USL Oakland Roots

Roots Remain in 5th After Close Loss to Orange County

Published on October 17, 2021 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Oakland Roots News Release


Oakland Roots hosted Orange County SC on a warm Saturday night at Laney College in front of a packed house. The squad worked to control possession early on, leading 58% to 42%. Orange County found themselves in the attacking third quite frequently but the defense stood tough. In the 18th minute Roots conceded a penalty off a broken play in the box. Due to encroachment on the first try, Orange County had to retake the kick and Paul Blanchette got the stop. Unfortunately just a few minutes later, OC would score on the counter to put them up 1-0. An injury to Lindo Mfeka in the 40th minute led to the substitution of Jeremy Bokila to the center forward position.

Ten minutes into the second half, Jose Hernandez was issued a red card for retaliation after he was fouled. From there, playing a man down, the match got much more physical with five total cards being issued in the half. Head Coach Jordan Ferrell used all of his substitutions to keep the legs fresh on the pitch. Despite being a man down, Roots found themselves more in the attacking third than earlier but ultimately they were unable to find the back of the net to equalize.

Roots go on the road for their next two games before returning home for the final game of the season on Saturday, October 30th.

Head Coach Jordan Ferrell

Thoughts on the loss?

It's a tough one, we did it to ourselves. We had chances, good chances, even Paul almost scored. But at the same time we did pretty well, we stretched it going down to ten men. We're not just gonna pack it in playing down a guy, but it's a tough one.

Talk about the game plan and how it progressed after they got the goal:

I think early on with Lindo (Mfeka) we were getting into good pockets behind them, got some good looks in that space. The big change really came in the second half. We were going to push numbers to get the equalizer but the red card came as we were about to make that sub. We wanted to still control their play centrally and give ourselves a chance to support the forwards, which is asking a lot of everyone when you're playing a man down. Credit to Matias (Fissore) and Wal (Fall) did a great job covering a lot of ground tonight.

Oakland Roots SC vs Orange County SC

USL Championship | October 16, 2021

Venue: Laney College, Oakland, CA

Kickoff: 7:00 PM PST

Weather: 74 degrees

SCORELINE: 1 2 FT

OC 1 0 1

OAK 0 0 0

SCORING SUMMARY:

OC: Ben Mines 20'

DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:

OAK: Memo Diaz (Yellow 30')

OC: Nathan Smith (Yellow 38')

OAK: Jose Hernandez (Red 55')

OC: Michael Orozco (Yellow 55')

OAK: Johnny Rodriguez (Yellow 58')

OAK: Wal Fall (Yellow 58')

OC: Eric Calvillo (Yellow 87')

OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP:

Ariel Mbumba (Tarek Morad), Soya Takahashi, Wal Fall, Matias Fissore, Lindo Mfeka (Jeremy Bokila), Jose Hernandez, Paul Blanchette, Emrah Klimenta (Jesus Enriquez), Memo Diaz (Akeem Ward), Kai Greene, Johnny Rodriguez (Quincy Amarikwa)

Unused Substitutes:

Joseph Nane, Taylor Bailey

Shots: 7 | Shots On Goal: 0 | Corner Kicks: 5 | Fouls: 17 | Offside: 2 |

ORANGE COUNTY SC LINEUP:

Ronaldo Damus (Aidan Apodaca), Mikko Kuningas (Sean Okoli), Brian Iloski (Darwin Jones), Ben Mines (Thomas McCabe), Dillon Powers, Eric Calvillo, Kobi Henry, Michael Orozco, Rob Kiernan, Nathan Smith (Brent Richards), Patrick Rakovsky

Unused Substitutes:

Abraham Romero, Seth Casiple

Shots: 15 | Shots On Goal: 3 | Corner Kicks: 3 | Fouls: 15 | Offside: 3 |

Check out the Oakland Roots Statistics

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United Soccer League Championship Stories from October 17, 2021


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