{"id":231879,"date":"2026-03-23T01:29:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T01:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231879\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T01:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T01:29:26","slug":"phoenix-rising-comes-back-to-draw-with-oakland-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231879\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising comes back to draw with Oakland Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Rising<\/a> overcame a 2-0 deficit to rescue a point<\/a> against Oakland Roots at home.<\/p>\n

The visitors scored two goals towards the end of a lethargic first half, but after Diego Gomez<\/a> gave Rising a lifeline late in the game, Gunnar Studenhofft<\/a> found the net deep in stoppage time to secure the draw with his first-ever goal for the club.<\/p>\n

A slow first half<\/p>\n

Things did not start the way that Phoenix Rising would have wanted.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By the 17th minute mark, the hosts had recorded two shots. That tally hadn\u2019t increased by the break. Instead, Phoenix found itself playing a selection of long balls while lacking urgency in the press to actually pressure their opponent at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the first 20 minutes, we started well, but then after the 20 minutes we didn\u2019t control the game,\u201d Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah<\/a> said. \u201cThen we gave away two goals that I think were very simple, two goals that were avoidable. I think we didn\u2019t defend the box well and stop the crosses as we\u2019d discussed. I think we didn\u2019t press after the 20 minutes together, so it was very disjointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Oakland punished Rising. Wolfgang Prentice and Julian Bravo found the net in the closing minutes of the first half, sending Phoenix into the break down by two goals.<\/p>\n

Another late Phoenix Rising comeback<\/p>\n

Rising\u2019s performance started to pick up in the second half, with more signs of urgency in the pressing. <\/p>\n

However, it still took until the final ten minutes of the match for the hosts to find a goal of their own, with Diego Gomez netting his first for the club in the 85th.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later, and deep into stoppage time, Gunnar Studenhofft found one of his own to level the scores at 2-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in him and the work that he\u2019s put in,\u201d Kah said of Studenhofft. \u201cHe\u2019s far from being a finished product, but with what he has, he\u2019s a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final whistle blew just minutes later, with both sides sharing a point apiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy with how we\u2019re progressing, but it\u2019s not enough,\u201d Kah said. \u201cEspecially when you\u2019re at home, it\u2019s not enough. We can\u2019t give away points at home. It\u2019s far too many.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owain\u2019s take<\/p>\n

The more things change, the more they stay the same?<\/p>\n

Welcome back to 2025, Phoenix Rising fans. Because that\u2019s how it felt, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Some sloppy first half moments. An unnecessary few goals conceded and yet, at the end of it all, Phoenix Rising huffed, and they puffed, and they pulled it off deep into added time.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s March. It can be frustrating to see what looks to be the same theme as last season, but it\u2019s still too early to complain about that. If we get to July and are seeing the same problems, then it will be a genuine cause for concern. Just three weeks into the year, with absences already piling up, anything that keeps the points ticking over in spite of issues faced is far from the worst that could happen.<\/p>\n

What is concerning though is that the stands are already\u2026 well, they\u2019re starting to look sparse.<\/p>\n

In this last game, Phoenix Rising recorded its lowest ever March attendance for a league game, with just 4,310 people officially announced as attending. That\u2019s not just breaking the record by a little. The prior worst attendance for a March league match came last season, against Rhode Island, with 5,549 people attending: that\u2019s over 1,200 more than were at this weekend\u2019s match.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a one-off, either. After already enjoying the worst-attended home opener in the Phoenix Rising era (save for during COVID, where the club sold out its capacity-restricted stadium), this 2026 team has now put up the two of the three lowest March league crowds in club history. The play on the field, flawed or not at times, doesn\u2019t deserve that. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it seems once again that while the club\u2019s leadership may put its heart and soul into the on-field product, they are continuing to allow the foundations around them to crumble. There is a clear trend of decline over time, and from the outside it\u2019s hard to tell what exactly they\u2019re going to do about it. Phoenix Rising needs direction from the top, and as best we can tell, one of two things is happening. Either the direction is misguided, or it\u2019s missing entirely. I\u2019m not sure which of those would be worse.<\/p>\n

What is clear, though, is that this can\u2019t be allowed to continue. This year is meant to be a celebration as the tenth season under the Phoenix Rising name, but for the sake of this club, something has to change. And if it doesn\u2019t, I have bigger fears than slow starts on the field each week.<\/p>\n

Top image: Phoenix Rising FC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising overcame a 2-0 deficit to rescue a point against Oakland Roots at home. The visitors scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-231879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}