If you missed Part I, check it out here.
The Wishful Thinking Award
Quote:
“People will show you who they are and we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.” -Don Draper
Winner: The Midfield
Tommy McCabe and Bobosi Byaruhanga. Tommy McCabe and Tyler Gibson. Bobosi Byaruhanga and Tyler Gibson. Mark Fisher and Tommy McCabe. Florian Valot and Bobosi Byaruhanga.
Those were some of the pairings the Roots used in the defensive midfield this season.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The expectation was that Bobosi Byaruhanga and Tommy McCabe would establish themselves as the foundation of the league’s strongest midfield.
We had seen Bobosi’s promising start to the season and Ryan Martin’s praise. After three matches, Martin said he expected Bobosi to become, “one of the best central midfielders in the league after this year.” He used words like “elite” to describe some of Bobosi’s skills.
We had felt the excitement regarding the arrival of Tommy McCabe. He was a player whose “vision and decision-making [that] will be instrumental in helping our group find solutions to win games.” Martin described him as someone who, “will be a central part of our identity this season.”
He was. Just in the wrong way.
In my opinion, no player exemplified the struggles of the Roots’ attack this season more than Tommy McCabe. He was always content to take the safe pass over the risky pass. Happy to circulate possession that led to nothing. The point guard of the empty calorie offense. After the Colorado Springs match in October, I broke down a moment when McCabe could have won the match for the Roots with a difficult pass. Instead, he displayed his preference to avoid the mistake rather than make the play. It’s probably why he ranked in the bottom third of the league in chances created per 90 among his position.
The CAM role was no different. The Roots tried out a variety of players in the position, while looking for an answer: Florian Valot, Danny Trejo, Faysal Bettache, Tyler Gibson, and Bruno Lapa.
None of them really worked. Bettache fell out of favor and didn’t play from August through the end of the season. Valot showed himself to be better suited for a substitute role along the wings. The Roots experimented with Trejo there early in the season, starting him against Loudoun, but never seriously returned to the idea. Lapa arrived too late in the season to effectively gel with Peter Wilson; in fact, Lapa started many of his games in place of Wilson at the forward position. The Roots never established a consistent attacking midfielder who could connect the midfield to the forwards.
The Roots spent the season searching for answers in the middle of the field. They cycled through various different midfield combinations and multiple players at the CAM role. By the end of the season, neither position had established itself as a reliable source of creativity. The players in the No. 6 and No. 8 roles combined for three assists. The players at No. 10 combined for three more. Wolfgang Prentice alone contributed seven assists, more than the entire midfield combined. For a team that controlled possession for most of the season, there was remarkably little production coming from the middle of the field.
It’s why, at the end of the season when the Roots went on the run that almost propelled them to the playoffs, their goals typically came by bypassing the midfield altogether.
At the start of the season, we hoped that the Roots would have a dynamic attack. The midfield held the attack back throughout the season.
We kept hoping things would change but they didn’t
The midfield showed us who they were all season.
We just chose to ignore it for much of the season.
The Backbone of the Team Award
Quote:
“I know you’re feeling vulnerable, but I am your strength.” – Meredith
Winner: David Garcia
David Garcia started the season as one of the most impressive additions to the roster. His partnership with Michael Edwards looked like it would shore up a defensive backline that entered the season as a question mark. Before his injury, the Roots had only lost one match in six. Then, in the waning moments of the April home match against FC Tulsa, Garcia left the field. The Roots ended the night in sixth place in the Western Conference.
Roots fans wouldn’t see him for nearly three and a half months.
When Garcia made his first start after the injury in August against El Paso, he came back to a completely different situation. The Roots had gone 3-4-6 in the interim and had fallen to tenth place in the Western Conference. The Roots were teetering and vulnerable.
Garcia would only play the first half of that defeat against El Paso. After that, Garcia started the remaining ten matches and played the full 90. The Roots would go 4-4-2 in those matches. Oakland would record five clean sheets in those ten matches and give up multiple goals only twice.
Garcia wasn’t the only reason for the change, but he was a big reason.
Garcia’s impact is evident in his per 90 statistics. His defensive contributions ranked in the top 2% of the league at his position. His 8.87 clearances per 90 led the league at his position.
He not only helped on the defensive end, but he aided a struggling attack with his passing. When the Roots shifted to a more counterattacking style in the final stretch of the season, Garcia’s long-passing helped the team transition effectively to the style. His assists, accurate long balls, and long balls per 90 all graded out in the top quarter of his position. As we wrote: “for a team that struggles so often to connect defense to attack, Garcia’s ability to bypass lines with his passing adds a dimension to the attack that’s been lacking for big chunks of the season.”
Garcia couldn’t undo the damage of the months he missed, and he couldn’t fix everything that was wrong with the Roots. But when he returned, he gave the team a measure of stability it desperately needed. He strengthened the defense, helped connect the team, and helped give the Roots a chance to make the playoffs with ten minutes left in their season.
The Roots spent much of the season looking for answers. In Garcia, they found one of their most reliable sources of strength.
The Good Old Days Award
Quote:
“Utopia comes from two Greek words: eu-topos which means the good place and ou-topos meaning the place that cannot be” – Rachel Menken
Winner: The Coliseum
When the Roots announced they would be playing at the Coliseum, the excitement was palpable. After the Raiders and A’s had left the city, fans had another opportunity to visit the place that held so many memories for us. There was hope, however small, that the Coliseum could bring new supporters into the fold and that the Roots could reinvigorate the place.
And on that season-opener two seasons ago, it did. At the final game at the Coliseum against San Antonio, as we waited for Peter Wilson to take the penalty in stoppage time that could propel Oakland to a win, it did. And on a few occasions in between, it did.
But much of the time, the Coliseum felt like a shell of itself. It was impossible to ignore the emptiness. You’d look across the Coliseum and see a sea of green seats where people once stood.
But every now and then, the Coliseum of my youth would reveal itself.
Echoes through the Coliseum’s walkways. The smell of spilled beer. The feeling that the Coliseum was about to levitate if Peter Wilson converted the penalty.
The good place.
There were too many structural hurdles for the Roots to overcome during their Colisuem tenure.
It was bound to be the place that cannot be.
And in spite of that, I will still treasure the last two years. Taking my niece and nephew to their first game. Introducing so many of my friends to the Roots. And, most importantly, having my son sit in and take in the sight of that green grass, just as I did so many times in my youth.
So for that: thank you Roots.
The Fresh Start Award
Quote:
“I want to work, I want to build something of my own. How do you not understand that?” – Don Draper
Winner: The Roots and the Temporary Stadium in Alameda
While the Roots waved goodbye to the Coliseum, they received news about their new home this past week when Alameda officially approved the Roots’ temporary stadium on Bay Farm Island.
The temporary stadium solves the immediate issue of where the Roots will play next year. More importantly, it provides the Roots’ stability because the Roots intend to play there for “3-4 years” while creating, “the stable foundation we need to be able to build a permanent home.”
Most importantly, it gives something the Roots had never had in their existence: something of their own.
Since their inception, the Roots have led a nomadic existence. They’ve played at Laney, Merritt, Las Positas, Cal State East Bay, and the Coliseum. The only constant over the years has been playing on someone else’s terms.
Now, the Roots will leave behind a Coliseum that seemed intent on nickel-and-diming an organization that tried to preserve the city’s sports identity and keep its workers employed. The Coliseum controlled parking and set prices that could exceed the cost of admission. It set concession prices too, charging an arm and a leg for a pretzel and a beer. This was on top of charging the Roots $250,000 per match if a match was opened up for 15,000 fans.
For the first time, the Roots won’t simply be renting space in someone else’s stadium. They’ll have control over the experience, the operation, and the environment they’re creating for their supporters. It’s temporary and work remains to be done before they have a permanent home. But for an organization that has spent its entire existence adapting to someone else’s plan, this is an opportunity to finally build something of its own.
A new good place that can be.
In the words of Roger Sterling: “I have an announcement to make: It’s going to be a beautiful day”