Oakland Roots traveled to El Paso for their first-ever playoff appearance in the USL Championship. Coming into the game, Roots had their work cut out for them as El Paso Locomotive had not lost a home match in 470 days. Throughout the first half Roots found themselves on the defensive, as El Paso were constantly in the attacking third, but the squad did have their offensive chances as Quincy Amarikwa drew a foul that led to a free kick midway through the first half but was shot wide by Emrah Klimenta. The defense stood strong and kept the clean sheet despite eight shots from El Paso, taking the level score into halftime.
Roots came out swinging in the second half. More often than not, they found themselves in the attacking third with shots on goal. A lot of the half was back and forth with both teams exchanging counter attacks. In the 74th minute, head coach Jordan Ferrell subbed on leading goal scorer Jeremy Bokila and within two minutes of stepping onto the pitch, he found the game-changing goal, putting the ball between the El Paso goalkeeper’s legs and into the back of the net. From then on, Roots looked to maintain possession and keep a strong defensive showing. Even with five minutes of stoppage time, it wasn’t enough for El Paso to find the equalizer as Roots SC charged onto victory, sending them to the conference semifinals of the 2021 USL Championship playoffs.
Roots will travel to face the winner of the Colorado Switchbacks FC and Orange County SC game.
Oakland Roots traveled to El Paso for their first-ever playoff appearance in the USL Championship. Coming into the game, Roots had their work cut out for them as El Paso Locomotive had not lost a home match in 470 days. Throughout the first half Roots found themselves on the defensive, as El Paso were constantly in the attacking third, but the squad did have their offensive chances as Quincy Amarikwa drew a foul that led to a free kick midway through the first half but was shot wide by Emrah Klimenta. The defense stood strong and kept the clean sheet despite eight shots from El Paso, taking the level score into halftime.
Roots came out swinging in the second half. More often than not, they found themselves in the attacking third with shots on goal. A lot of the half was back and forth with both teams exchanging counter attacks. In the 74th minute, head coach Jordan Ferrell subbed on leading goal scorer Jeremy Bokila and within two minutes of stepping onto the pitch, he found the game-changing goal, putting the ball between the El Paso goalkeeper’s legs and into the back of the net. From then on, Roots looked to maintain possession and keep a strong defensive showing. Even with five minutes of stoppage time, it wasn’t enough for El Paso to find the equalizer as Roots SC charged onto victory, sending them to the conference semifinals of the 2021 USL Championship playoffs.
Roots will travel to face the winner of the Colorado Switchbacks FC and Orange County SC game.
Head Coach Jordan Ferrell:
Start us off with your emotions after that win:
The biggest thing, and I’ve said this all along is that we take this one game at a time. That’s what’s gotten us here and that with that approach, we weren’t concerned about El Paso’s home streak, their ranking, our ranking, anything like that. It’s a match up of two teams and I think that it feels good to come here to a strong footballing side like El Paso, I think they’re one of the best teams in the country and to get a good result. It feels good but now we await the winner of tomorrow night.
This team has been overlooked all season, does that motivate you? Or do you just ignore it?
They can keep doing it, I don’t really care. What matters is within that locker room right now and the fans that have been supportive of us all of season. People can continue to overlook us and that’s great but we’re not concerned with how other people see us.
Jeremy Bokila, he’s scored most of his goals off the bench this year, what can you say about him?
It’s a tough thing to say because no player wants to come off the bench, every player wants to start and I recognize that as a coach. It’s a challenge for me selecting a group, but Bokila’s insertion in the second half made the world of difference. From closing their defensive line down, making difficult for them to play, to scoring the goal and creating a couple other chances too. He’s been massive, he’s a big member of this team.
Something clicked mentally for the team midway through this season, what can you say about the character of this team to balance the incredible playing ability with the chances of scoring goals like tonight?
Haha, like I’ve been saying, we keep missing sitters (laughs). Matias (Fissore) and Kai (Greene) had the other one, even Johnny (Rodriguez) has that first chance of the game and went wide. I think for us as a group, not having been a team for a long time, the early part of the season where we didn’t find success, there were a lot of challenges. It’s very easy when you come together and start winning and everyone feels that momentum. You rely on some veterans, you rely on very optimistic youngsters, and I think that mix and as well people who bought in and looked around and said we had enough to be a playoff team. That loss in Tacoma, I think that was the moment where things clicked and they looked in each other’s eyes and said “we’re good enough”. It’s a special group of guys and once we got to the part of the season where we were playing games almost every three days we found a good rhythm both in training and on the pitch and got good results and just kept going from there and it’s gotten us here and we’ll keep rollin’ with it.
Oakland Roots SC vs El Paso Locomotive FC
USL Championship | November 5, 2021
Venue: Southwest University Park, El Paso, Texas
Kickoff: 6:30 PM
Weather: 75, sunny
SCORELINE: 1 2 FT
ELP: 0 0 0
OAK: 0 1 1
SCORING SUMMARY:
OAK: Jeremy Bolkila 76’
DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:
ELP: Andrew Fox (Yellow 21’)
OAK: Joseph Nane (Yellow 26’)
ELP: Diego Luna (Yellow 78’)
OAK: Tarek Morad (Yellow 90+ 3’)
OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Matias Fissore, Jesus Enriquez, Joseph Nane, Akeem Ward, Jose Hernandez (Tarek Morad), Paul Blanchette, Emrah Klimenta, Memo Diaz (Max Ornsti), Quincy Amarikwa, Kai Greene, Johnny Rodriguez (Jeremy Bokila)
Unused subs: Ariel Mbumba, Tarn Weir, Taylor Bailey, Yohannes Harish
Shots: 11 | Shots On Goal: 4 | Corner Kicks: 4 | Fouls: 12 | Offside: 1 |
El Paso Locomotive FC: Logan Ketterer, Mechack Jerome, Macaulay King, Andrew Fox, Eder Borelli (Matt Bahner), Dylan Mares (Sebastian Velazquez), Richie Ryan (Leandro Carrijo), Diego Luna, Nick Ross, Luis Solignac, Aaron Gomez
Unused subs: Louis Herrera, Ricardo Zacarias, Jose Aguinaga, Benjamin Beaury
Shots: 20 | Shots On Goal: 3 | Corner Kicks: 6 | Fouls: 9 | Offside: 6 |
Head Coach Jordan Ferrell:
Start us off with your emotions after that win:
The biggest thing, and I’ve said this all along is that we take this one game at a time. That’s what’s gotten us here and that with that approach, we weren’t concerned about El Paso’s home streak, their ranking, our ranking, anything like that. It’s a match up of two teams and I think that it feels good to come here to a strong footballing side like El Paso, I think they’re one of the best teams in the country and to get a good result. It feels good but now we await the winner of tomorrow night.
This team has been overlooked all season, does that motivate you? Or do you just ignore it?
They can keep doing it, I don’t really care. What matters is within that locker room right now and the fans that have been supportive of us all of season. People can continue to overlook us and that’s great but we’re not concerned with how other people see us.
Jeremy Bokila, he’s scored most of his goals off the bench this year, what can you say about him?
It’s a tough thing to say because no player wants to come off the bench, every player wants to start and I recognize that as a coach. It’s a challenge for me selecting a group, but Bokila’s insertion in the second half made the world of difference. From closing their defensive line down, making difficult for them to play, to scoring the goal and creating a couple other chances too. He’s been massive, he’s a big member of this team.
Something clicked mentally for the team midway through this season, what can you say about the character of this team to balance the incredible playing ability with the chances of scoring goals like tonight?
Haha, like I’ve been saying, we keep missing sitters (laughs). Matias (Fissore) and Kai (Greene) had the other one, even Johnny (Rodriguez) has that first chance of the game and went wide. I think for us as a group, not having been a team for a long time, the early part of the season where we didn’t find success, there were a lot of challenges. It’s very easy when you come together and start winning and everyone feels that momentum. You rely on some veterans, you rely on very optimistic youngsters, and I think that mix and as well people who bought in and looked around and said we had enough to be a playoff team. That loss in Tacoma, I think that was the moment where things clicked and they looked in each other’s eyes and said “we’re good enough”. It’s a special group of guys and once we got to the part of the season where we were playing games almost every three days we found a good rhythm both in training and on the pitch and got good results and just kept going from there and it’s gotten us here and we’ll keep rollin’ with it.
Oakland Roots SC vs El Paso Locomotive FC
USL Championship | November 5, 2021
Venue: Southwest University Park, El Paso, Texas
Kickoff: 6:30 PM
Weather: 75, sunny
SCORELINE: 1 2 FT
ELP: 0 0 0
OAK: 0 1 1
SCORING SUMMARY:
OAK: Jeremy Bolkila 76’
DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:
ELP: Andrew Fox (Yellow 21’)
OAK: Joseph Nane (Yellow 26’)
ELP: Diego Luna (Yellow 78’)
OAK: Tarek Morad (Yellow 90+ 3’)
OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Matias Fissore, Jesus Enriquez, Joseph Nane, Akeem Ward, Jose Hernandez (Tarek Morad), Paul Blanchette, Emrah Klimenta, Memo Diaz (Max Ornsti), Quincy Amarikwa, Kai Greene, Johnny Rodriguez (Jeremy Bokila)
Unused subs: Ariel Mbumba, Tarn Weir, Taylor Bailey, Yohannes Harish
Shots: 11 | Shots On Goal: 4 | Corner Kicks: 4 | Fouls: 12 | Offside: 1 |
El Paso Locomotive FC: Logan Ketterer, Mechack Jerome, Macaulay King, Andrew Fox, Eder Borelli (Matt Bahner), Dylan Mares (Sebastian Velazquez), Richie Ryan (Leandro Carrijo), Diego Luna, Nick Ross, Luis Solignac, Aaron Gomez
Unused subs: Louis Herrera, Ricardo Zacarias, Jose Aguinaga, Benjamin Beaury
Shots: 20 | Shots On Goal: 3 | Corner Kicks: 6 | Fouls: 9 | Offside: 6 |
