American football team

Oakland Roots

Club · United States · USL Championship

«The Roots»

218 Matches

72 wins

56 draws

90 losses

275–316 Goals

−41 Difference

1.3 Scored per game

Form D L D W D L

The rivalry the Roots have most to show for came in a final they lost. In the 2020 NISA fall championship they met Detroit City FC and went down 2:1. That remains the furthest the Roots have gone in a competition.

The club exists because two men from Oakland, Edreece Arghandiwal and Benno Nagel, put it together in July 2018. The football followed a year later, in the National Independent Soccer Association.

The Roots took the Western Conference in that same 2020 season, then moved up to the USL Championship in 2021 and reached the play-offs at the first attempt, losing a conference semi-final to Orange County SC on penalties. They made the play-offs again in 2022 and went out in the opening round to San Antonio FC. Nothing since.

Home has been Laney College Football Stadium — the Dr Bill Riley Stadium — since the beginning, a college ground on the edge of downtown that holds 5,500 once the standing areas are counted. It is a tight, loud room by the standards of the second tier, and the club has outgrown it: as of 2025 the Roots are working towards a move to the Oakland Coliseum, the ground the city's other teams walked away from.

They play in black at home and white away, with gold, green and red picked out on the trim. No supporters' nickname has stuck; the press settles for The Roots.

The Coliseum they are aiming at seats roughly ten times what Laney does.

Latest results

All matches

13 Sep	USL Championship	Lexington H	1:4	L
30 Aug	USL Championship	Orange County SC H	1:1	D
23 Aug	USL Championship	San Antonio FC A	1:0	W
16 Aug	USL Championship	Monterey Bay H	1:1	D
9 Aug	USL Championship	El Paso Locomotive A	0:1	L
6 Aug	USL Championship	Las Vegas Lights A	0:0	D