Roots Fall 1-3 to Hartford Athletic at Home
USL Oakland Roots

Roots Fall 1-3 to Hartford Athletic at Home

Published on October 8, 2025 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Oakland Roots News Release


Oakland Roots battle Hartford Athletic
Oakland Roots battle Hartford Athletic
(Oakland Roots)

Oakland had a nearly perfect first half, but conceded three times in the second, eventually falling 1-3 to visiting Hartford Athletic at the Oakland Coliseum on Tuesday night.

Hartford came out of the gate on their front foot, playing a high press that initially gave Roots' back line some trouble.

But Oakland quickly adjusted to the scheme, and shortly after the opening whistle began to dictate the tempo and spacing of the match.

Roots seemed to live in the attacking area for extended stretches, creating a string of scoring opportunities that eventually led to the first goal of the game in the 31st minute.

And who else but Peter Wilson would be the man for the job, capping off an excellent series of ball movement in the attacking third after Camden Riley sent a low cross to Wilson in front of the net, needing only a single touch to tally his 11th goal in his last ten appearances.

The dominance of Oakland continued throughout the first half of the match, as Roots kept Athletic from attempting a single shot through 45 minutes, and were clear winners of the possession game.

Hartford made a few halftime subs that seemed to turn the tide a bit, as they began finding space of their own in the attacking third, and finally putting some shots toward the target.

The visitors got on the board with just their second shot on target when a corner kick service from the right side found Joshua Belluz who buried a header just under the crossbar to level it at 1-1 in the 56th minute.

Athletic found another in short order to stun Roots in the 64th minute when a turnover at midfield led to an odd man rush up the field resulting in an easy pass from Jack Panayotou to Kyle Edwards in the box who buried the wide open shot, giving Hartford a 1-2 lead.

Roots fought desperately to salvage at least a draw from the match, but despite threatening on multiple occasions, Oakland could not find the back of the net before time expired.

Hartford added on another in the last few seconds of the match when Samuel Careaga slotted a ball through a scrum in the Oakland area to Beverly Makangila who was all alone in front to deliver a strike that gave his side a 1-3 lead at the death.

Roots will now head out on the road for two must-win matches versus Las Vegas Lights FC and New Mexico United before returning to the Oakland Coliseum to close out the 2025 regular season at home versus Lexington SC on October 25th.

Talking With Head Coach Benny Feilhaber

What's your overall reaction to the performance and result tonight?

Why don't we make this a dialog, and we open it up to what you guys thought of the game. I'm actually curious, seriously. I know it's probably not the norm here, but I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about the game. Can have a dialog this time. I mean, I'm curious. You guys watch this team as much as I do. So I'm curious about what you guys thought about today. Tell me about what you thought today.

I mean, we see another lead kind of evaporate away, we see these glimpses of how things can look when things are really firing on all cylinders, when you have all the right pieces to your puzzle. But there seems to be just a degradation in quite a few of these matches where you know you hold a lead, and then it goes away. It's an interesting level, right? I mean, it's kind of hard to take away all the things, knowing that there are bright spots, but then there are weaknesses.

Well, I think that, look, what you said is fact. Do you know how many dropped points we've had since I've been here? So in what, 16 games I've been here in the league, you know how many dropped points we've had from, not a winning position, but a position where we scored the first goal? Like Sacramento, we were up and down. So let's just take the first goal of every game, which usually gives you a very good position of strength, right?

Fifteen. This game included. So before this game, it was twelve.

And so, the question isn't whether that happens, it obviously happens, right? It's why? Before I get to that, what did you guys think of the first half?

It was so encouraging, and we've seen that before.

I felt like that was our best first for half of soccer since I've been here. In my opinion, it was phenomenal. I mean, I get it, they just played a game, but that is arguably the best team in the league in terms of the run that they're on. They won a cup, and they went from last place since I've been here to they're in third. They're the hottest team in the league. Bar none. So for an entire half, we dominated them in every aspect. Now, why does the second half lead to what it leads to? Right? And look, at the end of the day, I guarantee you none of us in this room, including me, have the answers, or else I would have already done it, and then you guys would be in my spot if you guys had the answer.

So what we can say is, I think that there are a lot of things that can disrupt our team, and the reason why is, it's very simple, it's because our team is not good enough to play as well as we did for 45 minutes, for 90 minutes every single weekend. We're not good enough to be that consistent. We have the ability to do that. We have the quality to do it in spurts, like you talked about, right? And I think that one thing that I'll say, that I think our staff, since I've gotten here, has done a phenomenal job is having them see that vision and being able to perform it, right? I mean, the first half was the moment that we made mistakes, the reactions were phenomenal in terms of winning the ball back from the other team. When we were trying to play through them, whoever was receiving the ball, other guys were popping off into different pockets to give them options. It was virtually impossible for Hartford to get any pressure around us. I mean, it is what my football dream is of a team that I coach. It was perfect, right?

But at the end of the day, there are things that go against you in a game of soccer. It's a subjective game, right? And I can tell you there's a missed call in the first half of a penalty. I mean, Peter Wilson gets kicked in the back of the leg and then he shanks the ball over the top. That's a penalty and very possibly a red card, because he doesn't go for the ball, kicks the guy on the back of the leg. The last two games have been filled with bad calls by referees. The Phoenix game wasn't a penalty, wasn't a foul, and the first goal was an offside. He whiffs the whole ball, but he's in an offside position. The El Paso game, it's a blatant red card. So again, I'm not saying that the referees need to be perfect. I know that they make mistakes, but our team has a difficult time dealing with things that go against them in the game. Whether it's referees, whether it's momentum of a game, we can see two goals in what five minutes, seven minutes today, right? So the game goes from 1-0 to 1-2 like that, right?

So it's a very simple reason, and it's because our team is not quite strong enough to withstand 90 minutes of subjective soccer. This league is filled with parity, and at the end of the day, you got to not only be good when you're good, you got to be good when you're bad. And by that I mean not conceding goals, winning games, and right now we're not there, unfortunately. But look, from my perspective, when I got here this team wasn't a soccer team, and this team now is a soccer team that needs to still grow. It's in a phase of improvement. And anyone that expects a team that where it was four months ago to be consistently, not only turning in these performances but also turning them into wins, has an unreasonable expectation. Is wrong in thinking that's possible.

I can't tell you how proud of the guys I was today. I mean, even towards the end, when it's 1-2 and we're fighting for our lives at that point. I mean, we're putting everything into it. We're getting some quality service, we're getting some runs into the box. I mean, a couple of our shots went right at the goalie. There's a goal that I can't even comprehend. There's never a penalty on a corner kick or a free kick when our guys go down, but when two guys go down and it's a foul on the attack it's just, it's bizarre, right?

And so I give them a lot of credit for what they've done today, but also I hope it doesn't get lost in the mix the way that this team and the players on this team have started to look like a completely different squad from the time that I came in here. And I think that's incredibly important for the players to realize, and I hope for you guys that send that message out to fans and people that follow the team to understand that that should be something very positive about how these guys have understood what we've tried to do here as a coaching staff.

Oakland Roots SC vs Hartford Athletic

USL Championship | October 7, 2025

Venue: Oakland Coliseum

Kickoff: 7:00 PM PT

Weather: 65 degrees, Clear Skies

SCORELINE:

OAK: 1

HFD: 3

SCORING SUMMARY:

OAK: Peter Wilson 31'

HFD: Joshua Belluz 56'

HFD: Kyle Edwards 64'

HFD: Beverly Makangila 90'+

DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:

OAK: Gagi Margvelashvili 6' (yellow card)

HFD: Adrian Diz Pe 14' (yellow card)

OAK: Panos Armenakas 43' (yellow card)

OAK: Neveal Hackshaw 65' (yellow card)

OAK: Danny Trejo 71' (yellow card)

HFD: Kyle Edwards 83' (yellow card)

HFD: Joshua Belluz 86' (yellow card)

OAK: Camden Riley 90'+ (yellow card)

OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Gagi Margvelashvili, Camden Riley, Daniel Gomez, Peter Wilson, Panos Armenakas, Tyler Gibson, Neveal Hackshaw, Raphael Spiegel, Ali Elmasnaouy (Morey Doner), Faysal Bettache (Wolfgang Prentice), Danny Trejo

Unused subs: Kendall Mcintosh, EJ Johnson, Jürgen Damm, Kai Greene, Ilya Alekseev

Shots: 15 | Shots On Goal: 6 | Corner Kicks: 6 | Fouls: 16 | Offside: 0 |

HARTFORD LINEUP: Baboucarr Njie, Beverly Makangila, John Berner, Joseph Farrell, Jack Panayotou (Marlon Hairston), Jonathan Jimenez (Michee Ngalina), Thomas John Presthus, Adrian Diz Pe, Joshua Belluz, Adewale Obalola (Kyle Edwards), Elhadj Barry (Samuel Careaga)

Unused subs: Sebastian Anderson, Junior Moreira, Gerold Antony Siaha

Shots: 8 | Shots On Goal: 5 | Corner Kicks: 2 | Fouls: 14 | Offside: 2

Check out the Oakland Roots Statistics

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Oakland Roots battle Hartford Athletic
Oakland Roots battle Hartford Athletic
   



United Soccer League Championship Stories from October 8, 2025


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