The team is hoping to not only fill the void left from the city’s departing sports franchises, but to become part of the community

Devante Dubose’s soccer career took him across the world before it took him home. The 26-year-old is the first player to sign for Oakland Roots Sports Club, a new team hoping to spark a soccer revolution in Oakland, his hometown.

The Roots will play their first game on 31 August and have applied to join the National Independent Soccer Association, the third tier of professional soccer in the US. It’s a humble start, but Dubose thinks it can help Oakland recover from a painful loss. Two of its three famous sports franchises, the Golden State Warriors basketball team and the Raiders football team, are leaving or have just left the city.

“It’s a huge opportunity for myself,” he says. “I think it’s an opportunity for Oakland as well. The change that’s been happening in the Bay Area the last 5 to 10 years – Oakland is moving in a different direction, some would say it’s forgotten who it was. But I see it as an opportunity when soccer comes through, to add to the diversity that’s already here. Having this organization in Oakland is huge for people of color.”

The Roots’ ambitions include ascending to Major League Soccer (MLS), the top-ranked league in the US, as well as opening an academy to train local kids and starting a women’s team. But first they have to establish a soccer club in a city more commonly associated with throwing balls than kicking them.

Oakland prides itself on being a city of art, music and activism. It is also one of the most diverse in the US, and Oakland’s immigrant population includes vociferous soccer fans who flock to see teams like the semi-professional CD Aguiluchos USA club, which has big ties in the Salvadoran community.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Héctor Benjamín “Benji” Joya Jiménez, Yohannes Harish, Devante Dubose and Julio Cervantes debut the Oakland Roots SC jerseys. Photograph: Oakland Roots SC

But the landscape is bleaker when it comes to professional soccer. The San Jose Earthquakes, 40 miles south of Oakland, are the only MLS club in northern California. The Sacramento Republic, of the United Soccer League (USL) the second pro-league in the US, is 80 miles to the north-east. Despite some semi-pro teams and strong youth clubs, the pathway for talented players from junior soccer to the pros is fragmented.

As a kid, Dubose saw many good players fall through the cracks of this disjointed system. His own path is typical of many soccer-playing youngsters in the US. He started out with junior clubs near his home in the East Bay and traveled for hours to play with stronger clubs as his talent grew. A member of his high school track team, he was rarely beaten for speed on the soccer field. By 18, he had a reputation as one of the quickest, and most promising, defenders on the West Coast.

He was also racing to step out of his father’s shadow: Doug Dubose was a Super Bowl winner with the San Francisco 49ers in 1988.

Devante Dubose was recruited by Virginia Tech and, after graduation, was drafted to MLS by the San Jose Earthquakes in 2014. But his time at the Quakes did not go well.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Devante Dubose, an Oakland native, played with the San Jose Earthquakes in 2014. Photograph: Sajad Mojaddedi/Oakland Roots SC

Dubose was cut from the first team roster after a couple of months and then released completely in July 2014 after playing for their development squad. Since then, he has had an itinerant career at teams across the US and Norway, and, in darker moments, has thought about quitting the sport altogether. But the prospect of building a soccer club in his hometown has galvanized him.

The Roots’ social media is full of cultural references to the city and Bay Area artists and musicians, such as K-Dub, SOB X RBE and G-Eazy. In a video announcing his signing, Dubose juggles a soccer ball in front of the towering port terminal cranes that dominate the West Oakland skyline. Behind him a sports car drifts and screeches.

The club’s logo is a silhouette of an oak tree, the town’s emblem. Social media blew up when Damian Lillard, a Portland Trail Blazers point guard and one of Oakland’s most famous sons, was pictured wearing a Roots t-shirt before a playoff game against the Warriors earlier this year.

“When you make something about the community, the community will not turn their back on you,” says Edreece Arghandiwal, Roots co-founder and CMO. “They will lift you up in times of difficulty.”

His club will need every bit of the community’s support if it is to succeed.

When you make something about the community, the community will not turn their back on you

The history of soccer in the Bay Area, and the US more broadly, is full of teams that have fallen trying to reach its upper echelons. The San Francisco Deltas are the most famous local example. In 2017, they won the National American Soccer League in their debut season. But less than two weeks later, with club owners citing a lack of funds, the team folded.

The Deltas drew a 10,000 plus crowd to their championship game but average attendances in the regular season were around 2,500. Saalih Muhammad, 24, a member of the Deltas squad, remembers them as a team that promised much but ultimately failed to build the support necessary to sustain a professional club in a city like San Francisco. The soccer was good, but players and fans were left frustrated.

“It was definitely tough for me,” says Muhammad, 24, a member of the Deltas squad and now a midfielder for New Mexico United. “It was like, ‘What the hell?’ It was pretty crazy.”

Unlike nearly every other soccer nation, the US league system is closed: Teams can apply for entry to higher leagues but there is no guarantee that on-field success will lead to progress through the system. Trying to establish a professional club in such an environment is tough. And for players, the landscape can be equally inhospitable.

Dubose remembers coaches coming to visit him and his mother before he started college. This was standard recruitment practice, but it felt like the visitors weren’t just selling their schools but also checking out his background. Coming from Oakland carried connotations, he believes. “Coaches flew out here and ate at my table to make sure that I didn’t have any of the internal issues,” Dubose says. “They knew my talent was there because of my physical aspect, but they wanted to see what environment I was in.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Oakland Roots Sports Club has a goal of ascending to Major League Soccer. Photograph: Oakland Roots SC

In the future, Dubose wants to change perceptions that might still be hindering talented young players. “Imagine if these club and college coaches knew how to get and cultivate African American kids,” he says. “I think this is just really the beginning, but ultimately if people are scared, a lot of people are falling through the cracks.”

As the Roots kickoff draws near, Dubose is fantasizing about what the team could achieve. “I have literally had dreams about what it is going to look like when our stadium is full,” he says. In his imaginings, there are players from the Bay Area, kids who have come up through the Roots academy, being cheered on by crowds as passionate as those at a Raiders or a Warriors game.

“Those crowds, those communities are what Oakland is,” he says. “I think it will be an energy you can just feel.”

For more on The Roots, check out Max Brimelow’s video.