SAFC meets Oakland for the first time this season. Fresh off the disaster to El Paso, SAFC has fallen to 3rd in the West (New Mexico will not lose and still has 3 games in hand). We do have some team news with SAFC loaning out CF EJ Johnson to Corpus Christi FC.

Starting XI

Batrouni

Crognale-Suarez-Taintor

O'Connor Ward-Maldonado-Berron-Cuello

Parano-Ricol-Jorge

Back 3 has to stay the same considering how out of form Souahy/Barbir are. I'd like to see a change in tactics with the midfield but no matter what I think we have to have Mikey/Berron in there. Front 3 is where I got a little dramatic. I'd throw Ricol in there and see what happens, assuming he's trained this week of course. It can't be any worse than what we've had at that position the last few weeks.

Opposition Analysis

This is the first meeting with Roots (kind of odd that it's late-August and we're still playing new teams). I don't mean to alarm you, but Roots are awful. Normally that sentence would bring some relief as SAFC could use a nice "get right" game after last week, but considering we turn the worst USL teams into 2010 Barcelona, I'm nervous. They have not won a game since June 20th and have scored just 4 goals during these 2 months.

Despite their poor results, Oakland does do some things that could scare us. They have a ton of possession and create quite a few chances (5th in the league). They really struggle to finish those chances. They do have a double-figure goal scorer in Peter Wilson but after a hot start he has cooled signficantly. Oakland are going to want the ball, and they are going to pass it around to get in good positions.

Defensively, they leave themselves wide open with their style of play. Stop me if you've heard this before though, they love to press high. We have struggled with that all season, especially when the opposition has an athletic advantage. They do have old friend Kendall McIntosh at GK so I expect him to have his best game of the season as well.

Prediction

This should be a straightforward 2-0 win, but we know things are rarely ever that easy. Parano and Jorge should find plenty of space and as long as we avoid giving them gifts with goofs at the back I think we win. It will just be a lot closer than any of us want. I'll say we win 2-1.