Will the Oakland Roots ever find a coach they like?

"The most precarious job in Oakland sports belongs to Benny Feilhaber, the coach of the Roots soccer club. In June, he became the sixth coach since the Roots' inaugural season in 2019, replacing Gavin Glinton after a shaky stretch of play. Glinton, for his part, had replaced Noah Delgado after a shaky stretch in 2024. And Delgado? He had replaced Juan Gerra after a shaky stretch in 2022. Roots coaches tend not to remain Roots coaches for long. And for Feilhaber, who concludes his first season on Saturday at the Oakland Coliseum, this final stretch has proven to be, well, shaky."

"The Roots managed only a single victory in the final three months of the season, and after flirting with a spot in the playoffs, they were eliminated from contention last weekend. They enter Saturday's finale against Lexington SC with seven wins, eight draws, and 14 losses, holding down the No. 10 spot out of the 12 teams in the USL Championship's Western Conference. In all, the season fit the pattern that has defined much of the club's brief history: flashes of potential but disappointment in the end."

""There have been a number of years now where the Roots have underperformed," Douglas Zimmerman, who covers the Roots for Soccer Bay Area, said in an interview with The Oaklandside. "I think, unfortunately, you only can really point [to] the technical staff, the technical directors, the people that have kind of not been able to perform and put a team together.""

Frequent midseason coaching changes have characterized the Oakland Roots since their 2019 debut, with Benny Feilhaber becoming the sixth coach in June. The team won just one of its final three months, flirted with playoff contention, and was eliminated before the season finale, finishing with seven wins, eight draws, and 14 losses, 10th in the Western Conference. The campaign matched the club’s pattern of flashes of potential followed by disappointing finishes. The season began with a high point when 26,575 fans set a USL single-game opening-day attendance record at the Coliseum.

Read at The Oaklandside