What has been on the soccer webs is now official. The Roots will have their NISA swan song with the Fall Tournament in the Detroit area, and then switch to the USL Championship for next year. With the departure of the Warriors back to San Francisco and the Raiders once again leaving town for Las Vegas, the Roots along with the baseball Athletics are the only major teams in Oakland.
We will let Doug Zimmerman of the Beautiful Blog’s article do the talking. In addition with the advent of the Roots move, the Concord/Walnut Creek USL team is all but dead. Our take is that while we would have loved the Roots to remain in NISA, for the sake of their long term future a move to the USL Championship may be to their benefit. While we hope some other team can take over the Bay Area NISA spot, we hope the Roots will thrive and succeed in the East Bay. Instead of Detroit City, Chattanooga, and the Cosmos to name the new rivalries will include Sacramento until they join MLS (or if they choose to field a reserve USL team to continue their tenure), Reno, and the Portland, LA Galaxy, and Seattle (Tacoma) B-teams. 2021 tickets and schedule information will be announced at a future date.