Practice makes perfect as the Oakland Roots go through some pre game drills before they battled Louisville City FC at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville on Sat Aug 26, 2023 (@oaklandrootssc photo)

Saturday, August 26th, 2023

By Troy Ewers

In the Lynn Family Stadium, the Oakland Roots faced Louisville City FC for the first time in club history and Oakland didn’t get their their third win out of the four they played this month losing in Louisville 2-1. The game started with a stalemate between both teams going back and forth with shots and saves.

We thought the stalemate was over when Louisville hits a cross to set up a header that goalie Paul Blanchette went to stop the pass and bobbled the ball into the net, but after the refs reviewed the play, no goal due to a interference that went unseen at first, because of all the fray in front of the net.

The score remained blank and the Louisville fans made their displeasure heard. That displeasure would grow louder as a minute after the goal that ended up being a no goal was called, Roots lead scorer Johnny Rodriguez grabbed his tenth league goal (11th overall) of the season when he capitalized on the lackadaisical defense of Louisville City, who were still voicing their grievances about the no goal that just happened.

1-0 Roots and Rodriguez even taunted the upset Louisville crowd as the seconds kept ticking and the whistle that signals halftime blew. The two teams went back to the locker room with two separate feelings. The Roots headed in their locker room high energy and motivated to deliver a clean sheet. Louisville City headed in their locker room deflated and on the bad side of the coin.

The second half started and wasn’t necessarily slow, but it was paced out to avoid mistakes and that was from both teams. Louisville finally got on the board in the 71st minute when Brian Ownby hit a header to the bottom left corner of the goal from an assist by Wilson Harris, 1-1.

The Roots had a major chance in stoppage time when Anuar Palaez took a confident shot, but the ball was tipped away with a beautiful save by Oliver Semmie. In the last seconds of stoppage time, Oakland stops a free kick by Louisville, but unable to clear the ball so the final whistle can sound and Louisville capitalized on this mistake.

Following a corner, Tyler Gibson got the assist with a pass to Oscar Jimenez who scored off a left footed shot for a heartbreaking end to a wild game.

Louisville wins 2-1. Louisville City had control the majority of the game and the final score reflected it. As for Oakland, they now have their sights set on Sacramento Republic FC as the Roots go back home to the east bay September 2nd.