Roots Fall 0-2 at Home to Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC

Published on September 7, 2025 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Oakland Roots News Release

Oakland Roots SC battles Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
(Oakland Roots)

Pittsburgh came out of the gate firing, as Augustine Williams opened the scoring just moments after the initial whistle when a good cross into the box from the left side found him unmarked, leaving him to bury a wide open shot from in close to make it 0-1 in the 4th minute.

Oakland played much of the first half with momentum on their side despite the early goal, and earned a number of good scoring chances throughout the frame.

Their best opportunity of the match came in the 41st minute when a perfect corner service from the left side led to a netfront scrum which saw Roots fire multiple shots towards goal. But unluckily for Oakland, every shot found a blocking body before it could make its way on target, and the Riverhounds eventually cleared the danger before Roots could finish.

Pittsburgh scored once more in the waning moments of the first half, when Oakland struggled to clear a ball from their own penalty area and inadvertently fouled a Riverhound on the attempt giving Pittsburgh a 45th minute penalty kick.

It was Williams from the dot, burying a top left rocket to earn his brace and double his squad's lead before the first half whistle.

Oakland fought hard in the second half to claw their way back into the game, but Pittsburgh successfully sat on their heels and dealt with Roots pressure for the final 45 minutes of the match.

Roots will now head to South Carolina hoping to get back on track when they play Charleston Battery next Saturday, September 13th before returning to the Coliseum on September 20th to host FC Tulsa.

Talking With Head Coach Benny Feilhaber

Your thoughts on tonight's performance and the result?

In the end, not good enough tonight in both the performance and the result.

I think you know, our staff and our players knew how important this game was, trying to get close to that playoff line. And obviously we're running out of home games and games in general, and Pittsburgh comes in here, obviously they're always going to be a tough team to play, but not in the greatest run of form.

Could have utilized last week's result to kind of springboard two games in a row with wins, and kind of get into that mindset. So, the result is just extremely disappointing, and from a performance standpoint, I just think that we didn't do what we set out to do today.

We wanted to play on the front foot. We knew that. You know, the circumstances of a one o'clock game is the field is going to be a little drier. It's going to be harder to play through in the middle. They're a team that likes to high press and be involved in those areas. They want everything in front of them, if they can. So, you know, our intent was, in the first half, to really make them come and high press us, but also be able to play balls a little bit more direct and kind of change the momentum of the game where we wanted, you know. 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.

It didn't look like we tried to do that in the first half. We played a lot into what they like to do, which is keep the ball in front and run at you and try and turn you over and continuously try to, you know, get opportunities off of that pressing system that they have. And I just don't think that we played in the way that we wanted to play.

And obviously it doesn't help when you give up a goal early off of, you know, a pretty simple cross. They get on the end of it first, rebound, and that kind of stuff can't happen. And obviously, 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, lose the ball and then commit a penalty. So, tough to come back from down two in this league. 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 there too, to work our way out.

Second half, we did what we should have done in the first half, which is play a little bit more direct and make them run more backwards towards their goal. And what happened, I think, halfway through the second half, is the middle of the field started to open up, and so we didn't utilize it as much because we didn't have the opportunity to kind of coach it at half time, which is what I would have loved to do, but the game started opening up a little bit more in the second half, and we had a little bit more of the game.

I wouldn't say it was great, but they defended well, they also changed the way they play with a two nothing lead, but we lost the game in the first half, arguably, maybe even the first few minutes of the first half.

Oakland Roots SC vs Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC

USL Championship | September 7, 2025

Venue: Oakland Coliseum

Kickoff: 1:00 PM PT

Weather: 75 degrees, Mostly Clear

SCORELINE:

OAK: 0

PIT: 2

SCORING SUMMARY:

PIT: Augustine Williams 4'

PIT: Augustine Williams 45'

DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:

PIT: Augustine Williams 53' (yellow card)

OAK: Neveal Hackshaw 57' (yellow card)

PIT: Eric Dick 70' (yellow card)

OAK: Ilya Alekseev 77' (yellow card)

OAK: EJ Johnson 82' (yellow card)

OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Kendall Mcintosh, Julian Bravo, Gagi Margvelashvili (EJ Johnson), Daniel Gomez, Wolfgang Prentice, Panos Armenakas (Ilya Alekseev), Neveal Hackshaw, Jürgen Damm (Bobosi Byaruhanga), Morey Doner, Kai Greene (Camden Riley), Faysal Bettache (Ali Elmasnaouy)

Unused subs: Abdirizak Mohamed, Raphael Spiegel

Shots: 9 | Shots On Goal: 2 | Corner Kicks: 4 | Fouls: 18 | Offside: 3 |

PITTSBURGH LINEUP: Eric Dick, Daniel Griffin, Perrin Barnes (Jason Bourgey), Sean Suber, Augustine Williams (Brigham Larsen), Charles Ahl (Chase Boone), Luke Biasi (Abdul Osumanu), Charles Mertz (Brunallergene Junior Etou), Bradley Sample, Roberto Ydrach, Guillaume Vacter

Unused subs: Bertin Jacquesson, Jacob Randolph

Shots: 8 | Shots On Goal: 5 | Corner Kicks: 1 | Fouls: 15 | Offside: 3 |

Oakland Roots SC battles Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC

United Soccer League Championship Stories from September 7, 2025

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