Sacramento Republic suffer from ‘too many off nights’ vs. Orange County SC

Sacramento Republic have only conceded two goals in three games this season. Unfortunately, on Saturday one of those goals allowed was very costly.

Chris Wehan scored the winning goal in the 1st half for Orange County SC, as that goal was enough to beat Republic FC 1-0 in OCSC’s home opener of the season.

No team wants to let in goals, of course, but Sac Republic, which only had two shots on target all night, knew their shortcomings in the game really came on the attacking side of the ball.

“I just don’t think we created enough. I don’t think we’re clinical enough. I don’t think we put enough balls in the box. It’s great to have possession, but possession doesn‘t win you games,” head coach Mark Briggs said after the match.

Midfielder Fatai Alashe entered the game in the second half, and while he said the defense could have done better on the night, he agreed that the attack was lacking that special something on the road.

“We just needed to be a little bit sharper on our final pass or our final action to create more chances and more goalscoring opportunities,” he said.

Sacramento are now 2W-1L-0D on the season, so the result is disappointing but they are still in solid shape through their first three games, with games in hand on many of their Pacific Division foes.

“Obviously, it’s a difficult result,” said Alashe. “Never want to lose games, you know, even on the road, tough opponent, but they think we’re disappointed to not get more from the game. I think we struggled a little bit to play like our style and to impose our will on the game. But I think we have a lot that we can take from the game, both positive and negative, think we had good moments and controlling the game.”

But while Orange County played a solid game themselves and are expected to be a contender this season as well, the overall sense from Sac Republic was that they left an opportunity on the table, ultimately.

“Too many players had off nights, just felt like we weren’t quite there. We’re never quite there. And we didn’t create enough opportunities. It was disappointing,” said Briggs.

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