Missed opportunities were the theme of the night for Oakland, as Roots watched a dominant first half and a 1-0 lead devolve into a gut wrenching 1-2 loss to visiting Phoenix Rising FC at the Coliseum on Saturday night.
Roots came out swinging with a wide open look on goal just four minutes into the match when Julian Bravo played a cross into the box from the left side, finding Peter Wilson all alone in front who somehow missed any contact with the ball.
Phoenix came right back with a chance of their own on a counterattack that ended with a hard shot ringing off the left post of Oakland’s goal in the 8th minute.
Following both teams’ early missed opportunities, Roots settled into the match and quickly began to look like the superior side, matching the shot total from their last match inside just the 14th minute.
Oakland continued to work the ball into extremely dangerous positions, but as has been a trend with the team lately, found trouble turning opportunities into shots on target.
Just like in their last match, Roots broke the deadlock with their very first shot on goal in the 27th minute when Bravo outhustled a Phoenix defender down the left side of the pitch and played a centering pass just before the ball rolled over the endline to find Morey Doner who finished his third of the year off the left post to make it 1-0 Oakland.
Roots continued to dominate the pitch for the remainder of the half, and entered the locker room at the break still leading by just one despite numerous missed opportunities that could have easily led to a lopsided score.
In the 53rd minute of the match, Roots missed on what was perhaps their most wide open look on goal all season. A gorgeous series of passes led to a cross into the box that found José Luis Sinisterra all alone in front of the net with plenty of time to shoot. Sinisterra opted not to take a set-up touch, instead taking a chance on a one-timer that sailed well above the crossbar.
This moment immediately preceded Oakland unraveling in the match, as Phoenix began to shift the tide of momentum in their favor.
Phoenix capitalized on this shift in the 60th minute when Ihsan Sacko worked a bit of space in the attacking third and unloaded one on his own from the top line of the box beating a diving Kendall McIntosh to the right to level the contest at 1-1.
The field continued to tilt in Rising’s favor following the goal, and Phoenix captured the lead in short order. In the 69th minute former Roots player Charlie Dennis sent a low strike on target, after receiving a centering pass from Jearl Margaritha, that bounced through traffic before finding twine just inside the right post and making it 1-2 Rising.
A second yellow card was issued to Phoenix’s Hope Avayevu in an extended added time period, giving Oakland a man advantage for a final push that came very near a leveling goal that never came as the final whistle ended things with Roots still down one.
It’s a tough loss for Roots following a match that could easily have seen them win in lopsided fashion and secure a crucial six point swing versus a conference foe in an extremely crowded Western table.
Oakland will now head on the road for a league fixture versus Loudon United FC on Saturday, July 19th before returning home to face Orange County SC in a Group Stage battle of the USL Jägermeister Cup on July 26th.
Talking With Head Coach Benny Feilhaber
What are your overall thoughts on the performance and how the second half went?
Losing is always frustrating. I think the guys feel it, and the staff obviously feels it as well.
Sometimes it’s a simple game. You go up, you create chances to go up more than one. We missed quite a few of those chances — and they’re 100% chances, right? And at the end of the day, I told the guys, ‘If you don’t score in soccer you’ll get scored on.’ And that’s just like the age old story, right? And so I think we’ve got to be cleaner in those moments.
We created a ton in that first half, even in the beginning of the second and then, you know, you let a team kind of stay in the game for as long as we did. And the one thing that I was a little bit more disappointed with more so than the missing of the chances — because that tends to happen from time to time — is I thought we were passive defensively. There were moments where their players, who are good one-on-one players, had time and space on the ball. In certain areas of the field that’s okay, but you can’t allow teams to have time and space with the ball close to your goal.
The first goal, we’re a little bit passive. Second goal, we’re a little bit passive. Two shots from far away. The only goals that we’ve given up since I’ve been here have been shots from outside the box, I think. So we’ve got to do a better job in those areas to realize that you’ve got to go block the player. You’ve got to make them feel uncomfortable.
I told those guys, even at 40 years old, if nobody’s going to come press me, I can still play the game. Any player on that field is going to feel really confident with the ball if there’s not somebody stepping to them, so we have to be more determined to close space, to be able to make people feel uncomfortable with the ball, and that’ll in turn make them make worse decisions and more mistakes, rather than what they did.
And it wasn’t just the goals. It’s the 15-20 minutes that led to the goals. Moments in the midfield, moments higher up on the field that we just weren’t right with the pressing, weren’t right with closing down space, and they got more and more confident, and we struggled in that area of the field. So I think that led to the goals, and then obviously when you’re down 1-2 the game is completely different than it was in the first half. I thought we battled well at the end of the game, got close on a couple chances, but, yeah, obviously disappointing to be up 1-0 and concede twice.
Oakland Roots SC vs Phoenix Rising FC
USL Championship | July 12, 2025
Venue: Oakland Coliseum
Kickoff: 7:00 PM PT
Weather: 62 degrees, Partly Cloudy
SCORELINE:
OAK: 1
PHX: 2
SCORING SUMMARY:
OAK: Morey Doner 27’
PHX: Ihsan Sacko 60’
PHX: Charlie Dennis 69’
DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:
PHX: Hope Avayevu 33’ (yellow card)
PHX: Xian Emmers 40’ (yellow card)
OAK: Panos Armenakas 71’ (yellow card)
OAK: Luis Saldaña 86’ (yellow card)
PHX: Emil Cuello 87’ (yellow card)
PHX: Hope Avayevu 90’+ (second yellow card) (red card)
OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Kendall McIntosh, Julian Bravo (Wolfgang Prentice), Gagi Margvelashvili (EJ Johnson), Daniel Gomez, Peter Wilson (José Luis Sinisterra), Panos Armenakas, Neveal Hackshaw, Bobosi Byaruhanga (Tyler Gibson), Morey Doner, Kai Greene, Ali Elmasnaouy (Luis Saldaña)
Unused subs: Camden Riley, Raphael Spiegel, Julio Martinez, Ilya Alekseev
Shots: 9 | Shots On Goal: 1 | Corner Kicks: 5 | Fouls: 15 | Offsides: 2
PHOENIX LINEUP: Patrick Rakovsky, Collin Smith, Carl Sainte, Jearl Margaritha, Ihsan Sacko (Jamison Ping), Hope Avayevu, Emil Cuello, Dariusz Formella, Braxton Montgomery (Ryan Flood), Ascel Essengue (Darius Johnson), Xian Emmers (Charlie Dennis)
Unused subs: Triston Henry, Alexander Balanzar, Pierce Rizzo
Shots: 8 | Shots On Goal: 3 | Corner Kicks: 4 | Fouls: 16 | Offsides: 2
