Roots struggled in their second fixture of the 2026 Prinx Tires USL CUP on Saturday night, as Oakland fell to rivals Sacramento Republic FC 0-1 at the Oakland Coliseum, dropping to 0-1-1 (W-D-L) in the Group 1 Table.
The first half came and went with little fanfare, as both clubs traded stints of attacking momentum but exited the first 45 with nothing to show for it as the halftime whistle blew with the score sheet still unaltered.
After another quiet start to the second half, Sacramento broke the deadlock in the 56th minute when Mayele Malango took a good touch in the top left corner of the Oakland box to shake a defender before curling a shot into the top right twine to give Republic a 1-0 lead.
Roots fought for the remainder of the match to claw their way back and earn at least a point in the Cup table, but could not find an equalizer before the final whistle, eventually falling 0-1 to Sacramento.
Roots will now return to USL Championship play as the club heads south to visit Orange County SC for their next match on Saturday, May 23rd at 7 PM PT.
Talking with Head Coach Ryan Martin
What are your thoughts on the performance tonight and the result in the end?
Yeah, we obviously made a handful of changes to continue to give guys minutes, and opportunities to grow and become better. I thought in the first half we we didn’t create enough, we had a lot of control and possession, but we weren’t able to get in behind and stretch enough, which is why we made the subs at halftime to get Wolfie and Peter in to see if we could get in behind, because we felt like there was a lot of space to be had, which there was.
We saw in the second half, we just, I think, lacked a little bit of final execution. The final pass was a little bit rushed and forced. I think some of that’s obviously new people playing. Tingey, playing on the left hand side with Florian, and some different things there, which comes with connection training, and just continuing to build, but overall proud of the guys that gave everything.
I think we controlled a lot of the game, but we just needed to be more decisive, have more composure, and some of those chances turned. But you can see we can score at any minute, Trejo almost had one at the end there.
