Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Minnesota United FC (Saturday, 3/3) postgame thread [R]

Looked great when we played on the front foot. Looked a bit shaky when we played on the back foot.

 

We left at the 90th min when it got down to 36 degrees. Appears they hung on, in style?

Btw were both of those goals on Cummings? I couldn’t tell...

 

I'm kind of glad that Minnesota scored a goal or two as folks were going to get way carried away and way overly optimistic with 3-0 win. I guess they deserved to win but in the end if you look at the chances it was pretty even, and you are *supposed to* deserve to win against Minnesota at home. Minnesota completely dominated possession in the 2nd half as the Quakes went into Der StahreBunker. It's OK if they don't get chances on it but they got plenty. It was similar to the game against LA. The Quakes bunker was too easily defeated for chances.

Also at 3-0 and 70' or so, I think it's time to think about squad building and use some subs, instead they came well after 80'. Only thing I can think of was Stahre was trying to get guys 90' fit. But otherwise heck you've all but assuredly won the battle, time to start building for the war.

 

My thoughts on the game:

• Hoesen looks much improved
• In the first 18 mins, until he hit a nice cross, Shea got beat so much he could have been an omelet
• Magnus plays a lot like Tommy, except Magnus is a dirty player but better in transition
• For CMs, it was funny how little Flo & Godoy touched the ball. Quakes looked like a 2-5-4 until Quintana subbed out
• MNUFC were ok until the 2 quick goals, then they caved, then Quakes reopened door

And finally...

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Here are my observations:

1. It was really cold
2. I am not comfortable with a backline of Cummings, Quintana and Shea. None of those three showed much quality tonight
3. Tarbell, while not trying to bat butterflies out of the air, is still suspect in his positioning. I believe (tought to tell for sure from Section 134, seat 7) that his positioning was way off on the first Loons goal
4. Stahre’s tactics pissed me off. I hate it when you have your boot on a team’s neck and you let up. To me, that’s on the coach. Also, subbing off Vako for Alashe was a terrible decision. Up by one goal is NOT the time to make a defensive sub for an offensive player. Domball taught us that
5. Hoesen looked fabulous and was totally on the same page with Vako, and Flo. Wondo, not so much.
6. It was cold. The Loons fans must’ve felt right at home...

 

I thought the Quakes fired Kinnear, but I guess not because that was right out of his god forsaken playbook. What a train wreck. No distribution out of the back, no midfield presence, with Godoy and Jungwirth playing side by side, and Hoeson doing literally all of the forward work by himself.

Godoy was awful and should not be playing. Wondolowski should have come off no later than 60 minutes in. He looks his age and he actively made the team worse. It was embarrassing to watch him and I really hope Stahre wises up to this sooner rather than later. Trying to get him the all time scoring record is going to destroy the team if they aren't careful.

Any decent team absolutely destroys San Jose in that game. It was fortunate that the Quakes got the worst team in the league for the home opener. It's going to be a long and ugly season if this is indicative of what's to come.

 

Hoesen was always that good, he was just hamstrung by a lack of minutes. It's really a shame now how much time Urena spent on the field last year eating up time considering he was left open in the draft. Oh well.

 

No. I came home to watch the replay. If anything, they were both on Ockford (nickname: Ockward). 1st goal he slipped allowing the ball to be played into the box. 2nd goal he hesitated instead of stepping immediately up to Molina when he received the ball at the top of the box. Just a half step of hesitation that allowed Molina to get the shot off uncontested.

But really they were team goals conceded. Vako and Godoy both were gassed and started making mistakes. I was suggesting Yuell for Godoy and TT for Vako at about the 75 min mark. You could sense the game slipping away a bit and fresh legs would have helped.

 

My thoughts some of which have been stated some of which our contrary to other postings.

The Good:
1. Hoesen, two goals, one assist, could easily have had a couple of more goals. I would have like to have seen him paired with Quincy at the end (instead of seeing Alashe, more on that in the ugly).
2. Vako, I argued repeated last year that he was DP level, and one goal one assist demonstrated again tonight that he is the real deal. He is our best player with the ball at his feet taking on one or more opposing defenders.
3. Ericksson, extremely good with the ball and a great ability to quickly shoot as demonstrated by his shot at the near post midway through the second half. I little too unselfish he should have taken on couple of opportunities that he passed to others.
4. Godoy looked good, much better than I have seen him in a long time, which I credit to better coaching
5. Flo, terrific at DMID and got forward a number of times in the attack.
6. Cummings I thought was truly excellent, I thought Oxford was beat on the first Minnesota goal and couldn't tell who got beat on the second Minnesota goal (more on that in the ugly)
7. Lima, got beat a couple of times, but by and large was a huge plus and good to see him playing once again with speed and confidence.

The meh:
1. Salinas got forward a bunch, but didn't really have the vision to do much when he did.
2. Wondo, other than one shot at the near post early the first half was not a factor
3. Quintana, was more than okay, just not as composed moving forward as Cummings.

The Ugly:
1. Tarbell, can make an acrobatic save one minute and be completely lost the next. His distribution, particularly in the second half when Minnesota was pressing was atrocious. If you are going to make a soft 30 yard pass out of the back, you probably do not want to pass the ball in the middle of the field. And it looked to me as his positioning on Goal 1 by Minnesota was not optimal.
2. Oxford, a very clear drop off when he came in for Quintana, clearly beaten on one goal and a non-factor in defense.
3. The substitutions. Okay Sub #2 was good, Thompson on for Ericsson made sense though at that point we had given up so much possession that it was negated. Sub#3 Alashe for Vako was a brain fart, no other way to describe it. We hadn't had enough possession in the preceding 10 minutes of the game so you take out you best ball handler and put in another defensive player with Quincy and Yuell on the bench. Then we give up goal Number 2 and let Minnesota back in the match with Toledo as the center ref. Complete brain fart.

Okay we won, but a 3-2 win when we were up 3-0 feels like a loss. I need to see more from Coach Stahre that shows me he can manage a game successfully.

 

I think Minnesota had way too much of the ball, even in the first half, but without that defensive sub, Stahre probably makes more timely and reasonable subs for the tired players. Instead, he hoped they'd manage 90 minutes when none of the offensive players are really fit to play 90. Hoesen is maybe the only exception to that.

 

I'm pretty sure Stahre is lecturing them about giving them too much room - loose marking, especially at the top center of the final defensive third and on Salinas side of the box. Seemed a guy could get the ball in they center top of the final 3rd and had all day to orchestrate. And then they were doing a good job getting it to the forward from there. Then on Salinas side of the box it was sometimes wide open. A guy had all kinds of time and space to pick out a cross.

 

After the game Stahre huddle the team up and looked like he was pretty pissed.

 

He was pretty forgiving in the post game with the press. It was more like, well we won so what's the problem? He said that the scary play at the end is natural. When your lead starts to suddenly slip away you start to play afraid to lose while the other team gets hype. I'm glad he understands that psychological aspect of the game. But yeah I'd bet he is not happy with the marking throughout much of the game.

 

He better be pissed. If he was not pissed, then we as fans and Fio as well, should all be.

 

A lot of room to improve for both players and coaches, especially the subbing.

Is Quintana injury look bad?

 

Oh, and I know some folks may be hard on Ockford as it looks like he is the main culprit on the 2 goals against, but in his defense, that grass is shit and made him slip on the 1st goal. 2nd goal he didn't close the space quick enough but it's probably because he has that slip on the back of his mind and didn't want to fly in too fast lest another slip happened. It's been awhile since his first MLS game with Seattle so there could be some jitters.

Again, that grass pitch is shit. What now Quakes FO? Holes in the roof hasn't helped this pitch so how about you just fill up those holes eh? No rain tonight but if there was, all your VIPs, Ultras, and first 6-upper-row fans are going to be drenched!

 

Yeah - what’s up with that? First match of the year, and the pitch looked like armored Calvary had been using it!

 

Why is the pitch, shit? Just because someone slipped on it? You know, it has rained a lot in the last 48 hours.

 

Quintana out = we looked bad.

I love the ultras being downstairs, closer to the field. It was sad when we went up for 10 minutes during the second half in section 117 andbeveryone was quiet. I never want to go to the upper bowl if that’s what it’s going to be like. Hoesen scored the third goal off of great 1-touch passing and it felt like no one even knew we scored. We went back down with the ultras immediately