I’m a pretty light hearted person, and when I started my soccer blog this season, it was my intent to keep things upbeat and look at the lighter side of the San Jose Earthquakes season as viewed from the bleachers among the fans at Buck Shaw stadium. The Quakes were coming off a glorious comeback playoff win against the New York Red Bulls and a narrow defeat in the conference championship game to the eventual champions, the Colorado Rapids.
The fans started in an optimistic frame of mind, and despite a loss to RSL in the opener under apocalyptical rain, we felt the team played well. We’ve gone from deluge to drought in just six games and, after a loss to a ten-man Philadelphia Union it’s getting ever more difficult to find anything positive to say about the team’s fortunes.
Frank Yallop rolled out a drastically new line up: Philadelphia native Bobby Convey was out, along with team captain Ramiro Corrales, Khari Stephenson, Ryan Johnson and Sam Cronin. In last week’s diary entry I highlighted how the leadership and commitment of Bay Area native and Quakes forward Chris Wondolowski might one day earn him the captain’s armband. Well, it happened much sooner that I thought and he was awarded the captaincy over Jason Hernandez, who is the usual back up to Corrales. I don’t know how last minute this decision was, but the front office tweeted it would be Hernandez as skipper just minutes before the game.
Up front Yallop stuck with Sealy (at which I continued to shake my head) and added new signing Steven Lenhart up front for his first start. I was hoping that Lenhart’s mustache had been cursed and its removal this week would end the drought. To complete the new look Ampaipitakwong, Burling and Morrow, who all had good outings for the reserve squad last week, were included at midfield and defense respectively.
For neutral viewers the game will be most memorable for the two questionable decisions by the referee: the red card in the 41st minute and the penalty decision in the 75th minute. The red card came in the 41st minute when Jordan Harvey stamped on Chris Leitch’s stomach, and Leitch was lucky not to get a card himself when he retaliated. After this, and the tetchiness between McDonald and the Philly goalkeeper Mondragon, the game had become chippy enough for me to consider battering some fish for my half time snack.
The Quakes went into the second half with the man advantage and should have been able to capitalize offensively against ten men. To Philadelphia’s credit they continued to push forward, but it was (in my opinion) a soft penalty awarded to the Union for the winning goal – Hernandez was defending and adjudged to have handled the ball; it was more like ball to hand and completely unintentional and unavoidable.
Although the Quakes effort was much improved over last week’s loss to Chivas, the level of possession and accurate passing is still not as high as I know it can be; I saw it in the home opener, and I just hope they can remember where they left their shooting boots. I am hopeful that today’s more effective defensive efforts will be maintained – Morrow, in his first MLS start particularly impressed; he played solidly and wasn’t outpaced.
As I write, Timber Joey is just firing up his chainsaw after Kenny Cooper’s goal for the Timbers tonight against RSL. I’m a little more hopeful that this week’s Quakes qualifier at Portland in the US Open Cup won’t reduce the log to a pile of sawdust. Whether or not the Quakes will be offensive enough (as it were) to carry them to the next round remains to be seen.
Full match report at the new look Center Line Soccer here.
This blog is also posted at MLS_UK in the Eurosnob-free blog at www.majorleaguesocceruk.com
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