Post-match: Sporting Kansas City - San Jose Earthquakes (Saturday, 3/18) postgame thread [R]

What a miserable match to watch. Now, on to the Sharks!

 

Hope is such a terrible thing to lose...

 

Well, at least we got two weeks of hope before they were crushed.

 

Not impressed how the central midfielders defend. They left too much space in front of the back 4. KC was shredding us a part in the 1st half.
Alashe is not a box to box central mid. No way!
Plus Godoy is not a DM. These two CM leaves a lot of space for CDs to defend.

 

I only saw 2nd half, hard to watch. Even before the gaff, DB head not on straight. Must of been thinking to much about USMNT duty.

 

I think both he and Godoy played like they were already checked out. It's just Bingham's level of "checked out" cost us a point. Maybe he'll learn something from that blooper about playing the game you're actually playing...double true when you're the 3rd keeper on the Nats depth chart and won't make the 18 anyway.

Francis was terrible and SKC made sure he had the ball a lot. Salinas was completely useless. Dawkins isn't fit enough to play beyond 60 minutes. Lima was tentative and passing back and trying to play too much like Colvey.
I like Flo, but I hope Cummings takes that spot and he moves somewhere else.
The whole team went back to 2016 and played like mistakes were "no problem," including Wando. No one seemed to have their head in the game and played like every play mattered. Francis, Godoy and Dawkins were in full on lazy mode far too much.

Dywer drives me crazy...should have had 2 yellows for diving and 2 yellows for dissent. He and Feilhaber are just cry babies that feed off each other. It's just bad we lost to a bad team.

 

Quakes came out flat from the beginning on all levels. Benny's goal was a thing of beauty but seriously what was David Bingham doing on both goals? Its difficult to criticize the GK when the rest of the team plays poorly , how can he not share the blame? Not very many professional goalie makes mistakes like David did tonight!

Florian Jungwirth had another solid game and a nice goal as well.

 

Imo Alashe was most responsible for the first goal, he drifted back deep into the defense, where there was already coverage, allowing Feilhaber the time on the ball to take the shot.

 

To recap the season so far: 5 goals scored. 4 by defenders/DM.

Scoring goals is scoring goals, no matter where they come from, but that said: Not good enough....

 

I agree. Sometimes I forget that Godoy is playing on the left side & alashe on the right side in our own half.

IMO Godoy & Flo are not shifting properly when Francis pushes up. Maybe Flo is being told to stay central to help cover space behind since Vic isn't so mobile anymore. This needs to be resolved before we face another good team that can press & counter attack at pace.

 

Other than problems in the attack, midfield, defense, and goalkeeping, the Quakes played decent

Too much space given to opponents. Lots of unforced errors. Early long balls fortunately gave way to more of a passing game but it suggests that Godoy needs help in the midfield. There were bits of Quakes goodness here and there, particularly in the attack, but they were sporadic.

Was hoping for classiness in the defense but got way too much Clashiness. Thankfully Bernardez' excellent sense of positioning helped stop a number of attacks.

Unless the Quakes are able to develop something approaching a counterattack, road games will probably not provide much joy.

One good thing (grasping for straws a bit here), this is the best reff'ing I can ever recall seeing from Marrufo.

 

Missed the game entirely, just as well sounds like, did Dawkins manage to disappear again?

 

At times. He has his moments but was lazy and out-of-gas in others. I doubt anyone hear is doubting their pre-game lineups that would have selected Tommy over him.

 

One of those games where most guys didn't show up to play.

I was hoping to see Hyka get separation from defenders and spray the ball around. Instead he didn't seem very quick...couldn't get or stay on the ball...really bummed to see that. On top of that, the lack of defensive effort from Hyka and Dawkins put the midfield under a ton of pressure.

In a game like that we desperately need to have a direct option up top to give us some amount of hold up play...not really Urena or Wondo's forte. We should have brought Hoesens in much earlier.

I've said enough about Dawkins and Francis to last me a lifetime...nuff said.

Overall the positive take aways were Flo is a gamer...captain material...and Lima held up well with the team performing poorly...not without mistakes, but he recovered well and wasn't overwhelmed...a good road effort for a rookie.

 

My thoughts on the game:

- We were strongly outplayed. Created nothing until the dying minutes.
- Bingham poorly wrong footed on the first goal.
- a 4th grade CYO keeper could have stopped the 2nd
- Benny Feilhaber is really good at soccer.
- the piped in fan noise at the KC stadium needs to be stopped.
- Jungwirth lovely scrappy finish.
- my lord Dawkins almost tied it in the last minute of stoppage time.
- you guys complain about Danger's homerism but Passerelli is clueless.

 

Hyka had one forward successful pass all game. Kind of shocking. As I said, we needed to see him against 11 men, and on the road to really get a read on him. Bring back Innocent! . Hopefully that was just a blip.

 

Not an excuse necessarily but that 2nd KC goal had a massive amount of spin on it. And on Feilhaber's goal, looks like Alashe might have touched it with his foot. It had a really weird spin on it - it did not seem to come off of Feilhaber's foot normally. Or maybe it was just a really tricky shot. Not sure.

And that David Bingham, is your "spin defense". I'm putting a spin on it for you, bro! You're welcome.

 

I thought Bingham was out to lunch on the first goal. It didn't appear to be deflected, and Bingham wasn't unsighted. As has already been noted, he was just in a strange zone today. And nobody even mentioned the play where Dwyer pressured him on a routine backpass that Bingham held onto too long (shades of his rookie year), and almost gave up yet another unacceptable goal. Awful performance from our keeper.

We can give some credit to KC for their energy and pressure, but we were (again) way too slow and deliberate in our "attack". Perhaps it's too early to place too much blame, and hopefully chemistry will quickly develop in terms of forwards making runs and midfielders anticipating those runs (and vice versa once we get into the final third), but this was 2016 deja vu. Way too easy to defend, and somebody has to keep the defense honest by finding some space and taking a few long-range shots. I think we have enough talent to be better than last season, so I'm still cautiously optimistic. What began to eat at me today was the possibility that games like this will erode the team's chemistry, with people looking at others' mistakes and poor effort, and not trusting or wanting to play hard for each other. Having a "leader" like Dom could just make things worse. I hope not.

 

What a dreadful game.

Flo should have given up a PK early. He clearly stepped on Dwyer's toes. But, really nice goal later, and generally decent, excepting a couple of plays.

Bings was awful, and I'm a Bings fan.

Francis was dreadful.

Dawkins sucked when he played in front of Francis, and also when he played in front of Lima. He's either not very good, or just doesn't care enough.

I noticed both Fatai and Dawkins passing to Shaun when other players were open. Not very clever.

Muma got away with a couple of fouls that could have been yellows.

The Sporks are not very creative. They have a few good players, but their style and strategy are pretty static, which means that we lost to a not very good team.

Dom (or Ralston and Spencer) really sucked. TT should have started. Francis should never ever start again for us. We'd have been better off with Imperiale over there. Dawkins needs to sit. Should have subbed off Wondo instead of Ureña.

I don't think any of our guys played well. This could be a long season.

go quakes!!

- Mark

 

Hope was high for two games. Now the team has been Dom'ed again. Resistance is futile

 

I forgot to mention it, but the whole back line looked nervous right out of the gate, and that continued for much of the match. Vic in particular looked very uncomfortable with the ball (unusual for him), and as a group they looked unsure about positioning and movement. Flo nearly gave up a PK; Vic was whiffing on tackles; Lima was losing marks. As far as Francis is concerned, I always expect the worst. As far as attacking, though, I thought he looked okay at times. In a game where nobody seemed to be able to anticipate anyone else's movements in order to build an attack, Francis had a few passes that I thought were pretty sharp and crisp, and he also got upfield and showed well for the ball in order to keep the flow going. He still wasn't very good overall, just better than usual relative to the rest of our buildup players.

Agree. Very very disappointing other than one (?) decent cross. He killed a couple of attacks that looked promising, and if felt all too familiar. He can be a spark plug, but he's so damned inconsistent.

I have no clear recollections about Cummings from seeing him play for Panama over the years, but I have similar hopes that Flo will be able to move left and put Francis on the bench; or perhaps Flo will get a look in midfield. I've never been too keen on Alashe, who still looks raw to me. Flo, despite being so new to this environment, already looks like a leader. Even though he's not mistake-proof, he plays with poise and confidence.