Roots fans, players, and staff have a right to be ticked off at Head Coach Juan Guerra after his backroom dealings helped engineer his late-season departure to Phoenix Rising. The news followed weeks of online rumors of his interest in returning to the division rival where he was an assistant coach last season. But his sudden exit may be a blessing in disguise for the Roots’ playoff chances.
Guerra was brought in to turn the club into a championship contender after it made a surprising playoff run in its first season in the USL Championship. But he leaves behind few accomplishments from his brief tenure in Oakland.
“We all believe in one thing, and it’s to make this organization one of the top organizations in North America,” Guerra explained his mission in a video released last December, as he was introduced as the Roots’ new head coach.
However, after less than nine months in charge, Guerra leaves a club with a sub .500 record, stuck in a group of six teams fighting to get into the playoffs. And while Guerra tries to lead his new club past Oakland and into the postseason, he leaves behind a roster of misfit players, making it more difficult for the Roots to achieve the bright, shiny future he promised.
After last season, Oakland appeared to have acquired some nice foundation players. While the club had trouble scoring goals, their defensive backline was the key to their late-season success, led by five players, Kai Greene, Memo Diaz, Akeem Ward, Emrah Klimenta, and Tarek Morad.
In goal, midseason signing Paul Blanchette was a revelation. The midfield looked solid, anchored by Jose Hernandez, Matias Fissore, and Lindo Mfeka. Add in exciting younger players, such as Ariel Mbumba and Johnny Rodriguez, and it looked like all the club needed was a proven goalscorer and a couple of other quality offensive pieces to challenge the top clubs in the league.
But as soon as Guerra arrived, he began tinkering with the roster, with acquisitions that were often more head-scratching than inspired. He seemed determined to bring in players he was familiar with, particularly from Venezuela, who did not necessarily fit in well with the Roots’ returning roster.
Guerra’s first signing was Venezuelan center back Alejandro Fuenmayor. Then he added Venezuelan defender Edgardo Rito, American Danny Barbir, and a new goalkeeper on loan from Club Tijuana in Liga MX, Benny Diaz.
Soon jokes were going around online that Oakland would field a roster in 2022 solely of defenders.
Guerra did bring in a few attacking players, including USL veterans Dariusz Formella and Venezuelan Juan Carlos Azocar, but the tone had been set. Somehow Guerra would have to integrate his new choices with the returning players to form a winning squad.
He failed spectacularly.
Guerra Continues to Tinker As The Roots Struggle
While the 2021 Roots were built on defense and selective counterattacks, Guerra was determined to create a possession-based squad that would control the ball, build up possession, and break down the defense.
But the season started poorly for Oakland. They went winless in their first six games (seven, if you include the loss to a third division team that eliminated them from the US Open Cup) before defeating Loudon United, one of the league’s weakest sides.
Essential players from 2021, including Greene, Ward, Memo Diaz, Chuy Enriquez, and Blanchette, were banished to the bench or left off of game-day rosters completely.
The Roots found their proven goal scorer when their ownership group brought in forward Óttar Magnús Karlsson on loan from Venezia FC in Italy. But even despite his fifteen goals so far this season, the club’s soft defense turned victories into ties and ties into losses.
Guerra tinkered with his starting lineups, never fielding the same starting eleven in consecutive games all season. After starting the season with a 4-4-2, the first-year head coach quickly switched to a three-man backline, and the club offloaded their surplus of defensive talent.
The first defender to leave the squad was Kai Greene, sent to division rival Monterey Bay FC, which overcame an awful start and is now right behind the Roots in the playoff race. A few months later, Ward was loaned to Rio Grande Valley FC, which is also within striking distance of the playoffs.
While some returnees, such as Memo Diaz, were able to work their way back into the squad by adapting to Guerra’s system, the loss of talent, with little in return, was notable.
Although ranked in the top three teams in passes all season, the Roots have shown few results for their control of the ball. Guerra’s tenure ends with six wins, seven losses, and 12 draws. The six victories mostly came against weaker competition, with only one win against a club currently in playoff position.
Despite tinkering with the players, Guerra dogmatically settled into what was essentially a 3-6-1 formation for his club. To his credit, Rito showed well as an attacking wide, but a consistent run of good form eluded the Roots.
Some defenders favored by Guerra, especially Fuenmayor, made costly mistakes in the back line. Remarkably they continued to feature in most of his starting lineups.
Despite several gaffes, Benny Diaz remained in goal for every league match until finally being recalled by his Liga MX squad, enabling the reemergence of Blanchette in goal.
But some talented players continued to be consistently left off the roster. Mbumba showed skills during 2021 but could not find the field all year. The Roots will never have the chance to see him reach his full potential since he was transferred to MLS Next side Columbus Crew II just a week before Guerra’s departure.
Guerra’s Departure Gives the Club a Chance to Reset
The former head coach offered empty platitudes to the Roots’ fans and players as he abandoned the Roots in midseason for one of the league’s wealthiest teams. But his exit is also the best opportunity for the club to turn their season around finally.
Oakland still has nine games left and remains only four points out of the final playoff position. Interim coach Noah Delgado will have a chance to finally play to the team’s strengths instead of trying to force them to play out of position to fit the coach’s system.
A good start would be returning to a back four by re-introducing Memo Diaz and Rito as the fullbacks and Klimenta and Morad as the centerbacks.
Allowing Azocar to continue to play wide in the midfield with Chuy Enriquez on the other side would balance out the attack, with Hernandez and Fissore anchoring the play up the middle.
Karlsson should continue as the primary target man up front, paired with fellow Venezia loanee Mikael Johnsen, who puts pressure on the defense with his high work rate.
With the chance to put out the best eleven to get results, Oakland could finally put together that long-awaited winning streak. The next few weeks will be exciting for Roots fans, who previously seemed destined to watch an underachieving side miss out on the postseason.
We will see what happens when the Oakland Roots kick off against the San Diego Loyal on Wednesday night.
