Takeaways from Roots’ USL Jägermeister Cup Loss to Orange County SC

Roots 2025 run in mid-season cup matches came to an end on Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum when Oakland fell 0-1 to visiting Orange County SC in the final Group Stage fixture of the USL Jägermeister Cup.

Oakland will now get a bit of rest, starting off the month of August with a bye-week before returning to regular season action at home to face Colorado Springs on August 9th. Before then, we take a look back at the loss versus Orange County to draw some takeaways:

Tough Result, Same Outcome

Roots would have needed a miracle to move on from the Group Stage of the tournament entering Saturday’s contest. While it was technically possible before kickoff, the club would have needed a lopsided regulation victory as well as a number of results around the tournament to go their way as well.

Those aforementioned results did not wind up going Roots’ way, so regardless of the final score in Saturday’s matchup, the result would have been the same regardless: a Group Stage exit from the cup.

Something to Prove

Before Saturday’s match even began, Orange County had been eliminated from moving on. This, paired with the fact that they host a mid-week regular season matchup on Wednesday meant that quite a few academy players made the journey to Oakland to wrap up the Jägermeister Cup.

On paper, this might be a boon to Roots. But Oakland knew their longshot odds as well, and Orange County’s young players had a massive incentive to prove themselves versus first team competition. Sometimes, it really comes down to who wants it more.

Finding the Target

You miss every shot you don’t take.

And lately, Roots have found trouble putting shots toward the target. Saturday’s competition was certainly a step in the right direction, with 11 shot attempts, seven of which found their way on goal. Those are the kind of numbers that head coach Benny Feilhaber can be comfortable with moving forward. All that is left to do is put together the shot creation and finishing.