Phoenix Rising welcomed Oakland Roots on Saturday night at Phoenix Rising Stadium FC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rising was coming off a 1-1 draw to El Paso, while Oakland was coming off a 1-1 draw to Birmingham.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oakland sat fourth in Group West, while Phoenix sat just below them in fifth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both teams had played 13 games, more than most teams in the West, meaning this game could have a lot of\u00a0implications\u00a0further in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oakland started off well with the ball, even getting some golden chances, but to no avail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless, Oakland continued to press, while Rising seemed to soak up the pressure to spark counter attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we started the game well,\u201d Rising head coach Pa-Modou Kah said. \u201cWe were sloppy. Start to finish.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite that, neither team was unable to create many chances, as both steams were stuck in a deadlock after 30 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rising switched to a more pressure-based style,\u00a0electing\u00a0to\u00a0use\u00a0their wingers, while Oakland kept\u00a0putting up\u00a0pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even then, neither team found a chance as the game remained scoreless entering the second half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, just two minutes into the second half, Oakland won a penalty after a player was shoved from behind in the box.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Wilson was the taker for Oakland, and it was Rising goalkeeper Patrick Rakovsky looking to make a save.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wilson shot right, and while Rakovsky went right, it was placed perfectly, as it went into the back of the net, as Oakland took a 1-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the 55th\u00a0minute, Oakland\u00a0made it\u00a0two. Wilson got the ball before passing it\u00a0to\u00a0forward\u00a0Danny Trejo, who slotted it past\u00a0Rakovsky\u00a0with ease, making it 2-0 for Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, three minutes later, Oakland fouled a Phoenix player in the box, and the ref gave a penalty for Phoenix.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ihsan Sacko stepped up to take it against goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sacko went right, and despite McIntosh going the right way, Sacko\u00a0seemed to mimic\u00a0Wilson\u2019s penalty, as he put it on the money, making it 2-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we could come back,\u201d Kah said. \u201cBut then we made silly mistakes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game was on, and Phoenix was still in it, as the goals came pouring in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phoenix pushed forward, as they looked to be more stable at the back, and in the 71st\u00a0minute, Rising got their equalizer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sacko whipped a ball in after a through pass, before midfielder Diego Gomez took a shot, who found the bottom left corner\u00a0to make it 2-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phoenix got their equalizer, but it\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0last long.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just two minutes after the equalizer, Oakland\u2019s Florian Valot got on the end of it after a solid cross, making it 3-2 in favor of Oakland, but it\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0stop there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the 78th\u00a0minute, Oakland midfielder Wolfgang Prentice got the ball down the left-hand side before squaring it to Wilson, who made it 4-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In just seven minutes, Rising went from grabbing their equalizer only to find themselves down two goals again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With less than 10 minutes\u00a0remaining, Rising got\u00a0desperate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the 90th\u00a0minute, a cross from Rising was pinged around, before Phoenix\u2019s Kelvin Arase headered it in, making it 4-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cReally good,\u201d Arase said\u00a0regarding\u00a0his goal. \u201cBut we lost so that\u2019s\u00a0kind of a\u00a0mixed feeling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phoenix rushed to the center circle as they looked to equalize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This also marked Arase\u2019s first goal for Phoenix Rising.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fourth official added a whopping 10 minutes of stoppage time, and Rising threw themselves forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, in the 100th\u00a0minute, it all kicked off, as\u00a0Phoenix\u2019s\u00a0Luke Biasi fouled Trejo, who retaliated with a kick to the groin, causing players to rush into the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFrustration will kick in when you\u2019re not doing the right things,\u201d Kah said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both\u00a0Biasi and Trejo were shown a straight\u00a0red, before\u00a0the referee ended the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The final score said it all, as Oakland walked off the pitch with a 4-3 win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team seemed\u00a0deflated by this defeat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have five days to recover,\u201d Kah said. \u201cWe were sloppy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rising will visit the Colorado Spring Switchbacks on Saturday at Weidner Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising welcomed Oakland Roots on Saturday night at Phoenix Rising Stadium FC.\u00a0 Rising was coming off a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-370492","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\/370492","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=370492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}