Socceroos are a long way from home but have a special Oakland connection

When Oakland left back Jesus De Vicente scored an Olympico in the Roots’s two-nil win over the Las Vegas Lights on the weekend, you would have been forgiven for thinking that was the highlight of his week.

But the Spaniard had another moment that brought his soccer journey full circle.

“I was around for one of the practices and I was able to meet Mathew, Matty Ryan,” De Vicente said.

“He plays for Levante and I’m from Valencia, so it’s in the same city and I’m a Valencia [who Ryan played for] fan, so I know of him.

“We live close by and my mum, she works with the medical services at his club. So they’ve worked together before.

“He’s such a great human being and professional and I’ve been able to talk to him and meet him. It’s fantastic. So that was just a great experience, and something that I’ll remember for a long time for sure.”

While the Socceroos and Roots players don’t cross paths often, as the club juggles the demands on its facility of having a visiting team, Vicente has had the chance to learn from the Australians.

“It’s so difficult to be selected to a roster for a World Cup, and you just look at them and you’re like, respect, how much work they’ve been through, their families, and even as a professional too,” he said.

“Basically you just finish the season. They have no vacation, they have families, they have kids, and they come here to represent their country.

“How much you need to take care of your body through your career, that’s something that you, for me, is what struck the most when I watched them and met them.”

Spain is one of the favourites for the World Cup, along with Argentina and England, but Vicente has a soft spot for the Socceroos.

The grass tasked with launching a World Cup

When the Socceroos arrived in California to ramp up their World Cup campaign, they knew they were getting a top-flight training centre to prepare at.

The Oakland Roots and Soul Sports Club is the home to the Roots men’s side and Soul women’s side in the United States second-tier soccer competition.

It’s also the former home of the Raiders NFL franchise before it departed Oakland for Las Vegas in 2020.

But what the Australian players may not have known is that the exquisite surface they train on has a homegrown touch.

“I’m ecstatic that out of all the teams that are available to come into these … base camp training facilities, to have my own country practise here, it’s a great level of pride for me,” said Marc Logan, whose company oversees the playing surface at the training facility.

“It was like winning the lotto.

“There is a little bit of Australia in this field. We use a product called Mineral Magic, which is mined out of north-west Western Australia, and we put it in there.

“Literally, the boys are playing on a little bit of magic. Aussie magic.”

Logan has spent 40 years in turf management, with 27 of those in California curating golf courses and sporting fields, and he’s boiled it down to a fine art.

It has allowed the Oakland Roots and Soul to rent their training base to other international sides as well as NFL teams for their summer camps.

And while every sport has a different impact on the grass, Logan and his team know how to help it recover.

“We look at the clipping yields, we measure it, we look at all the things that we need to do to maximise recovery,” he said.

“We have a formula that basically the amount of play that the fields get, we look at what that is and then we put the appropriate inputs in to get the recovery so that we can keep the fields in top condition.”

The Oakland facility is a blend of couch and rye grasses that thrive in the consistent weather of northern California.

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