The Oakland Roots had one clear goal on Saturday evening at the Oakland Coliseum: to defeat their opponent, Lexington SC, and keep their playoff hopes alive. Unfortunately, after battling back from an early goal to tie the match, the Roots conceded three goals in the last 12 minutes of the game to lose 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum.
“You never want to lose. Losing 4-1 is unacceptable, really, in terms of where we were,” said a visibly frustrated head coach Ryan Martin after the game. “We were on a pretty good stretch [6 points] in the last five games. We need to turn one-pointers into three, but you know, we’ve had four of the last five results, and then I felt like we played well in a lot of spurts, and it’s kind of been the same story for much of the year, where one play, one bad decision, one moment changes the game.”
Lexington converted on their first solid chance to score in the 22nd minute. A Lexington shot from Xavier Zengue was blocked, but it bounced loose around in the box and fell to the feet of Philip Goodrum, who blasted his shot into the net past hapless Roots goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh.
Down early, the home crowd tried to get the Roots back into the game, cheering “Let’s Go Oakland,” and the team responded in the 27th minute when Oakland winger Bertin Jacquesson tried to fire a shot near post, but Lexington goalkeeper Oliver Semmie covered it.
At the break, every team that Oakland was chasing in the standings to get into a playoff spot- Lexington, Phoenix, and Las Vegas -was winning their matches. It was clear that Oakland would need to go for the win at the half, and Martin’s message at the half was to play more direct and attack the goal.
“We felt like we were going negative too much when we won the ball,” said Martin. “We wanted to punish them in transition more, and we felt like we let them get set too much, which takes more work to break them down. We wanted to play forward. We wanted to get in behind them more, and we wanted to switch the point of attack quicker and with more urgency.”
With some relentless pressure, it only took Oakland seven minutes to crack the Lexington defense.
Roots midfielder Tommy McCabe started an attack on the left side that eventually ended back with him just inside the box. With a moment of space, McCabe fired a cross to Peter Wilson, who was able to finally get himself free from smothering Lexington defensive pressure to calmly head the ball into the net to tie the match.
“We’ve been talking with Peter about get yourself in a position to score and how can we get you in behind the back line, and he makes a great run,” explained Martin. “Tommy [McCabe] finds a great ball, and it was kind of a picture of what we’re looking for.”
Oakland almost gave back the lead to the visiting side three minutes later when Lexington’s Blaine Ferri’s back-to-back attempts were saved by McIntosh.
In the 60th minute, Lexington once again got the ball into the box via a cross, and it ended up with a point-blank shot from Nick Firmino that was saved by McIntosh.
From there, Oakland almost exclusively possessed the ball. They almost tied it in the 65th minute when a cross from Jesus De Vicente was misdirected by a Lexington defender on their own goal, but their keeper Oliver Semmie was able to deflect the rebound away from goal.
In the 70th minute, Wilson got on the end of a long pass, and his shot was redirected by the Lexington defense just past the far goalpost.
Then in the 73rd minute, Wilson got the ball at the top of the box and laid it off to Bobosi Byaruhanga, whose shot was deflected by a Lexington defender out of bounds.
With Oakland looking to have complete control of the game, Lexington finally got possession of the ball and made the Roots pay. A nice combination between Lexington’s Xavier Zengue and Blane Ferri ended up with Goodrum in the box, and he calmly finished his chance for his second goal of the game in the 78th minute.
“We got the first [goal]. We just got momentum on our side. Now it’s a chance to really stick a knife in and get a big win here and, and instead we missed chances,” noted Martin. “We weren’t clinical enough. We turned the ball over in bad areas, made bad decisions, and then it ends up costing you.”
Knowing that their postseason hopes might be slipping away, the Roots went for broke to tie the game and earned two quick corner kicks. However, Oakland’s offensive aggression left them open for a counterattack.
The Roots’ ninth corner kick of the game in the 82nd minute of the match finally delivered a goal. Unfortunately, it was for Lexington.
After the corner went into the box, it popped out to Lexington’s Blaine Ferri. He kicked a looping cross into the middle of the field, allowing his teammate Roderick Eppsto to run on the Roots’ goal unimpeded and push his shot past McIntosh for a commanding 3-1 lead.
“Unfortunately, we shot ourselves in the foot late and didn’t allow us to push,” lamented Martin. “Once it goes to 3-1, it was over at that point.”
With fans already upset by an announcement that the post-game drone show would not happen, one more counterattack from Lexington ended with Goodrum earning his hat trick, and the visitors went up 4-1 in the 87th minute.
Unfortunately for Oakland, the rest of the results from halftime held, and the Roots now find themselves seven points out of the playoffs with only six games remaining.
Martin tried to remain philosophical after the game, believing there was still time to salvage a season that seems to be slipping away.
“You know, my mentality has always been when you’re building something, you’re trying to continue to improve, you’re gonna go through the ups and downs, but the process has to remain the same in terms of what we’re doing,” said Martin. “We’ve shown that we are, in some moments, fantastic, and we’re in most games, and we’re defending better, and we’re creating more chances, and our set pieces have been much better. We just haven’t finished them. It becomes you continue to push, and you continue to push the guys and ask them to become better players and people. That’s what the reality of coaching is. it’s what do we do tonight between now and next Sunday to, to get a result and to turn the tide.”
Oakland will try to turn the tide of their season on Sept. 20th on the road against Indy Eleven at 2 pm.
