Opening Day! Opening Day! Opening Day!
E-40
E-40 is now a part owner of the Oakland Roots. E-40 is a legend.
As a suburban white kid from the Southeast, I was introduced two E-40 in two ways. First, when Tell Me When to Go got big enough that people started making “ghost ride the X” videos, particularly notable to me were ghost riding the Volvo station wagon and ghost riding the tractor. Second, E-40’s verse on the Lil Jon track Snap Yo Fingers. I was not a huge Lil Jon fan at the time, but as a southern hip hop star he had crossed my radar. The trend (and Youtube itself) and the Lil Jon song both hit my freshman year of college, so they were pretty formative. Thank god I never made a “ghost riding the 16-passenger college van” video.1
No one is paying for my takes on East Bay hip hop. E-40’s music is iconic and some of the best known music associated with Oakland. It seems like only a matter of time before the Roots got him on board and performing at a game.
CBA Negotiations
The league and the players remain at an impasse with a new CBA. The players voted to authorize a strike, but all matches went forward the first week. The matches this weekend have also gone forward as of the time of writing.
Roots midfielder and co-captain Tyler Gibson had this to say:
We’re committed to bargaining and reaching a fair agreement, but we’ve been at this for over 18 months. You’ve seen articles and media platforms raising valid questions about the growth of the league while we are still at the table fighting for things to ensure that the league continues to grow in the right direction. Players and fans across the league are making it clear that these issues matter and that we’re united around them. We hope the league has heard our message and further escalation isn’t warranted.
The team declined to comment on negotiations. I did not seek comment from the league.
We anticipate the players observing a minute of stoppage at kickoff in protest of the league’s failure to agree to a CBA. Last week the TV broadcast failed to capture the sounds of the MBFC and Roots’ traveling supporters voicing their support of the players. I urge you to make the noise at the Coliseum impossible to ignore. I just have no doubt that we’re the best union town in this league. Let’s live up to that.
New Mexico United
Form: N/A (NM started with a bye?!)
USL Tactics has New Mexico United at 10th in the Power Rankings, based on their offseason and no form to go on. Morrissey’s offseason projection was for New Mexico to finish in the race for the top four, pretty much comparable to his projection for Oakland.
New Mexico finished 3rd in the Western Conference in 2025 and navigated the playoffs throuogh to the Western Conference final where they got knocked around by FC Tulsa 3-0.
New Mexico’s additions are not players I am familiar with–no big names from around the USl Champsionship or MLS veterans trying to show they still have it at 38.
Roots’ Form
YES BOYS! YES BOYS!
Roots utterly dominated the first half. Bettache was everywhere and McCabe was a metronome recycling the ball. Julian Bravo looked like a different player from last season and bombed up the left wing putting in some pretty great crosses. Connecting possession to touches in the box was a challenge, but that is maybe to be expected in week 1.
The second half saw Monterey Bay grow into the game. They had a couple of pretty dangerous chances, most notably one resulting in a goal-line clearance from Michael Edwards. Edwards had a great game overall along with fellow newcomer at centerback David Garcia. Both passed their first test as the heart of a completely rebuilt defense. The winner came on a very late corner that fell to Mark Fisher, who had started at right back and moved into a right wing role when we added Hackshaw as a third centerback. Fisher controlled the ball at the top of the box, took a step towards the center to buy himself a yard of space, and launched a shot through traffic and in at the near post.
Roots held on for the three points on the road to start the season on a high note.
Is the World Better than Last Match?
Oh, once again a pretty firm “no.” For a country that has not articulated war aims, we are somehow still pretty clearly not meeting whatever those aims might be. A mid-air refeuling plane was lost over Iraq under neither friendly nor hostile fire(?). It’s unclear whether we’re going to end up at very high gas prices, gas prices so high that food becomes impossible to afford, or literally no gas at all, but those seem like they are the three options on the table. Which would just be sorta a hilarious own goal from the pro-gas shitheads in the GOP except that, again, tractors and freight trucks run on gas. A NYT push notification that I couldn’t read because I don’t give my money to fascists indicated that the US would lift sanctions on Russian gas in order to control prices, which seems to me (an ignorant rube, admittedly) unlikely to actually lower prices but very likely to help bail Russia out of the economic quagmire it is stuck in due to its own imperial adventures.
Maybe next week will be better.
Match Predictions
Bloom
I think two factors will give Roots an advantage in this match: (1) the noise of the Coliseum and (2) 90 minutes played in anger last week while New Mexico only trained. I doubt Roots can dominate possession against New Mexico like they did against Monterey Bay, but if they can, I think it will be that confidence of playing at home in front of the biggest crowd USL will see this season. I think it’s enough, but not much more than enough. 1-0 Roots.
Jon
I’m sticking with my guess on RootsPod of a 2-1 Oakland victory. Also, like the boys said on the pod, it’s a good time to catch New Mexico. It’s the season opener for the likely high-seed playoff contenders, and if Roots are going to contend for a top-four spot, this is sneakily an important time to gain points in just the second game of the year.
As for the lineup, I’m skeptical about any changes. I don’t get the sense that Florian Valot and Keegan Tingey will be available, nor do I think it’s the time to push Danny Trejo for extended minutes.
Aaron
I’m hearing we should expect minimal changes in the Starting XI, so I hope Roots have figured something out in attack this week in practice, because they’ll need to do more with those half-chances they were creating last weekend to have a shot against New Mexico. This should prove a much sterner test for Oakland than did Monterey Bay, and so should tell us a lot more about whether this team is for real. 2-1 Oakland.
- At this point my wife is now frantically googling to try to figure out if this oddly specific reference has some painfully embarrassing kernal of truth. ↩︎