The Oakland Roots opened up their regular season at Toyota Field in San Antonio on Sat Mar 11, 2023

The Defending Champions Dominate Oakland’s Season Opener

Written By Troy Ewers

The Oakland Roots’ season opener started against last year’s USL Championship trophy winners, San Antonio FC in Toyota Field in San Antonio, Texas and it was a game to hopefully learn from. Learn what not to do. The game ended 3-1 with San Antonio visibly outplaying Oakland.

Between sloppy penalties and San Antonio’s Lamar Batista scoring two highlight reel goals, the game from opening whistle to the final, the game was all San Antonio FC. The first 18 minutes Oakland didn’t develop offense and on top of that Joseph Nane and Elgardo Rito got yellow cards in the first 16 minutes, so it was clear Oakland couldn’t get their footing.

In minute 12, Niko Hansen of San Antonio FC scored the first goal of the game off an attack starting at midfield and the momentum at this point felt lopsided. Last year when San Antonio scored the first goal of the game, they didn’t lose and this stayed true.

In stoppage time on a corner kick, Lamar Batista bicycle kicked a goal which silenced the Roots’ chance of a Cinderella moment. In the second half of the game it was a slow and sloppy game from both sides, because it was hot and humid, reported to be 88 degrees at 8pm in San Antonio, and both teams at this point had little in the gas tank, but in the 57th minute Oakland’s Guillermo Diaz gets a beautiful pass and cleans it up scoring the only goal of the night for Oakland and even after this brilliant display of offense, the Roots never built anymore steam.

After a stalemate in minute 74, Lamar Batista accidentally had an amazing goal where he lobbed the ball all the way from midfield and Oakland’s goalkeeper Blanchette couldn’t get a grasp on the ball and Batista scored. The final whistle would sound after seven minutes of stoppage and San Antonio FC would win 3-1.

The takeaways from this game are that Oakland couldn’t keep up with the defending USL champions. Oakland on paper had a better game. 66% possession time, even shots on goal with San Antonio, and more corner kicks, but visibly Oakland never had an advantage.

The thing that they can learn from this game is to stay more disciplined, because the categories they didn’t win at were yellow cards. This season will be interesting for the Oakland Roots, but if there’s more discipline, their defense can help them develop more of an offense. The two Batista goals for San Antonio weren’t flukes but don’t happen again if these two play again, so Oakland’s defense is a highlight and with less yellows, you can see a different outcome. Oakland’s next game will be against Rio Grande.