On a normal week leading up to a game, Benny Feilhaber said he prefers to spend about 70 percent of the time implementing his own ideas and 30 percent preparing for the opponent.
But since he only started as head coach in Oakland on Tuesday, the Roots only talked about El Paso Locomotive for half a day. The rest of the time was spent getting to know everyone’s name.
“To be honest, I would love to get to the point where we have less reactionary tactics and more of an ideology of how we want to play,” Feilhaber told Soccer Bay Area after his Roots debut on Saturday. “But you know, we had four days of training.”
This is the reality of a midseason coaching hire. Hardly ever ideal, but a break nevertheless. Since retiring from playing in 2020, Feilhaber has been looking for a chance to coach his own first-team side. Until today, the former U.S. international midfielder, with nearly 400 games to his name, had spent three seasons coaching Sporting Kansas City’s reserve team.
An introductory call from Roots VP of Soccer Eric Yamamoto came about a month ago, Feilhaber said. But after Oakland lost against third-tier side AV Alta FC in the USL Cup over the weekend, a short-term deal through the end of the season for him to replace outgoing coach Gavin Glinton was hastily put together in 48 hours.
“For me, with the size of the project and the opportunity for myself to showcase what I can do, I thought [Oakland] was a fit,” Feilhaber said. “My guess from the club’s perspective, is that we’ve liked what you’ve done, but come and show it, and we’ll see what the future holds. For me, I’m totally OK with that.”
This was supposed to be the Roots’ breakout season — where playing at the larger Oakland Coliseum meant more revenues and popularity. Instead, the side continued to languish near the bottom of the Western Conference standings, not scoring goals while conceding the most in the league.
After drawing more than 26,000 fans to the home opener, attendance has fallen between 4,000 to 8,000, according to FBref. On Saturday against El Paso, the Coliseum felt cavernous.
“I think one of the things that Oakland has struggled to do in the last four and a half years in the USL is have a true identity of how they play,” Feilhaber said. In that time period, the club cycled through five other coaches.
Regardless of wins and losses, Feilhaber said his immediate goal is to impart a distinctive style of play. That style, he said, involves players pressing up high to win the ball so that the opponent can’t enjoy its own possession. Afterwards, possession should be about getting forward in dangerous positions rather than passing side to side.
Such ideas were not prevalent at all during the first half of the game against El Paso — which saw Feilhaber roll out an attacking 3-4-3 formation — but the Roots managed to press effectively in the second and created the better of the game’s chances, albeit in a 0-0 draw.
At halftime, midfielder Tyler Gibson confided that the new coach implored the team to not sit back and drive forward more. “Don’t give them joy,” Gibson recalled his coach saying. Furthermore, the back-three should never form a back-five — a subtle but telling tip.
Feilhaber, now 40, said he was drawn to the Roots for its robust fanbase and the prospect that the USL is growing. In either 2027 or 2028, the league plans to add a first-division at the top of its pyramid and implement a promotion-relegation system.
He will undoubtedly have seen his former teammate Steve Cherundolo, 46, go from the Las Vegas Lights in 2021 to LAFC a year later, where he’s gone on to win trophies and is now regarded as one of the nation’s best coaches. Troy Lesesne, 41, coached New Mexico United before also moving to Major League Soccer, where he now coaches D.C. United.
Other former players in Feilhaber’s generation currently coaching in the USL include Jordan Stewart at Monterey Bay FC and Antonio Nocerino at the aforementioned Lights.
“I’ve been waiting for this kind of opportunity,” Feilhaber said. “And this one felt right.”
About the Author: Kevin V. Nguyen is a business and sports journalist based in the Bay Area. Follow him on X/Twitter @KevinNguyen_89 or on Bluesky @kevinvnguyen.bsky.social
