4/3: Earthquakes @ Loss Angeles [R] All Discussion

First off, congrats on the return. I'm trying to learn more about MLS, so as I follow the league I'll be cheering for you guys this year. But only this year - come 2009, it's on.

That said, from a (mostly) neutral perspective, your attack looked really, really bad. Kamara looked like crap to me... way too much standing around, not enough runs into the box, zero dangerous chances. Or any chances. Glinton, only slightly better. Salinas wasn't bad, but isn't he supposed to be a winger? He looked like he'd be better out wide... nothing special from midfield, O'Brien kinda went invisible at times. The whole offense seemed really tentative. Hopefully/probably that changes as they all get used to playing with each other. Who's that Johnson guy? He had a nice run right after coming on...

You should go get Cunningham from Toronto, IMO. Beyond that, good luck in your home 'debut'... y'all might need it.

 

Re: Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that

Not suprised with the result but it was pretty painful to watch.

 

It was a goal!

 

who's denton?

 

We watched it couple of times on the hi-def and couldn't see any frame with contact with Kamara but it's not as if the television replay quality was acceptable for a professional match. Too interested in Beckham close-ups.

 

Well, atleast we didn't get a thrashing. What would have been more embarassing is if LA succumbed to an expansion team!

We obviously need to work hard on our offense---our midfielders were ok but without a recipient of a service, what can they do?

What I can't get understand is that, we weren't really pressuring LA? I mean, are we afraid of fouling Becks? Becks has played in tougher and more physical leagues, he can take a tackle or two (as long as it is clean and no intention to hurt).

 

Re: Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that

robbed of the first goal..............and why didn't the camera show (what looked to be) the large section of earthquake fans......the camera was on them for about 1/2-second and then spun around and they went to a different shot.............it's so clear that MLS golden child is the Galaxy that it's sickening...

 

Re: Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that

maby if the first goal had counted it might have set a different mood, but otherwise it was pretty bad, the guys couldn't control that ball, probably nerves. ..but the fallacy are such crap, this doesn't bode too well, we could of used a Cardoso at least... why does Toronto FC get Laurent Robert??

{I hope you guys aren't thinking 'huh?' }

 

And I must say, I liked what I saw in Garcia tonight. Very mature and worthy of being a Captain. Not sure about any errors he made (I was in and out of the house while watching) but he behaved himself. He was a touch defender in KC and a bit rough but I didn't see any of that tonight.

 

First Impression of the game (before reading anyone else's comments)

I'll post my first impressions of the game before reading anyone else's comments to avoid a "group think" mentality. I watched this game at a sports bar without any sound, so you might know things I don't at this time.

LA's line-up: I thought LA did the right things needed to neutralize our speed. They seemed to have the faster defenders on the field, didn't play a high line, so we didn't have the 1-on-1 we could have. I still think we (San Jose) would have been better off with X on the field and a team that didn't lose 4-0 a few days ago. Arrogant LA prima-donna waiting for the ball are better for us than seeing Donovan and Bechkam actually playing defense.

Our line-up: I like the idea of Kamara and Salinas starting. I think it almost worked. What I didn't like was not "man marking" Beckham out of the game. I thought we would have been better off playing 2 d-mids and having one of them "shadow Beckham". "Beckham's shadow" should never have been more then 10 yards from him, and should be trying to piss him off, not asking for his autograph. We would have been better off playing 10 v. 10 with Beckham marked out of the game. I would have chosen Vide to do that, and maybe taken Grabavoy out of the game to do it.

San Jose's first goal: I didn't have access to the audio, but on both replays that goal looked valid to me.

LA's first goal: Where the f*ck was Beckham's marker? We should know that all of LA's goals will involve either Beckham or Donovan. Since Donovan is faster, and Beckham is better with pin-point passes we need to mark Beckham out of the game and make it 10 v. 10.

LA's second goal: Perhap Cannon should have stayed in goal and let Cochrane deal with Donovan. Hind-sight is 20/20 though.

Good: Salinas and Kamara did well in the first half and everything except taking shots on goal. They were very dangerous regardless in the first half. I thought Riley did a nice job containing Donovan. He made some nice runs down the side, we should get him the ball more so he can try and cross it in.

Bad: The mantra of the second half should have been, "just shoot dammit". Cronin was weak and scared and we never really tested him. He was bound to make a mistake if we had.

LA played with more heart then we did. They pressured all over the field better. I wish it were possible to channel all this anger we San Jose fans have into our players on the field. For us this isn't just another game. We want blood. I only recall seeing a few slide tackles. That to me indicates the lack of intensity in our players.

What we still need:

I think we still need a "target forward" that can hold the ball and get on the end of crosses and another "a-mid". At times in the 2nd half I was frustrated what appeared to be a low work-rate from Grabavoy. I want everyone on the field pressure the ball. Also don't recall seeing off the ball runs, but some times it is hard to tell on TV without a full view of the field.


Regardless of all this. I'm loving the fact we have a team back. Next time kick LA's ass.

 

Eric Denton

 

For those who thought ROB disappeared...

It seemed to me that he made himself available several times only to have his teammates send the ball elsewhere. When he did get the ball, many of his passes resulted in turnovers, but they usually looked like dangerous passes to me, and they were usually relatively close to the LA 18, so the turnovers weren't that bad. You know - risky, and we lost the ball, but the sort of risk one has to take in order to create a shot/goal.

Otherwise, we hustled a LOT. It seemed to me that we were just a bit too eager to run hard, and we'd run ourselves right out of shape. On the other hand, several times we were able to win the ball doing that.

I'd like to see the team work on keeping possession a bit more. I felt like I was watching video game soccer at times, as soon as we got the ball we pressed forwarded and attacked - usually very directly (though I remember one sequence in the first half when we took it down the left, worked it back, then took it down the right side - don't remember if it turned into a corner or a goal kick, but...).

We can't fix all the problems at once. I'd like to see us just address three issues:
---#1: team shape.
---#2: keep better possession (even if it means constantly passing back & around the horn).
---#3: more variation in attack; longball, short passes up the middle, work it down the side, press forward, pull back switch to the other side, blah, blah, blah.


...I was at a bar though - distracted at times - are these impressions really that far off?

 

Re: Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that

the first goal would have changed everythinggggggggg.

it would have crushed LA's hopes, and couldve given cochrane confidence.

back on topic:
i was pretty chill. if this was two years ago... i would have thrown something at my tv. hahah. jk. [i think =X]

i really was just happy to see us back on the field. but 1st half was better than 2nd.

anyone notice that yallop used his 3 subs by the 80th minute? he's still rotating people around, ya know?

lets just hope that we can make some results this season.....

 

I think the issue is though that first we have to address that all eleven players play hard and hustle and nobody stands around and assumes someone else will do the defending or the running. And then we address the issue that players need to be strong on the ball. We don't have anyone technically gifted enough to claim they're entitled to fall over upon any contact. Those have to come before your 3 points will even matter.

 

the broadcast was so pro LA it was sickening......MLS (along with ESPN) has appointed the Galaxy the golden child....and when it appeared the camera was set to show a large group of earthquake fans they spun the camera around and then went to a different shot.........

 

Thread merged with "Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that". Keep all talk about the game in this thread, and don't start threads that imply the way the game ended.

 

First off let me say the scum totally deserved the win, but who knows what would have happened to the confidence of both teams had that early perfectly legimate goal been allowed. BTW, a certain Jose Corres (anyone remember the stolen goal in the Chivas game in 2005?) was assistant ref again tonight, not sure if it was he who called it offside though. One thing for sure, we are back and we will witness the most patethic officiating in the world again. But the reason LA have 3 points is just plain and simple that we sucked. Bad bad mistakes were made all over the field. ROB doesn't seem to know how to run with the ball any more, or pass it forward. Did we really get the real ROB?

Kamara, Salinas, Glinton have no first touch, and never seem to be running into dangerous positions. Grabavoy is ineffective. I can't see us getting many scoring chances at all from any of these players so looks like it'll be a long season if he don't bring in some starter level talent soon. Overall our first touch in the LA half of the field let usa down badly.

Hernadez got torched by the combination of Becks and Klein on the left side.
On the bright side, I though Riley, Ramiro, Guerrero and Garcia played reasonably well.

Cochrane had a howler of a night, it was almost like his disallowed goal changed his destiny for the night, imagine if he'd started 2008 with a goal? He gifted LA the first goal and really should have knocked the ball away on the second. Cannon also goofed on the second, he had no chance to win theat ball. He should've stayed on his line and shouted at Ryan to hurry up and just kick that f$ckin ball away.

I'm disappointed, not so much that we lost, but at how poorly we played. Maybe all those screaming teenage girls got to the Quakes like sueaky chalk on a blackboard, they certainly annoyed me.

I haven't really been expecting us to start the season strongly though, 3 of our first 4 games are on the road with the other in Oakland (i consider this a road trip and wish they played all games down here.) When we get to Buck Shaw, hopefully we'll settle and have a few more players signed.

 

I thought thought that Grabavoy created a void and Corrales and Guerrero had to pull into the middle to cover for him. That meant that Salinas and Kamara had to pull back and play wingers which left nobody in the box.

In my opinion, we need to get a creative midfielder ASAP. Then our wingers can play on the wings and not have to worry about the central midfield.

 

For those who saw the Charleston Challenge Cup, we played a lot more like we did against Toronto (1-0 win) then we did against NYRB (3-0 win). Grabavoy struggled a bit in that game too, we one by converting a set peice and playing good defense. In this one our set piece goal was disallowed, and our defense made too many mistakes.

 

Re: Was anyone really surprised??? Lighten up guys it was our first game, take solace in that

I was wondering why there were no shots of the Quake Fans at the game, figured they had a couple of rude signs or something.

 

My points for tonight:

-All of our first touches were horrible. They'd receive a pass and the ball would go flying to the nearest LA player.
-Cochrane had a horrible game. Both goals were on him in my opinion.
-Kamara, the guy, I don't know, he just doesn't have it. He rushes and nothing ever comes good off of his foot.
-Los Angeles looked good, lets face it .
-Too many lob passes. You don't want those being sent to the key, the defense is just too tight there.


Overall, even if we are an expansion team, I still consider this a failure. We could have scored but seems we gave up after Beckham put it in. We had a decent 2nd half but they should have played like that all game like they are supposed to.

 

Well, we're in for a long season... the LA goals were just a total breakdown in defense... the guys played like an expansion team and it showed... just pass, pass, pass, and pass...

Obviously the Becks goal is going to be highlighted all over the papers and on SportsCenter just because...

Looking in the greater scope of things, at least the team is back but they look more like the 2000 edition than the 2001/2003 version... I guess we can put up with another long season...

Speaking of which, they did show a lot of the Ultras during the NE/Chicago game so cred to them...

And given how Chicago fared against New England, expect the blackshirts to play more like the soccer pylons than a competitive team but no fault for trying... :\