Oakland Roots got off to a slow start and were never able to recover in their 2-0 loss to Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC at the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday afternoon.
Ahl of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds in the match between the two clubs at the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday. (CREDIT: Oakland Roots SC)
Veteran striker Augustine Williams recorded a brace for Pittsburgh, scoring both goals in his team’s victory.
Roots are running out of time in their attempt to get into the USL Championship playoffs as one of the top 8 teams in the tightly packed Western Conference. With 8 games remaining on their schedule, Oakland currently sits in 11th position. Had they won this match, they would have moved into striking distance with the 4 other clubs that currently occupy the 5th through 8th playoff berths.
Williams’ first goal came in the 4th minute, when he took advantage of confusion on Oakland’s back line. After his teammate Bradley Sample headed down a cross that grazed off of Neveal Hackshaw’s arm. Williams buried the loose ball in the back of the net.
Oakland recorded its first shot on goal in the 33rd minute, when Panos Armenakas maneuvered around a pair of Pittsburgh defenders, but his attempt from outside the box went straight into the arms of Pittsburgh goalkeeper Eric Dick.
In the 36th minute, Roots goalkeeper Kendall Mcintosh made a quick reaction save on a header by Sample, after a cross by Robbie Mertz on a corner kick.
Oakland’s best first half chance came in the 41st minute, from a corner kick by Daniel Gomez. A shot attempt by Armenakas bounced off of a Pittsburgh defender’s arm. Julian Bravo followed with a one-timer that Dick swatted away.
Disaster struck again for Roots in the 45th minute, when Oakland’s Kai Greene made a clumsy tackle attempt on Williams after losing the ball in the penalty area. Williams stepped up to take the penalty kick and buried his shot in the upper corner of the net.
Chances were fewer in the second half, as Pittsburgh held on tightly to its two-goal margin.
In the 58th minute, Mertz took a free kick from well beyond the penalty area. Sean Suber got his head on the ball, but McIntosh jumped for the ball and caught it just below the crossbar.
Mertz and Suber teamed up on a similar play in the 69th minute, with McIntosh punching the ball away on Suber’s attempt from point blank range.
Benny Feilhaber’s Comments
After the match, Oakland Roots Head Coach Benny Feilhaber expressed his disappointment in the club’s performance.
“In the end, not good enough tonight in both the performance and the result,” Feilhaber said. “We wanted to play on the front foot. We knew that. You know, the circumstances of a one o’clock game is the field is going to be a little drier. It’s going to be harder to play through in the middle. They’re a team that likes to high press and be involved in those areas. They want everything in front of them, if they can. So, you know, our intent was, in the first half, to really make them come and high press us, but also be able to play balls a little bit more direct and kind of change the momentum of the game where we wanted, you know. What we talked about was forward momentum. Always balls forward, runs forward, facing forward as much as we can. We don’t want to be playing backwards and into their press. And I just didn’t think that we did that.
“It didn’t look like we tried to do that in the first half. We played a lot into what they like to do, which is keep the ball in front and run at you and try and turn you over and continuously try to, you know, get opportunities off of that pressing system that they have. And I just don’t think that we played in the way that we wanted to play.
“And obviously it doesn’t help when you give up a goal early off of, you know, a pretty simple cross. They get on the end of it first, rebound, and that kind of stuff can’t happen. And obviously, again, on a moment where they’re high pressing and we’re kind of slow in what we want to do, and not all on the same page, lose the ball and then commit a penalty. So, tough to come back from down two in this league. We haven’t shown the ability to do so since I’ve been here to come back from multiple goals, and I think even one, so it puts us in a really difficult situation there too, to work our way out.
“Second half, we did what we should have done in the first half, which is play a little bit more direct and make them run more backwards towards their goal. And what happened, I think, halfway through the second half, is the middle of the field started to open up, and so we didn’t utilize it as much because we didn’t have the opportunity to kind of coach it at half time, which is what I would have loved to do, but the game started opening up a little bit more in the second half, and we had a little bit more of the game.
“I wouldn’t say it was great, but they defended well, they also changed the way they play with a two nothing lead, but we lost the game in the first half, arguably, maybe even the first few minutes of the first half.”
Wolfgang Prentice’s Comments
Wolfgang Prentice played in the No. 9 role for the first time since Feilhaber joined the club because Peter Wilson was unavailable due to personal reasons. Prentice also spoke with the media after the game.
“I thought it was an unfortunate result,” Prentice said. “We kind of started off on the back foot. They got the two goals and just punished us for our mistakes. And we tried to turn it around the second half, but it just wasn’t quite enough on the day.”
“It’s frustrating because we wanted to win, but we have a game plan just to keep going at the end of the day. We still have quite a few games left to turn it around. I wouldn’t say that we’re done by any means, so we just got to keep looking forward. The boys are frustrated, but I think we’ll be able to turn it around.”
He was also asked about what it’s like to play for Benny Feilhaber.
“I think he’s a good coach. He has his certain set of ideals of what he wants to do structurally, I think we can be good sometimes. Sometimes we are still looking for the right combination to have all the pieces come together. Sometimes we have games where some pieces come together. We get good results and sometimes when one of those pieces don’t work we suffer. We don’t get the results going our way. But I think I think it’s been good. I think the club is going in the right direction. I think we have a certain way of playing that we think is good, and I think just some certain kinks of maybe just adjusting to the opponent of maybe certain formations for certain games.
“I mean, obviously, I’m not the coach, but just different ideas, you know? In case some certain pieces are missing and we have to adjust to the opponent sometimes.”
Next Matches
Roots have a tough schedule for the next two weeks, as they face two of the elite teams in the USL Championship. They make their final visit to the Eastern time zone next Saturday, September 13th when they face the second place team in the Eastern Conference, the Charleston Battery. They return to the Coliseum on September 20th to take on the current Western Conference leaders, FC Tulsa.
