San Antonio FC 2-2 Oakland Roots
Oakland battles a late San Antonio resurgence to claim a crucial road point.
Gavin Glinton headed into Toyota Field on Saturday night looking for a response from his Oakland Roots side, who has failed to win in their last two games against Detroit City FC and Colorado Springs Switchbacks. While Glinton and Co. may not have picked up a signature win, they looked much better on this away day than their previous outings may have implied they were capable of.
Both Oakland and San Antonio rolled out in their usual formations, with San Antonio sporting a familiar three back that can hold and pump the ball forward, and Oakland taking a more conservative approach in a 4-2-3-1 that can revert into a three back if more offensive assistance is desired. Oakland would need the offensive assistance, as throughout the first hour of play both sides remained deadlocked at 0-0 with both sides standing firm defensively. Once Oakland shifted into the desired 3-4-3 that allows their wingers and outside center-backs to shift and overlap each other, each sides defensive prowess from the first hour slowly started to subside as each team was continually stretched thin at the back, with Oakland enjoying the spoils first.
Miche-Naider Chery would open the scoring first from the air after a sumptuous trivela was lofted into the box by Trayvone Reid, who was lively on the night. Oakland benefitted in brief stints in which they were able to transition quickly off of bad San Antonio turnovers and could switch quickly as San Antonio tracked back out of position, which was the case here as San Antonio scrambled to get players into the box and to cover out wide. San Antonio, now 1-0 down, pressed numbers forward and were able to get two goals within six minutes of another. The second being Kevon Lambert capitalizing off of a Paul Blanchette mistake, and the first being a Juan Agudelo goal after Oakland committed to many bodies inside after originally tracking back and rotating well.
Image Credit: USL on YouTube
Here you can see two Oakland midfielders tracking back out wide, covering the bursting run of Hernandez and also closing space in the middle. However, Oakland would slowly compress their defense more centrally, allowing San Antonio to find move the ball to the far-left side and a cross in easily found the foot of Juan Agudelo, who tucked home easily. Johnny Rodriguez would find the back of the net from the spot in the 84th minute to give Oakland a crucial road point following the late push from San Antonio.
Up Next
Oakland returns to play with a massive game in the U.S. Open Cup away against the San Jose Earthquakes and have a quick four-day turn-around before another away day against conference rivals New Mexico United.
San Antonio also dive into more Open Cup play as they travel to a rejuvenated Indy Eleven before a return home as they take on a rather subdued Las Vegas Lights team whose last league win came against San Antonio in early April.
Edit: Thanks for the edit.
Thanks for the detailed recap!