach at the University of the Pacific from 2013 to 2017.
Ferrell’s first stint in the USL Championship came with Sacramento Republic as an academy coach from 2017 to 2019, when he came to Oakland Roots as an assistant.
Since 2021’s arrival in the USL Championship, Roots carry a record of 54-43-67.
The Blog would like to wish Jordan all the best with his future.
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