The Oakland Roots had a nearly perfect first half but conceded three times in the second, ultimately losing the match with Hartford Athletic by a score of 3-1 at the Oakland Coliseum on Tuesday night, October 7.
Hartford came out of the gate on their front foot, playing a high press that initially gave the Roots’ back line some trouble. But the Roots quickly adjusted to the scheme, and shortly after the opening whistle began to dictate the tempo and spacing of the match.
The Roots seemed to live in the attacking area for extended stretches, creating a string of scoring opportunities that eventually led to the first goal of the game in the 31st minute. Peter Wilson capped off an excellent series of ball movement in the attacking third after Camden Riley sent a low cross to Wilson in front of the net, needing only a single touch to tally his 11th goal in his last ten appearances.
Oakland’s dominance continued throughout the first half of the match, as the Roots kept the Athletic from attempting a single shot through 45 minutes, and were clear winners of the possession game.
Hartford made a few halftime subs that seemed to turn the tide, as they began finding space of their own in the attacking third, and finally putting some shots toward the target.
The visitors got on the board with just their second shot on target when a corner kick service from the right side found Joshua Belluz, who buried a header just under the crossbar to level it at 1-1 in the 56th minute.
Hartford then stunned Roots in the 64th minute, when a turnover at midfield led to an odd man rush up the field, resulting in an easy pass from Jack Panayotou to Kyle Edwards in the box who buried the wide open shot, giving Hartford a 2-1 lead.
The Roots fought desperately to salvage at least a draw from the match, but despite threatening on multiple occasions, the Oakland team could not find the back of the net before time expired.
Hartford added another goal in the last few seconds of the match. Samuel Careaga slotted a ball through a scrum in the Oakland area to Beverly Makangila, who was all alone in front, to deliver a strike that gave his side a 3-1 victory.
The Roots will now head out on the road for two must-win matches versus Las Vegas Lights FC and New Mexico United before returning to the Oakland Coliseum to close out the 2025 regular season at home versus Lexington SC on October 25.
Talking with the Head Coach
After the match, Roots’ Head Coach Benny Feilhaber asked the media at the press conference to “make this a dialog.”
“You guys watch this team as much as I do,” he said. “So I’m curious about what you thought about today.”
The result was an honest look at the issues the Roots face and why they seem to start out well and then lose. See the video above for the complete conversation.
Feilhaber started by saying the team again and again gets a lead that then “kind of evaporates away. We see these glimpses of how things can look when things are really firing on all cylinders, when you have all the right pieces to your puzzle. But there seems to be just a degradation in quite a few of these matches where you hold a lead, and then it goes away.”
He asked, “In the 16 games I’ve been here in the league, do you know how many dropped points we’ve had from, not a winning position, but a position where we scored the first goal? …Fifteen. This game included. So before this game, it was 12. So, the question isn’t whether that happens, it’s why?”
Then he said the first half of the match against the Athletic “was our best first half of soccer since I’ve been here. In my opinion, it was phenomenal.” Noting that the Athletic is arguably the best team in the league right now, he said, “For an entire half, we dominated them in every aspect.”
But as was obvious, the second half was another story. Why does that keep happening? The discussion about that problem lasted more than a half-hour.
At one point, Feilhaber said simply, “Our team is not quite strong enough to withstand 90 minutes of subjective soccer. …At the end of the day, you’ve got to not only be good when you’re good, you’ve got to be good when you’re bad. And by that I mean not conceding goals, winning games, and right now we’re not there, unfortunately.”
However, he added, “From my perspective, when I got here this team wasn’t a soccer team, and this team now is a soccer team that still needs to grow. It’s in a phase of improvement. And anyone that expects a team where it was four months ago to be consistently not only turning in these performances but also turning them into wins, has an unreasonable expectation.”
At the end of his remarks, Feilhaber said, “I can’t tell you how proud of the guys I was today. …I give them a lot of credit for what they’ve done today. …this team and the players on this team have started to look like a completely different squad from the time that I came in here.”
Summary
Scoring:
- OAK: Peter Wilson 31’
- HFD: Joshua Belluz 56’
- HFD: Kyle Edwards 64’
- HFD: Beverly Makangila 90’+
Discipline:
- OAK: Gagi Margvelashvili 6’ (yellow card)
- HFD: Adrian Diz Pe 14’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Panos Armenakas 43’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Neveal Hackshaw 65’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Danny Trejo 71’ (yellow card)
- HFD: Kyle Edwards 83’ (yellow card)
- HFD: Joshua Belluz 86’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Camden Riley 90’+ (yellow card)
Oakland Roots SC
Lineup: Gagi Margvelashvili, Camden Riley, Daniel Gomez, Peter Wilson, Panos Armenakas, Tyler Gibson, Neveal Hackshaw, Raphael Spiegel, Ali Elmasnaouy (Morey Doner), Faysal Bettache (Wolfgang Prentice), Danny Trejo
Unused subs: Kendall Mcintosh, EJ Johnson, Jürgen Damm, Kai Greene, Ilya Alekseev
Line: Shots: 15 | Shots On Goal: 6 | Corner Kicks: 6 | Fouls: 16 | Offside: 0
Hartford Athletic
Lineup: Baboucarr Njie, Beverly Makangila, John Berner, Joseph Farrell, Jack Panayotou (Marlon Hairston), Jonathan Jimenez (Michee Ngalina), Thomas John Presthus, Adrian Diz Pe, Joshua Belluz, Adewale Obalola (Kyle Edwards), Elhadj Barry (Samuel Careaga)
Unused subs: Sebastian Anderson, Junior Moreira, Gerold Antony Siaha
Line: Shots: 8 | Shots On Goal: 5 | Corner Kicks: 2 | Fouls: 14 | Offside: 2
