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

At the beginning of the year, it was said that the Quakes wanted to have ALL their signings in place as they entered training camp so they could get it together and hit the ground running. They did sign the players, but other than the first 20 minutes vs Minnesota in the opener, we play like we don't know each other on the pitch or know what to expect from our teammates. We had plenty of time thanks to the early schedule (bye week, FIFA International games) to get that cohesiveness from training together and getting comfortable with each other, yet five games in and we are still trying to figure out a line up and who plays well together. What happened to February and early March, weren't we suppose to figure that out then? Other than the opener, we start games very tentative, and play like we are trying to figure out our opponent instead of taking it to them with pace, high pressure and getting them out of their comfort zone. When the Quakes have dome so in the past, it has been successful, but lately we start the match like it's a scrimmage. Can't blame it on age, it was said last night that the entire starting line up was under 30 yrs old. Can we come out and start a match like we want to put teams away early and then play smart football throughout and get a result. Road games coming up....either the team bonds together or we will be looking up at the rest of the table for a while.

 

The Good - The gaffer has the stones to drop Wondo, at home no less. Only the stupid or the stupidly loyal could argue it was a harsh decision. Also, Eriksson is still a stud and played out of position.

The Bad - We tried to play the Christmas Tree formation (as the Brits like to call it) which is fine, not my preferred option at home but I accept Stahre is still trying to figure his team out - but for the love of God he must of seen in training Danny Hoesen is completely the wrong player to be the lone man up front, and...

The Ugly - ...and I can only assume we practiced this formation thoroughly , but his players didn't seem to realise for it to be most effective you DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT zip the ball quickly from our own half to the one man up top who is handily marked by 2 others. What a waste.
Also the responsibility of captaincy weighed a bit much on Godoy who seemed more interested in telling his full backs where to go than actually effect the game. Hopefully he grows into the role.

 

This. A thousand times this.

 

As S.J. Jim pointed out it was an incredibly lucky deflection. Bounced off the shoulder of a defender and took a weird redirected angle right into right corner. That said Hyka played well in his short time in there and deserves a lucky deflection after getting 0 minutes in the prior games.

 

What about the NYCFC game as we went for the tying goal? Seemed about the same kind of energy to me.

Sure we might have rolled 2 snake eyes and won, but that's about the chance of a win in that game. The most probable result (based on expected goals) was probably 2-1 Houston, followed by 3-1 Houston. That's my guess. We'll see how the numbers come out.

 

Right. And you help to create your own luck when you attempt a shot like that. The tentative and sloppy Quakes haven’t been creating enough of that type of good fortune.

 

#SJvHOU xG. That deflection was really beneficial for the Quakes, who were lucky to get away with a point. pic.twitter.com/X4KLfnPCjz

— Ben Baer (@BenBaer89) April 15, 2018

 

Very well said. I think that nearly all of us agree that this team lacks cohesion. Vako (for example) frequently trying to do too much on his own gives the appearance of a lack of trust in the players around him. It’s the same kind of thing you see when you watch or participate in pick-up games where players literally don’t know each other or their skills/strengths. We still look more like a collection of players than a real team. When you don’t trust your teammates or want to work hard for each other, things are going to look tentative and loose. It’s still early, though, so there’s still hope.

 

Imo, Stahre needed to address two things for this game...LB and his broken midfield.The midfield approach was a bit conservative, maybe an over reaction. We didn't get much consistently from Vako and Mag getting up field to connect with Danny. Imo, this put way too much attacking responsibility on them to get up and back. This continues to be the root of the problem for the midfield. Stahre is still expecting Vako and Mag to be the primary creators... and sprint out to help Danny and sprint back to provide some flank coverage...they aren't mids.

Honestly, you could have played Quincy and Danny up top together and put their back line under a lot more pressure. The end result was we played a home game with 1 forward because we have to compensate for a midfield without an attacking centermid and two forwards (Vako and Mag) playing out of position.

I was hoping to see a 3-5-2...we could have had a nice stout 5 man midfield and Quincy and Danny up top or Vako and Danny up top.

It hasn't clicked yet. We have major work to do due to a couple poor signings.

I'm not a fan of Godoy's game and I believe it would be a major mistake to hitch our wagon to him as captain...really really bad move...appalling poor decision. The kind of mistake that could slow us down for half a season and basically blow the season.

My biggest concern with Stahre searching for answers is the vibe in the locker room. You need a core group of vets to provide leadership during times like these and we don't have that in place...especially with a potential change with the captaincy...

I would have given Flo the captaincy in a heartbeat...painfully obvious. I'm generally optimistic, but I think we're heading for trouble.

The entire situation with the team is fragile right now...this thing can fragment easily if Stahre can't provide a clear tactical way out.

 

I have been a STH since 2001 & the people sitting in my section have been STH much longer than I. We all agreed, this was the worst professional soccer match we have seen. Both teams played terrible. I don't know the ins & outs of who should play & who shouldn't, but I'm tired of every off season we get new players which creates a lot of anticipation for the season to start. The first game they look great & then it's downhill after that. I think the front office should be ashamed to see the team play like this.

 

Wow 0.4 to 2.6, that's even more lopsided than I would have guessed....

 

Or Quintana keeps that header down in the dying minutes. It was plenty close at that point.

 

Post above says xG was 0.4 to 2.6. That is a huge xGD. Wouldn't be surprised if it is one of the handful largest negative gaps for a home team this year in MLS. As someone on twitter said, data matches the eye test. The team looked bad, and was pretty solidly outplayed.

 

No one expects the xGD !!!

 

OK, I looked. Haven't seen all the games for this week yet, but an xGD of -2.2 (away team has 2.2 more xG than home team) would be the worst home performance of any game for any team this year in MLS, from an xG standpoint. I mean it's one thing for that to happen when you're on the road, but it should not happen at home.

 

I brought guests to the game last night, and like us, they were a bit upset at how badly the Quakes were playing - so many bad passes, so many passes were over hit, and Tarbell kept throwing the ball over the touchline. You guys covered all that, I just had to pile on...

I think one of the reasons the Quakes start so poorly is the infantile warmups they do. It used to be that the starters played 15 minutes of small-sided keep-away that got their hearts pumping. Personally, I always wondered if that warmup over-tired them. But under Stahre and his German? Assistant, the starting 11 line up in pairs and do little 4 foot passing drills with their partners. Seriously, these are U10-U12 drills. What’s up with that?

But, I have to say, Stahre must be reading this forum. He did a lot of what we’ve been wishing for. But the 4-5-1 doesn’t seem to suit us.

Definitely the stadium was only half full. Krazy George adds nothing to the atmosphere. He barely even leads any cheers! And the Ultras’ cheers definitely carry much less volume from their position below the bowl. Also, Avaya had too much loudspeaker in the bowl before the game. We could barely talk to our guests.

On the upside, the water bottles were a nice freebie. I also bought a 9.5” dog, and it was actually a foot long. I decided not to OD on fat tho and only ate 2/3 of it. They actually serve it across 2 hot dog buns, covered with grilled green/red peppers. And the kettle corn was very good.

 

Bingo. I've been saying Jungwirth should be the captain since last season, but if there's a case to be made for Godoy over Jungwirth, that is it. Making Godoy the captain is like going with a Jermaine Jones or Clint Dempsey, it could help them buy in and behave responsibly instead of being unfocused or a loose cannon. I guess the thinking is, Flo is going to be who he is either way...

 

Having less defensive responsibility helped a great deal toward Godoy being better as well. Since he didn't have to worry about tracking back as often due to considerable coverage by Alashe and Yueill, Godoy was free to go find the ball, which he tends to want to do. That change was the most significant in the game, and with more practice, might pay off for the team.

It was obvious that the guys hadn't played much together in real games during preseason, which is Stahre's fault. Granted, he couldn't see the future and didn't know what lineup he'd be putting out for game 5, yet it was obvious to me back in preseason from just one game that the 4-4-2 was not going to cut it, so he should have been more proactive in making sure the potential non-starting players didn't atrophy on the bench, which they kinda did.

 

You're right, you can't draw conclusions after one game, but, here are some more.

How did our Latin players do?

Quintana- big blunder to give up our first goal. Blew open header at end of game that could have one it for the Quakes.
Godoy-half the people here would be happy to see him benched.
Cummings-suspended for the game because of a bone-headed decision in the Union game.

 

Or our Asian player?

 

Well of course it's about finding the right players, no matter where they came from. Houston's Latin American players did pretty well, you may have noticed. Maybe, just maybe, we don't do a good job finding good Latin American players because it is not a strength of ours. And if so, maybe we could getting better at it with a little more diversity in the technical staff.

BTW I was commenting a while back on a clip from "Axis" where Steve Ralston was giving the pre-game summary on the opposing team (KC). He was speaking in super fast English, and you could see the Latin American players kind of squinting at him, struggling to try to pick out a word or two. They had no chance. I feel like the Latin American players are a bit on an island with this team. But at least some players are trying to fix that...

Can’t speak English yet, but still brothers 🔵⚫️ https://t.co/vXXbLKunMR pic.twitter.com/OUrLSLCe7d

— Tommy Thompson (@tomthom11) April 12, 2018