RIFC remain at home this weekend to take on Oakland Roots Saturday night at Beirne Stadium. We are coming off of a satisfying 3-0 derby win over Hartford Athletic. Oakland are travelling to Smithfield after a 3-1 win at home over Loudoun United. It should be a great game between two in form teams.

First and most importantly, let’s talk about RIFC. If you’re interested in more on our win over Hartford Athletic, be sure to check out Timmy’s Player Ratings and my Postmatch Beacon. The main takeaways from that one going into this game are Zach Herivaux starting over Marc Ybarra and new loan signing Morris Duggan getting some time in the back line at the end of the game.

On the Herivaux vs Ybarra debate, I’m not sure how I feel. I’ve said in these blogs several times that I love Ybarra and that I think he’s the only player in that midfield who needs to be a nailed on starter. But we’ve started to see more of what Herivaux can bring lately. What I’ve seen with the eye test is that he looks like he’s better at carrying the ball forward than Ybarra in addition to being just about as solid defensively. My expectation from Herivaux when he first arrived was that his role would be to give Ybarra a rest once in awhile. But this looks like it’s shaping up to be much more of a competition than I anticipated. It’s going to prove a tough decision for Khano Smith, but it’s a good problem to have.

As for Morris Duggan, he looked promising in his 10 or so minutes against Hartford. He looked good on the ball and was strong in the air, as one would expect from a 6’4″ defender. For some great in depth analysis of Duggan, check out The Tide Take, Ryan’s blog on the new arrival. Being that he came on loan, you have to think that he’s going to get significant minutes. He’s going to have to replace one of Stoneman, Yao or Nodarse. For me, it should be Yao. I’m not as down on Karifa Yao as some people have been this season. I just think that Yao’s biggest strength is his physicality and that is something Duggan can also provide, especially in the air. Yao has also been easily the worst out of our 3 starting CBs in possession. Duggan is a major upgrade in that department. I’ll be interested to see if Duggan is ready to start this one. If he is, I would hope to see Nodarse on the right, Stoneman in the middle and Duggan on the left of the back 3.

We’re currently sitting 6th in the Eastern Conference as you can see above. However, there is a massive game between Birmingham Legion and Detroit City coming up tomorrow night. My preference would be a Detroit City win and that we take care of business and win on Saturday night. If so, we would remain ahead of Detroit City and we’d jump ahead of Birmingham Legion into 5th. We still have 11 games remaining this season, but every one of them counts in our bid to get 4th and host a home playoff game.

Moving on to our opponents, Oakland Roots have overcome a slow start to the season to be one of the better teams in the Western Conference, sitting 3rd as of this writing. If you need proof of how slow they started, they were just worse than us over the first 10 games of the season. They only claimed 8 points in their first 10 games while we had 9 (pretty much entirely due to our draws). Oakland have turned it around since then though, winning 9 and losing 4 over the last 13 games. You’ll notice Oakland haven’t drawn a game in awhile. They really don’t do draws, as they’ve only drawn twice this season. That’s tied for fewest in the league with Louisville, the best team in the league, and Miami FC, the worst team in the league. In Miami’s case, they almost always lose so a draw for them is an accomplishment.

The most dangerous player for Oakland Roots is 26 year old forward Johnny Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who is in his 4th season in Oakland, has 10 goals and 3 assists so far this campaign. This includes a goal in their last game against Loudoun. After Rodriguez, it’s really goal scoring by committee as there’s no one else currently on the team with more than 2 goals this year. Their second leading scorer is still Jeciel Cedeno, who moved to Detroit City last month.

Oakland Roots are often captained at the back by Neveal Hackshaw. Hackshaw is a solid defender and the heart of their back line. Speaking of the back line, Oakland started the season playing a back 3 but weren’t having any success. They then switched to a back 4 and started seeing results. However, they’ve played a back 3 at times lately in order to match their opponents so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a back 3 to match our 3-5-2.

Lastly on the player front, I have to mention Dom Dwyer. Dwyer had a long MLS career playing up front most notably for Sporting KC and Orlando City. His signing for Oakland Roots was announced back in April but he’s only played in 7 games so far this season. His most recent appearance was two games ago against Miami FC in what is his only start so far. He went 59 minutes in that game which is the most he’s played all season. Dwyer just turned 35 and is clearly in the twilight of his career but it’ll be interesting to see if he gets any playing time in this one. He hasn’t contributed any goals or assists yet but a player of his quality might be due to make something happen if he’s fit enough.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the recent news around Oakland Roots that just came out in the past week. They have a new home for next season:

That is the Oakland Coliseum, current home of MLB’s Oakland Athletics. The A’s are going to be leaving Oakland after this season before eventually moving to Las Vegas. The team has been in Oakland since 1968 and thus has been a major part of the community. In order to keep the stadium alive, Oakland Roots are going to play there next season with the plan to move to a 10,000 seat stadium that is set to be built on the same property. They currently play on a local Cal State University campus.

After giving this some thought, I actually think it’s a good idea for the club. Oakland has had the Warriors, Raiders and now Athletics leave the city in recent years. This presents an opportunity to play on the sense of nostalgia surrounding the stadium. It will give Oakland Roots a chance to draw in some fans that might not otherwise go see the team. It’s usually a hard no from me on soccer teams playing in baseball stadiums, but with the right marketing this might end up a net positive for the team.

This should be a tough game for us but I back us at home. There’s been this notion out there that we aren’t a great home team but I chalk that up to our slow start to the year. I think since we’ve turned things around, the team can feed off our energy in a more positive way instead of maybe being worried about letting us down. That could also be complete and utter BS but who knows? Either way, I think we get the win here 2-1. I don’t think Rodriguez gets a goal for them but he will get the assist. For us, I think we get goals from JJ Williams and Albert Dikwa. JJ is way overdue so why not? Chico also has been a better assist man as of late but I think he’ll get on the score sheet to help us get the all important 3 points. Thank you for reading and all I will leave you with now is, UP THE TIDE!