Owain Evans

Schantz expresses concern over ‘velcroed’ Oakland pitch

It’s the day before Rising travels to face Oakland Roots, and Phoenix coach Rick Schantz still has questions about the stadium and playing surface that his side will find on arrival.

“We don’t know where we’re playing,” Schantz said. “That’s a good start. It’s a brand new field. From what I understand, it’s six pieces of turf that are 75 yards by 20 yards, so that’s six strips across the field velcroed together on a platform. What it was described to me from a Sacramento guy was that it’s like playing on a gymnastics floor, and it’s got some give to it so it should be interesting.

“I know that USL’s had a referee look at it a couple times the last few days. Installation was supposed to be completed last night. So the first thing we’ll do when we get to Oakland today is I’m going to take the team and myself, we’re going to go right from the airport on the bus straight to the stadium to walk the pitch so we can at least understand what we’re getting ourselves into. But sometimes the good news is that they haven’t had a lot of time on that field either, and they’re not used to it, so being the first team to play there might not be the worst case scenario.”

Oakland is set to return to it’s Laney College home for the first time since its match against Sacramento Republic was abandoned due to the turf field being deemed unplayable by match and league officials. Since then, the club has installed new turf while playing at Las Positas College.

However, Schantz expressed concern over the fact that the field was being velcroed together, adding to his desire to examine it prior to Wednesday.

“All I know is, there have been a lot of fields that I’m not happy with and we’ve played on them,” Schantz said. “As long as USL and PRO referees deem the field safe, and they shouldn’t put the decision in my hands, but I’ll go out there and I’ll have my own thoughts and concerns on it obviously. There’s a lot of people that have to be responsible in the fields that these guys play on.

“I think it’s important for the players to see it, to be able to sleep on it and understand what’s expected of them the next evening.”

Schantz dismissed talk of pre-planned rotation for Wednesday’s match, although did say that the team is taking two additional players to the game because the team will not return home prior to Saturday’s clash in Las Vegas. However, he does expect to adopt a more pragmatic gameplan than the attacking show put on in Phoenix in May.

“If we’re playing at Laney College, there might be 7,000 or 8,000 fans and on a difficult surface, every amount of adversity that we can possibly face, this is where our guys have to show that their talent and work ethic can get them through something like this,” Schantz said. “I know they’re focused, and they don’t want to ruin… they’re on a good run right now and they don’t want to ruin that.”

Rising faces Oakland Roots at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, live on ESPN2.

Want to hear more? Preview Wednesday’s game with a bonus midweek Rising Matchday – streaming at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning on YouTube and Facebook, and available on demand shortly after.