Socceroos find a World Cup home base, in the city that pro sports left behind

It is September 26, 2024. The Major League Baseball season has just come to a close for the Athletics franchise. Their stadium full to the brim, the players stand in the diamond to salute the fans.

Team Manager Mark Kotsay addresses the crowd: “To the staff who dedicated their lives to this team, I am forever grateful and I will never forget you. Everyone who has worn that green and gold, there is no one better than you guys,” he said.

Kotsay, a California native and former major league outfielder for the team, is saying farewell to the city of Oakland. Home of the MLB’s Athletics for the past 57 years.

He closes proceedings by making sure the local fans have the last word: “I ask you one more time: for the best chant in baseball. LET’S GO OAKLAND! LET’S GO OAKLAND!”

What had just happened was unique in North American pro sports. The City of Oakland having previously held a team in all four of the major leagues across ice hockey, basketball, American football and now baseball, would move into the future with none. Enter: the Socceroos.

The void left wide open for sports fans, may have been filled though, by the beautiful game. Enter American second tier side Oakland Roots. Founded in 2019, they used this pent-up emotion from the A’s exit in particular to go on a global fan and celebrity investment drive in 2023.

Having obtained ownership of the former NFL training facility used by the similarly departed Raiders, as well as paying to become primary tenant of the famous Oakland Coliseum, the same ground used by the Athletics and Raiders on match day.

Worth noting Australia also gained a relationship with Oakland, when the coliseum became home to the San Francisco Unicorns cricket franchise, another way the famous venue kept up appearences, with many famous Australians calling the venue home.

Of course, what has been especially meaningful in the rise of the USL, America’s second tier and its ambitious clubs is their ability to have maintained a really high level of infrastructure, and the purchase of the former Raiders facility is where this comes in handy for the Roots as a club.

The former Raiders facility in Alameda was purchased by the Roots in 2025 (Alameda Post)

They along with cricket’s Unicorns aim to build more permanent homes across the San Francisco Bay, but their hub in Oakland will only become more important, and its place at the World Cup also becomes very fitting with this overall ambition in mind.

The training facility, with it’s installed boutique soccer pitches, placement a stone’s throw from the local airport and pleasant location at the Eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay, moving seaward from the Pacific Ocean is ideallic by any measure.

With that in mind, Football Australia will call the venue home for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Enriching the sporting public of Oakland, the Roots as a club, and of course, it’s chances at the tournament.

The cultral significance of this for the local area cannot be celebrated enough, it is a fantastic choice of venue, but it’s relevance to Australia given the draw is worthy of a deep dive as well.

The obvious gambit lies with matchday 3 against Paraguay, where the Socceroos play out of Santa Clara’s San Francisco Bay Stadium about an hour out of Oakland.

With an ever ambitious target of winning Group D, Australia will then look to have a round of 32 clash at the same venue, being primed far better than potential opponents, travel at that point completely negligable in a compeition criticised for it’s long distance proximity between major venues.

With a more realistic look at just the group stage in mind, the mammoth matchday 2 clash against the USA will be in Seattle, and the team’s opening affair will be further north in the Canadian Pacific coast city of Vancouver.

The East Bay’s location is the furthest North of the available options in California as well, something that comes in handy with flight times to Seattle especially quick.

The border hop to Canada is perhaps unique and more of a challenge, but with the prolonged jeopardy of a matchday 2 and 3 being very well contained Australia will have no real complaints on fitness and conditioning, the main argument against the tournament minimised to the utmost degree.

As for Oakland itself, having the World Cup on its soil is an inherently healthy thing. This is a town that has always taken pride in its underdog status and rag-tag image being able to host the equally unfancied Australian team is a cultral fit unlike any other.

This clash of culture and the otherwise hectic schedule contained, I think we all have a right to be promised by a decent turnout when the going gets tough this June.

One of the main reasons Australia performed so well at the 2022 World Cup was the direct advantage gained by being based out of the Aspire academy.

There is no reason why a home in the East Bay cannot provide a similar spark, and help us make another summer of memories to come.