Post-match: Vancouver Whitecaps FC - San Jose Earthquakes (Sunday, 7/22) postgame thread [R]

Yeah, no need to panic. The Quakes actually outplayed Vancouver for much of that game, on the road, and on the carpet.

But I do think the team needs to continue to look at ways to get better, both by acquisition and by just getting better with the players that they have. If they "stand pat" they will be overtaken by teams that are getting better. Vancouver is an example. Jury's still out whether their recent moves will make them better or not, but they were already in a playoff position when they made aggressive moves to try to improve. They looked pretty good for much of the game yesterday, and they've yet to really get their 3rd DP, Miller, fully integrated into their club. In fact they have a number of new players who are getting used to each other, and so they may be on a relatively steep improvement curve.

Quakes don't need a DP necessarily, but a few more quality players that can help. I kind of like the fact that there are clubs with two and three DPs and the DP-less Quakes are ahead of them all. It's not just about the money, but about being smart. And I think it gives the team a bit of a chip on its shoulder.

 

I thought Dawkins brought a welcome element being able to dribble and shoot and be a danger in an area where we usually aren't. But really in this game you see how it would be better if Cronin could cover DM duties, Dawkins was moved to AM, and we added a fast winger in Salinas out left.

It would be a gamble because Dawkins really has had poor passing and decision making lately.
He has missed a lot of through balls that were quite obvious and has lost possession in our defensive end by trying a trick when he could have had an easy lay-off.

So now, we have less defenders and will have to defend more. Our possession will go down without Baca unless Dawkins improves from how he has been this season. However our attack would be more multidimensional. With two wingers, we can still cross and blaze the sidelines just the same, and Dawkins could do some short combos/shots from an AM position.

In this particular game, it seems to me in retrospect that would have been a better choice.

 

He was excellent at ball watching.

 

Bad referee apologist extraordinaire.

 

Stats aren't everything of course, but while "ball watching" he led the team in successful passes (50), recoveries (9), and shots (4).

 

I basically think that Dawkins could acquire the AM role but he has to start being more responsible and taking risks at the right time and in the right context. He is noticeably more lazy off the ball than Baca too. I'm sure all these things are factors for Yallop.

 

Well then they stopped taking notes at the 70th minute because after that all did was ball watch and stand in the way.

 

Camillo is alone in front of goal, and taking one dribble to set up a point blank shot. What is Cronin supposed to do? He even did an exceptional job of pulling BOTH feet away when the touch was long. If you watch the slow mo replay on mlssoccer, the only possible contact from Cronin was from his left knee.

Camillo flopped to avoid damage to the knee? That's an interesting interpretation, given that Cronin was the one desperately trying to avoid contact and Camillo is deliberately dragging his right foot.

 

For the 2nd time all season.

Time to abandon this catastrophic left mid experiment.

 

Camillo only got the ball because of a freak deflection by Baca on a shot from outside the box.
Given that the Quakes outshot Vancouver 18-9 and didn't get any such deflections I'd say, yes, Vancouver was lucky.

Their only other threatening plays were when Morrow slipped and fell on his ass, or tried to cheat on a square ball and got burned by a through ball instead. He never actually got outrun by Richards.

 

I suspect we'll see

Ramiro Morrow Victor Jason

with Jason staying home and Ramiro spending a ton of time in the offensive end. Should be fine.

 

I'm not saying there wasn't fortune involved, I'm just saying that the Quakes could have done more offensively and didn't. Scoring on the road is difficult and Vancouver played very tough defensively. Sometimes the game just doesn't go your way. Maybe it's just me, but I always try to look inward after a disappointment rather than trying to blame it all away on something you can't control.

The truth of the matter is, the Quakes actually played pretty well, they just didn't do the things in the final third that they have done previously. I think that mostly has to do with the way Vancouver's defense played them, and partly on the way the Quakes tried to attack goal.

 

I'm not sure I like the looks of that. When is the last time Hernandez played out wide? I'd prefer keeping the middle pairing together for the sake of cohesiveness. I kind of look at formations like a body. The central positions on the field are the most important. It's where all of the direction gets dictated from and it benefits the most from being as much the same as possible. Changing the outside parts are a little less dangerous as they should play in accord with the center. Plus, the Quakes brought in Zayner because they wanted another wide defender in case something like this happened.

 

This is what annoys me most about Dawkins. When he loses the ball, he looks up and shrugs, sighs, something. "Oh darned! I had such a good idea there!" Whereas when Baca, Cronin, Chavez, or Shea (or Wondo, Gordon, or Lenny) lose the ball, they try to chase down whoever has it and get it back.

Checking the stats, it looks like Dawkins did better than I thought. I'll have to look again. I'm pretty sure he lost the ball more than once though.

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

Not a bad effort, but unfortunately, a couple of poor mistakes (Morrow and Busch) and one unlucky play (deflection which created the PK) led to the defeat. I'm surpised there are no comments on Busch's mistake on the first goal. I thought that it was a better effort than the game in Portland, but at times, the team was a little too disjointed. The biggest problem was the connection between midfield and forwards.

 

Attaboy, remind me what position you were playing again?

I was quoting the post about defense. I agree they played well. Better, in fact, than they did against Dallas, especially when you factor in that was a home game.

The things they did differently in the final third in the Dallas game were: Chavez hitting a miraculous one time volley from outside the box, someone convincing Brek Shea to handle in the box, and Gordon collecting a turnover and receiving a great diagonal ball from Cronin. Other than that, Dallas had eight shots on goal to our three.

 

Well then 1) 50 successful passes, 9 recoveries, and 4 shots in only 70 minutes is incredible! and 2) would have liked to have seen Salinas go in for Dawkins rather than Chavez - sure I'm not alone there. Frank seems reluctant to let Chavez to go 90 for some reason. Not sure why. I don't think he fades all that much.

 

no posts mentioning the ongoing conspiracy to make sure the MLS Cup Final isn't at Buck Shaw then ?

 

I know you're joking, and let me tell you, thank whoever you give your thanks to that I was not playing. I'm just talking about in general. It kinda gets on my nerves when fans bitch about the refs and this and that. I don't think it reflects well on your team s or sportsmanship as a whole to do that. We don't want to turn into the fan groups that we can't stand, do we?

I mention this in my write-up, which I'll post once I'm off work. But it's interesting that statistically, the Quakes were outplayed at home and won. This game, the Quakes outplayed Vancouver for the most part, but failed to capitalize. I think it's indicative of just how difficult it is to win on the road.

 

Also indicates that there's a sizable element of chance involved in the outcome. The team that performs better on the whole doesn't always win. Quakes have been on both sides of that of course. The positive for me is that there haven't been many games this year where I felt that the Quakes have really been outplayed. I can only think of a handful, and of those, the Quakes actually won 3 of them:

- The RSL match in SL (which the Quakes won)
- The KC game in KC
- The Dallas game at home (which the Quakes won)
- The Portland game in Portland
- The LA game in LA (which the Quakes won)

 

I blame myself, or my organization, when I think I deserve it.

I think it mostly had to do with Wankouver getting away with a ton of fouls. They decked our guys several times and we got no call for it. The foul on Gordon, where he got up limping and it took him a while to get going again comes to mind. There were a few others as well. It's not just one call. The Whitecraps earned at least one red card, maybe two, but they didn't get any.

Yeah, we could have been better. Yeah, we could have tried to hold possession more. But the bottom line is that the Whitecraps got a PK they shouldn't have gotten, and they should have had at least one red that they didn't get. That's a pretty big shift in the lay of the land.

GO QUAKES!!!

- Mark

 

I initially assumed it was a PK watching at game speed. However, watching again frame-by-frame, it appeared that on the PK the attacker was taking some short steps by the time Cronin's knee(? certainly not his feet) reached the attacker's ankle, and the ball was far ahead. What caught my attention was that at the moment contact would have been made by Cronin on the back leg, the Attacker's front leg was extending so it could bear the weight of the next step - and thus when the "contact" was made, it seemed to me that the attacker would have naturally fallen forward onto the extending front leg and thus complete the next step. However, instead of completing that next step (which would make sense if trying to maintain one's balance) the attacker reversed the direction of his lower leg and brought it back up so the Achilles would come towards the hamstring and thus ensure he would fall on his knee.

 

Translation: He dove.

 

As promised: http://sjsoccerseismograph.blogspot.com/2012/07/san-jose-v-vancouver.html

Took way longer that I wanted to put together, but hopefully it's alright.