Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Houston Dynamo (Saturday, 4/14) postgame thread [R]

That doesn't mean that he can almost never win a 50/50 ball. A 50/50 ball is a 50/50 ball. Doesn't matter if you're isolated or not. It's you battling against an opponent for the ball (the plays I have in mind were 1v1 - he wasn't doubled in those instances).

 

This is on Stahre IMO. His philosophy is to play quick counters. There is no priority on possession. His post mortem on the game in Philly is that they played too many backpasses and didn't play it forward fast enough, and therefore didn't get it to the final 30-40 yards enough. That was the reason to go with 4-3-3. It was a doubling down of the quick counterattack, making it even more direct.

So there are two ways to take Hyka's comment. When he says they are "afraid of holding the ball" is that because they are coached to hold it, but they are afraid to, or are they coached to play it forward quickly with high risk / high reward passes (i.e. coached to not hold onto it, or to get rid of it very quickly). I think it's the latter. That would also explain all of the unsuccessful passes from Jackson earlier in the game. He had been coached to play it forward quickly with long / medium high risk / high reward passes. That's my theory anyway. He is usually more tidy with the ball.

Interestingly enough, this is the first game this year I think where the Quakes wound up having >50% possession. I think part of that is that Houston also plays quick counters. But they were just much better at executing it.

BTW, the past couple of home games have been about as bad as the Quakes have played at home since Avaya opened. Even in 2015, Dom's first year, they usually played well at home. There have been a few bad games, but generally they are one-offs and the next game is fine.

 

Right now we're Stahre's little jigsaw puzzle. I'm happy he's experimenting to find the right combination. That's his job, but it is nice to see how quickly he addresses things. It was an interesting look...having to burn Flo at RB so Lima could cover Elis at LB. Tough for Quintana...a howler of a game in the second half.

Were the TV peeps calling it a 4-3-3...played more like a 4-5-1.

Vako had a poor game. Hyka was a breath of fresh air with his willingness to combo pass. Strange seeing Godoy playing so high up...running as high and sometimes past Danny. I guess the FO is all in on Godoy...he was Captain for the game. I was hoping it would have been Flo.

Yueill and Alashe started the game nervy, passing was way off, but they turned it around. Alashe had a monster game defensively...a lot of critical stops where we'd get punished if he doesn't make the play. Nick played very well overall. Vako kind of dogged it tracking his guy...which caused a bad situation for Lima...briefly froze Lima's attention. Elis, who has world class speed, got the drop on him. Lima's seam splitting pass to Danny at the end of the first half was stellar.I thought sure Danny would get separation to take the shot.

Afolter was okay...probably a better option than Cummings.

Everything about that game showed we're a work in progress...

 

Danger was I think. I'd say it nets out to something in-between, like 4-3-2-1.

 

Quakes were lucky not to lose, this could have been 4-2...

Battling back for a point is nice, but a 1.0 PPG after 5 games (three at home) is just bad. There are two teams below us in the west right now: the Timbers just played their first home game because of stadium construction, and the Sounders are a big money team that could completely redo their roster over the summer and leapfrog over us. I'd feel better if the Rapids were down there, but their new coach has them getting 1.6 PPG!

Stahre hasn't done a great job getting guys like Yueill, Hyka, etc. minutes. Given how little Yueil and Thompson have played for the Quakes, you'd think they would at least be getting some games for Reno, but they're not (if this is up to date, Calvillo has 3, Felipe 2, Wehan and Marie 1). But then Yueill did improve after the assist, so maybe it was an issue of confidence and not rust...

It looked like a 4-1-4-1 to me...

 

You are not being fair when you characterize them as 50/50 balls. They aren't that. They are, at best, 70/30 balls. When you are trying to run forward with a ball traveling generally in the same direction as you, trying to locate it and bring it down is monumentally more difficult than watching that same ball from the opposite direction and moving in to play it.

A true 50/50 ball is like a botched clearance that goes straight up into the air. Outside of that, there really is no such thing. It's a cute naming convention used to get young player to fight for balls they might win despite the realistic chances of them actually winning it. It's a ploy to get them to work hard throughout the match. Also, it's not as if any of the other players are good at winning headers, either, so why is Hoesen getting the brunt of the criticism for it? Wondolowski is garbage at it, the midfield is bad at it. The only player who is any good at it at all is Amerikwa.

My point was more that the team asks too much of Hoesen. He has to defend high, he has to track down badly played long balls, he has to track back to the midfield when the team is under heavy defensive pressure and he has few if any outlets in the event he does win the ball high on a flier.

Wondolowski does his best to pair with him when he's on the field, but he's too slow to do a good job at it. Vako didn't even really bother trying to be a forward partner for him against Houston.

 

Bingo We have another winner.

I'm losing confidence in Stahre. The team is way too incohesive for this point of the season. Plus he gets a big demerit for the team lacking fitness for the first couple of games.

Wondo to the bench? Worth a try. Jungwirth as fullback? Yes, I have been advocating for this position for Flo for a while. This necessity is on Fioranelli, who choked on the LB position. Did he also miss on Quintana? He's so young, but man, gifting a goal like the one last night is close to inexcusable. And then, to not put the last minute header on frame. Ouch!! What a bad match.

Last night, it looked like both Hoesen and Vako were stranded in their positions. Vako had a poor game, no doubt. I think he'd be much more effective in the center with more players closer to him as passing options, especially Eriksson.

Godoy gave his all. He won the free kick that ended up as the first goal. But he seemed too far forward. Stick him even with or just behind Yuell (give him the chance to be a consistent starter) and put Vako in front of them with Hyka and Eriksson on the wings. A 4-5-1, but with more firepower. A 4-2-3-1 rather than last night's 4-1-4-1.

Godoy gets special mention for handing the armband to Wondo when he entered the game and for saying (in Spanish) that "the Quakes have only one captain, Wondolowski" in his post-match interview.

The ingredients exist for a decent team. So far, the cook is misallocating them.

I sense that the Euros think they are smarter than the league. I definitely think Fioranelli thought he could out coach the league through Leitch. That attitude blew up on him with the bleeding of goals. Is Stahre going down the same path? He sure talks about "analysis" a lot, but his analytical product is underachieving.

Go Quakes. Orlando and Columbus on the road. Yikes.

 

I want to see a midfield of JH, JY, and TT. I’m sick and tired of three seasons with a center midfield composed of “hard guys”. This hasn’t proven successful over about 90 games, and it’s madness to keep it up thinking that “this time it will work”. I’ve often heard that being able to keep possession, string passes together, and work as a team can be a worthwhile endeavor. Wouldn’t it be nice to see if WE can do that for a change?

 

I probably should have used the term "contested ball". I didn't mean 50/50 literally. Of course for every contested ball there is going to be some percentage, a continuum that is going to vary with each situation. And I didn't mean balls over his head or past him necessarily. Usually when we talk about forward "hold up play" it is balls coming to the forward as he faces forward, back to goal. And it is not really about headers - that would be a fairly small part of what I'm talking about. There is just a whole range of situations where he is contesting for the ball, and he rarely seems to win it and hold it, and usually he winds up on the ground looking aggrieved. That is my overall impression.

 

Big reps.

 

Positives:

1) I really like how JY opened up deep in the midfield and reads the game forward. it very much allowed us to get out of trouble time and time again, perhaps saving this game. It looked to me that he was being coached to pick risky passes as soon as he passed the half line (high risk/reward passes).

2) I thought Alashe did a good job staying within his comfort zone.

3) Hyka added a breath of life when he came in. I'd really like to see him at the top of a 5 man midfield where he could orchestrate things a bit more and wouldn't need to rely on speed.

Negatives:

1) Tarbell's distribution may be getting worse (if that is even possible)... we lose so much from him. Who'd a thought I'd long for Joe Cannon distribution.

2) Vako was marked out of this game... they had at least two people on him whenever he got near the ball. Shutting down Vako shut down our offence.

4) I'm not getting Magnus (I'm very happy for his goal, but I don't think it was as tough as mentioned before... all credit for me goes to JY). I especially don't get taking Vako out, even though he has a bad game (he's ALWAYS much more dangerous).

5) I don't like Lima on the left. Flo doesn't really cross or overlap as much, so why not put him on the left? I wonder if Flo made that decision.


Summary:

I've lost faith in this coach.

 

The Quakes have definitely taken a major Euro turn since Jesse arrived, whereas Houston has taken a heavy Latin American turn. Last night the Quakes played 6 Euros (and carry a bevy of European coaches) and two Latin Americans, while Houston played 10 Latin American and o Euros, and have a Latin American coach.

Can't draw conclusions based on one game, but...interesting. I think in the end you want to be open to all sources of talent, and that includes MLS players, of which we have still acquired 0 since Jesse started. And I think by now we should understand, hopefully Jesse is beginning to understand, that you can't take run-of-the-mill Euro players (Qwiberg, Affolter) and expect them to rake in MLS. It's just not nearly that simple / easy.

 

Yeah, I said the same thing earlier, and I predicted that Stahre would have the team double down on high risk / reward passes. He was complaining about too many backpasses and too slow play after the Philly game. I think that fed into starting Yueill, who is a good long passer. But as a general strategy, I'm not convinced.

Matt Doyle said he was thinking about doing a "deep dive" on the Quakes this week because, something like, they should be better than they are, or something like that. That should be interesting. We've come a long way from "most innovative offense in MLS", which was the week 1 christening on mlssoccer (not by Matt Doyle, to be fair).

 

Lima was on the left for one reason - he's the only guy with enough speed to handle Elis. And even he got burned by speed on the goal. I shudder to think what would have happened if any other defender was put on his side.

As a said to my son after the game, it's clear Stahre is not some sort of overlooked genius coach that's going to save us. I give him props for having the cohonjes to bench Wondo and try different things. But there are still a lot of negatives on the team that have to be laid at his feet.

It looks like the MLS playbook against the Quakes is 'press them high'. And with good reason, there is high likelihood we'll cough up a bad pass and give away a goal or two.

Every team I played on or have watched has at least one nightmare game per season where the players are completely out of sorts and making mistake after mistake. Optimistically, I'm thinking this was the Quakes last night. There were so, so many wayward passes. From every player.

 

Agreed. We need fluid, transitional players in the center that can distribute the ball and direct the attack and the flow of the game. Hard traffic cones we can do without.

 

Jackson, Fatai and Afolter all looked really rusty at start.....but played much better in 2nd half. Team as a whole looked way out of sync.

Quintana had just an atrocious game, wish he would of nailed the open header at end of the game for a little redemption.....Vako seemed like he was pouting and didn't want to be there....Tarbell had some great saves and some really bad distribution. I liked the fact that he was trying to make some long passes and not just boot the ball down the field, but his throws were so off the mark....needs a little more practice on that but I like the idea of it........And as mentioned by someone earlier, Danny seemed to be on a island by himself...Great to see Hyka get some playing time and score....Have to give Stahre credit for trying a different lineup....not easy benching the teams most popular player....Once in the game Wondo was still invisible other than one nice little flick pass

Was it me or did Avaya not have a great vibe last night....? Crowd smaller than I expected (spring break?) and not a whole lot of energy....of course sloppy play and a tie at home isn't exactly a recipe for sending a crowd into a frenzy.....

 

I believe this was the first game San Jose played against the Dynamo that didn’t feature a member of the 2005 San Jose Earthquakes. I think the last one to leave was Rico Clark at the end of last season.

 

Wondo played.

 

He was a featured sub.

 

I don’t believe Wondo played with the Quakes first team in 2005 but I meant on Houston’s current roster.

 

It's not you. Avaya rarely has a great vibe. I think sticking the Ultras in their penalty box is diminishing the atmosphere. With all due respect to Krazy George, his weekly presence is a sign of weakness.

From https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/m...n-jose-earthquakes-vs-houston-dynamo/boxscore: Attendance 17822.

Is this the first official non sell out for a MLS match at Avaya? Certainly for a weekend game.

Avaya Castle made of sand?

Can't find Hendrix, so...

 

I may be in the vast minority, but I actually thought Quintana and Affolter did a pretty good job. Granted, they had much more help than they previously had, as both Alashe and Yueill tracked back to play a lot of defense (which they both did admirably), but I think it was a better defensive system than what we saw in the previous games.

There were some big scares, but that is no different, and I certainly don't think Affolter was any worse than Cummings in that regard. Really, if Lima had managed to cut off the cut to the end line as he could have, Houston would have only had the one goal. I was disappointed to see him get beat when it looked (from my view, anyway) that he had the superior positioning to cut the player off from the ball. At this point, I don't know if he's ever going to be able to read those plays well enough to keep crosses out on a consistent basis.

There's still a lot of work defensively, but I would take that defensive lineup again much more readily than I'd go back to a strict four person back line.

 

Well, the other issue is that the quality of service to Hoesen is generally very poor, further dropping his odds of winning anything. There are occasional situations where you would hope for him to do better, but he needs support if he's going to do better. When he's up by himself as he frequently was, he becomes easy to defend because there are more than enough defenders to handle it.

If the team offered more offensive pressure up top (which fell to Yueill much of the time to support Hoesen), then you'd see them winning more balls higher in the field and being able to capitalize on it. You won't see that with a single forward in most cases unless they are truly remarkable.