Matchday 5 Info:
Tampa Bay Rowdies (2-0-2, 8pts, 2nd place Easyern Conf.) at Oakland Roots SC 2 (0-3-1, 1pt, 12th place Western Conf.)
Saturday, April 2, 10:00pm ET
Laney College Football Stadium, Oakland, CA
Watch: Stream the match on ESPN+ here.
Follow Along: Live updates on Twitter at @RowdiesGameday
The Tampa Bay Rowdies make their first trip out west of the season this Saturday as they travel to face Oakland Roots SC for the second time in club history. Tampa Bay and Oakland last met at Al Lang Stadium in September of last year, with the Rowdies claiming a 3-0 victory. This time around, the Roots are the ones with home field advantage. The trip to Oakland will be Tampa Bay’s first of three trips out west this season to face opposition from the USL’s Championship’s Western Conference.
Variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes, and it’s the same feeling for Rowdies Head Coach Neill Collins.
“I love it,” Collins said of the USL Championship’s regular-season format this year. “I think it’s good from the fan’s perspective, which is the most important perspective, but I think for coaches as well. We want variety, we want to test ourselves against as many of the team as possible.”
With this being Tampa Bay’s first ever trip out to Oakland, they’ll be stepping into a whole new playing environment. Oakland’s home venue, Laney College Football Stadium, implements an artificial turf system. After years of playing and coaching teams on different systems in North America, Collins has learned that not every artificial turf field is the same.
“From viewing it, it looks to play relatively well,” Collins said of Saturday’s venue. “Sometimes you watch a field and the way a ball is bouncing or moving, and straightaway it gives you concerns, but teams have really passed it well enough on that field. The only real concern I have is these fields are better when you get to know them, when you’re used to them. That’s the advantage of people that are on turf. It’s not so much because the surface is bad or good, it’s because they know it better, they know how the ball moves. Grass is generally more consistent with how the ball is going to move. We’re aware of it and we’ll adjust accordingly but I’ve seen enough of it to feel it won’t affect the outcome of the game.”
Now in its second season of competition in the USL Championship, Oakland has a new face leading from the sidelines, but one familiar to Rowdies fans. Former Rowdies midfielder Juan Guerra has taken on head coaching duties this season, following on from stints as assistant coach at Indy Eleven and Phoenix Rising FC. Guerra spent two seasons with the Rowdies, including the 2016 season when Collins first joined the club.
“This is a good test for us against a team that made the playoffs,” said Collins. “They’ve got a new coach, someone that we know well and that I played with at the Rowdies. It’s going to take time for him to get his ideas across, but they’re going to be a real tough challenge.”
Focus on the Mind in Tough Stretches
The Rowdies had a full week of training this week to prepare for Oakland but will face a grueling slate of fixtures in April. With six league matches, a US Open Cup match on Tuesday, and another potential Open Cup match later in the month coming up, the Rowdies will need to stay focused on their fundamentals to get through this tough stretch.
For Collins, coming out the other side of any busy run of matches on solid footing is more about protecting the players from mental fatigue rather than physical fatigue.
“From time to time you think we’ll give them a rest, but as players you generally don’t want that,” said Collins. “So we’re always monitoring. We’re mindful of the fatigue factor because they’re not robots. It’s more, for me, about trying to get them when they need a rest from a mental perspective more than a physical perspective. Of course you’ve got to be on top of the physical things, but it’s more mental when you’re traveling and playing a lot of games. It can become more mentally draining, so that’s what we’re trying to consider all the time.”
