Roots fans it’s game day! Roots travel to exurban Northern Virginia, old stomping ground of Roots’ manager and three starters, for 2:00 PT (?!) match against Eastern Conference cellar-dwellers Loudoun United. This song is about Arlington, which is not in Loudoun, which is not in Loudoun County, but its pretty close and when I googled “songs about Loudoun County” there were two options, one of which was commissioned by the Loudoun tourism board. So we’re going to go with this song about Arlington:
Loudoun’s Form
Oof, they’re not good.
Loudoun are third-worst in the league on points, their four points coming on four draws. Now, to their credit, 3-3 against Louisville is not a terrible result, and 0-0 in Hartford is respectable, and a one-goal loss to Charleston isn’t too shabby, even if Charleston aren’t quite on last year’s pace. Loudoun have scored 8 goals in the league (that Charleston fixture is in the Prinx Tires USL Cup), which is fifth best in the Eastern Conference, and conceded 11, which is tenth in the conference, so their record is really worse than their GD would have you believe.
How’d that Louisville game go?
Úlfarsson’s opener was both a banger and exactly the kind of stuff our keepers love to concede. His second was also pretty concerning. This guy looks good, and his four goals puts him tied with Wolfang Prentice (and Johnny Rodriguez) for sixth in the league.
Roots’ Form
I should have written this after the glorious win over Lights and before the agonizing loss to Monterey Bay.
Roots early-season bye was followed quickly with a three-match week and the Roots’ injury crisis shifted from right back to center back, with David Garcia going down in a 1-1 draw against Tulsa that saw Neveal Hackshaw roasted alive and eat a red card rather than allow his man through for the shot on goal. Roots looked very good against a mediocre Lights team with Tommy McCabe dropping in at centerback. Roots let Lights back into the game in the second half but never looked like anything less than a class above Lights.
Then at the weekend, Roots rotated some and played some starters and, despite going ahead through an excellent 15th minute goal from Jackson Kiil, struggled with the worst team in the Western Conference. Roots’ midfield was ponderous on the ball and Monterey Bay generated a worrying number of turnovers, all of which they would feed through to try to break behind Neveal Hackshaw. They beat Hackshaw no fewer than five times, although only managed to punish the Roots once, equalzing but not securing a lead. The Prinx Tires USL Cup forgoes extra time to go straight to penalties, and Roots looked like they might have a real opportunity when McIntosh saved the first penalty and De Vicente scored the first for the Roots. Unfortunately, Wilson and Prentice put the same tame penalties in the same spot where the keeper, guessing correctly, could easily save. So despite McIntosh saving two (and getting his hands basically on two others), Roots would drop the points when Ali Elmasnaouy’s shot, the sixth, rebounded sharply off the post.
I would love for the Roots to make a run in the USL Cup, but I don’t care about it as much as the league. The group stage of the USL Cup is punishing–you have to basically be perfect to survive it–so it’s hard to really get your hopes up for it unless your team is undisputed championship material in May. The Roots look so much better than they ever have before, but we’re a long way from the kind of flawless you need to be to get to the knockout stages of this competition. So in that sense, I am not hugely disappointed in this result. Use the cup to play some kids or get minutes for guys trying to work back from injuries. What annoys me about this match, as I belabored on this week’s RootsPod, is that we were undone by the most predicatable possible thing–Hackshaw being too slow to effectively run an offside trap at this level. Tulsa saw it and punished it a week before, and it was Monterey Bay’s entire strategy. It did not matter, ultimately, that Hack is a great passer of the ball (although that contributed to Roots’ goal) or that he’s a solid aerial presence in the box. What mattered is that Monterey Bay was able to generate turnovers in the midfield and simply run past Hack like he wasn’t there five times. The Roots have to find a solution there.
Is the World Better or Worse Since The Last Match
The President essentially declared victory in Iran this week, which is remarkable, as the U.S.’s war aims, to the extent they were ever officially articulated at all, appear to still be further away than they were before the war. Weirdly, we also seem to be withdrawing a lot of troops from Europe, which along with the severe limiting of student visas, is going to destroy the US Men’s National team for a generation.
More in my wheelhouse to blather about, the corrupt and illegitimate Supreme Court undid the Voting Rights Act and the old confederate states are rushing to gerrymander, including Louisiana canceling an election where primary voting is already underway. The Supreme Court was a force for good in this country for about a 10-20 year period and then Nixon became president and it’s went back to being Jim Crow dogshit. The only thing that staved off utter disaster much earlier is that the GOP did a trash job of vetting candidates and accidentally appointed three justices who became (roughly) liberals, in Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter, and another two justices who at least did the right thing on abortion and some other civil rights issues, in O’Connor and Kennedy. But since the W. Bush administration, they have not made any mistakes. Roberts tricked some liberals and certainly a lot of media and academia by salvaging a portion of the Affordable Care Act, but he’s a good republican soldier.
When I took constitutional law in 2014, I was endlessly frustrated with being forced to engage with the reasoning of major cases, especially from the 20th century, because I felt like the reasoning was meaningless. More vindicated every year.
Anyway, we should pack the court. Twenty-five new justices. As someone who can pretty effectively name every justice to serve on the court since 1945, I would very much like for supreme court justices to become anonymous.
[Warning: this is about to get very boring]
I lost interest after five minutes, figuring I’d probably gotten all I was going to be able to remember without really straining. Probably should’ve gotten William O. Douglas, Harlan, Potter Stewart, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (all-time great name), Stephen Johnson Field, and John Jay (would have gotten him if I’d thought about it). I used to be able to get 100 on this quiz, but
Match Predictions
Bloom
Roots struggle sometimes in the Eastern Time Zone, although they certainly showed up against Tampa Bay earlier this season. This is obviously a game that will mean something to Ryan Martin, Florian Valot, Tommy McCabe, and Keegan Tingey. I like the Roots to right the ship after the frustrating loss in Seaside. 3-1 Roots.
Jon
Today’s match represents a good opportunity to get back on track after the USL Cup penalty kick loss in Monterey. Loudoun hasn’t won a game, and I think that will remain the same. I’ll scale things back from my loud and proud 5-2 declaration on RootsPod. I like Peter’s shout above, 3-1 Roots.
Aaron
One tends to expect that a match between a team with a poor defensive record and a team that is weakened by injuries along the back line will turn into a shootout, but it feels like they never do, probably because both sides are focusing on their defensive duties. I wager we see something like that here, so maybe 1-0 to the Oakland Roots.