For the first time this season, the Oakland Roots [1] suffered back-to-back losses in regular season matches, falling 1-0 to the visiting Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC at the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday, May 30.
[2]The match began with Oakland conceding a goal early, when a fifth-minute cross from the right side of the Roots’ penalty area took an unfortunate deflection off of Oakland’s Michael Edwards and into his own side’s goal to make it 1-0 Colorado Springs.
Following this opening goal, Colorado Springs looked to smother the Roots’ attack for the remainder of the contest. They did so successfully, as Oakland was not able to muster a shot on target for the entire 90 minutes of the match.
While the Switchbacks’ offense also struggled to find openings in the Oakland backline, their early goal proved enough as the final whistle blew with the scoreboard still reading 1-0 for Colorado Springs.
The Roots will now return to Prinx Tires USL Cup play, as they head to Las Vegas for their next matchup, a group stage fixture versus Lights FC on June 6 at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time. [3]
Talking with the head coach
After the match, Roots Head Coach Ryan Martin offered his overall thoughts.
“It’s a disappointing result,” he said. “We were disappointed with our start to the game. I think we lacked a little energy, and it felt a little bit off. …It’s something we’ll look into, you know, everything from preparation to the plan. Obviously it’s a good opponent as well, but it was just an off night.”
Asked what made the Switchbacks difficult to beat, given their record for the season, Ryan said, “I think they sat a little bit deeper in their block. They obviously did a really good job in terms of their scouting and figuring out where we want to get to, and I think that combined with us not being sharp and not being overly dynamic in our movements. …It’s a good team, they did a great job—they won the league recently for a reason, and a lot of those guys are still around.”
In terms of what he can take away from the loss to turn it into a positive and motivate the Roots this week, the coach said, “I think it’s a search for consistency. I can accept the loss last weekend when we played really well, we made three mistakes, and we were an aggressive team. Today, when you have zero shots on goal, you’ve got to look in the mirror into how to get consistency and find more of where we were last week. We want to grow every week and every game—the best soccer is still in front of us, and we’re still chasing it, and this is a tremendous opportunity to find consistency.”
Summary
Scoring
- COS: Michael Edwards 5′ (OG)
Oakland Roots SC
Lineup: Kendall McIntosh, Tommy McCabe, Wolfgang Prentice, Peter Wilson, Jesus De Vicente, Tyler Gibson (Florian Valot), Neveal Hackshaw (Julian Bravo), Keegan Tingey, Bertin Jacquesson (Tucker Lepley), Michael Edwards (Jackson Kiil), Faysal Bettache (Danny Trejo)
Unused subs: Bobosi Byaruhanga, Raphael Spiegel, Charlie Wachs, Alejandro Caracheo Luna
Line: Shots: 5 | Shots On Goal: 0 | Corner Kicks: 3 | Fouls: 9 | Offside: 1
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
Lineup: Samuel Williams, Sadam Masereka (Adrien Perez), Aidan Rocha, Yosuke Hanya (Juan David Tejada Londono), Tyreek Magee (Frank Daroma), Colin Shutler, Garven Metusala (Matthew Mahoney), Jon-Talen Maples, Brennan Creek (Devon Williams), Khori Bennett, Patrick Burner
Unused subs: Jonas Fjeldberg, Christian Herrera
Line: Shots: 13 | Shots On Goal: 1 | Corner Kicks: 8 | Fouls: 10 | Offside: 0