Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - FC Dallas (Saturday, 4/24) postgame thread [R]

As I’ve been saying for months I think our best lineup will be Judson-6, Remedi-8, Yueill-10ish. The Quakes are not good enough for any of them to sit on the bench. Chofis can sub when you need a goal.

 

FIFY

 

I don't have anything to complain about for this game. Which makes me sad.

I don't want to be a happy Quakes fan. I don't know what that's like and I'm not ready for it. I want this team to torture my soul and give me ulcers. Thank you very much!

 

The team came out playing better the second half. But then playing better than the first 10 minutes of the first half was a mighty low bar

 

It's amazing how once a guy starts playing a little better, he suddenly looks thinner! Honestly I don't think it's an issue. He seems relatively fit. But I will also say that medium blue is more "thinning" than white.

There was at least once really nice give and go sequence between Chofis and Yueill, and I was thinking - yes(!), more of that.

 

Yuell might be suffering from a post olympic qualifying hangover.....maybe this win will get him focused on MLS and not the disappointment of the U-23 national team

 

Quakes Epicenter

Welcome to The Aftershock! This is the third episode of Quakes Epicenter's new Youtube show, hosted by Jamon Moore, Alex Morgan, and Phillip Leyva. On the show, the team will be joined by guest hosts Colin Etnire and Carlon Carpenter to break down the San Jose Earthquakes's 2021 Major League Soccer home opener against FC Dallas. We'll have tactical analysis, player ratings, and much more. Plus, we will also carry the post-game press conference with Matias Almeyda and two players
80 minutes:

 

Perfect through pass from Cade to Espinoza on that second goal.

 

Kind of an auspicious start of the season for Wondo - immaculate miss followed by, sub in and quickly earn red card. I'm sure he'll get it going at some point and have some more good times. He's probably waiting for the "Wondo is finished" takes to start coming in before he gets it going again.

 

Oh, no! Was that you? Please don't tell my wife. She thought I was just stuck in a long line at a food truck...

 

Remedi made several very poor passes, he picked up a stupid yellow card, he’s part of the reason that the enemy marched through the center of the pitch essentially unhindered. He made a few good plays, yes. But he did not, in any sense of the word “have a very good game.” We, as a team, had a good stretch from the start of the second half until maybe five or ten minutes before FCKD scored. Other than that, we weren’t very good. Had Dallass brought their finishing boots, we’d all be singing a different song.

Sadly, we do not have heat maps, or even half way decent statistics this season. I don’t know why that is, but the current stats setup on MLS soccer is garbage. I’m going to write to them to complain. I doubt it will make any difference at all.

JY was not good either, excepting a brief stretch at the start of the second half.

In the first game, both JY and Remedi sucked, as did most of the team.

Really, we haven’t been good this season. I think we got lucky against Dallass. They should have scored at least twice in the opening 20 or 30 minutes.

Chofis is dreadful. He’s slow, he spends way too much time walking and ball watching. He has yet to make more than three or four quality passes that might unlock the opposing defense. And that’s what we brought him in for. To make those defense unlocking passes. I wish we had Magnus back, and I thought Magnus was shit.

Perhaps our measuring sticks are calibrated differently, I did not think that any of our guys played well today except for Cade, Marie, Alanis (I’m shocked to say that), TT, and maybe Fierro. And those guys were only good in stretches. Everyone played poorly at least some of the time today. We put together a few good combinations, but mostly we were crap.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Haji has more technical ability than Fierro, but Haji doesn’t get that goal line clearance. I really hope Haji is getting the defensive element, because he’d be an upgrade if he can figure out all the defensive assignments. Every player has to do theirs or the house of cards falls. Cowell seems to have made progress there beyond just the finishing. It’s why he starts. He knows his defensive assignments in the 9 or out wide, which is great at 17.

Chofis seems to be acclimating. His getting stuck in isn’t bad. If Jackson plays better with Judson back able to cover every blade of grass, it should be a solid center midfield.

Encouraged by Paul Marie. It still seems an odd position switch, but if there’s not a huge, huge drop when Lopez is gone, that’ll be key for consistency.

I think the red card would have been given if the jerseys were reversed so I can’t complain too much. I think it was “orange”.though. If the Dallas player, doesn’t slip and step wrong, all that happens is Wondo clatters into the back of him getting there very late.

 

Were your announcers speaking English? Mine were speaking Spanish. It’s possible that I misinterpreted them, my Spanish is far from perfect, but they sure sounded like they didn’t think it was a red.

I can see giving that a red card, and I wasn’t shocked, I just thought it was a bit soft is all.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

The team got bloodied (early), missed a PK and still won. Credit where credit is due!!

In honor of the Oscars this weekend...

Best Picture goes to, San José!

Best Actor goes to, Cade!

Best Supporting Actor goes to, Fierro & Espinoza (a tie)!

Break Out Performance of the Year goes to, Paul Marie!

Comedian of the Year goes to, JT!

Director of the Year goes to, Matías!

Honorable mentions; Alanís, Haji,
TT

 

I guess that is the difference between watching the game on tv or watching it live, you don't see everything a player is doing out there. As far as "poor passes", who didn't make them? Stupid yellow? Yes. Same for Fierro's.

 

Best Costume Design: Flo for his "German hippie" look. Honorable mention: TT, for his "German hippie in training" look.

 

I can't figure out how to get English on the SAP for Univision or TUDN. Chatting on line with Xfinity and they were pretty useless. It said on the broadcast it's there but I don't think it works for Xfinity. Can anybody get it to work?

Re: Wondo Red. I thought it was a blatant and deliberate. I came here to find out what happened to piss him off.

 

Yes, you can see more in the stadium to be sure. Still, I wouldn’t call Remedi’s game good. He had some good moments, but a fair number of bad moments too, as did everyone. Basically, I thought we were poor today.

And as for FCKD, those tools gave up two (2) PKs!! Their defending on Cade’s goal was weak. They had some nice attacking sequences, but their finishing was crap.

So maybe it sounds better if I say that the Quakes were less awful than FCKD?! Yeah, we were better, but they sucked. A good team would have spanked us, and that’s my measuring stick. Would we have done well against one of the better teams in MLS? No, we’d have been barbequed.

Better than last week to be sure. It’s three points in the bank, which I’ll take every day, but we weren’t actually good.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

He looked more sheepish than pissed off. As soon as he committed the foul he threw his hands up and checked on the other player to see if he was OK.

I think Wondo is just getting slower. Looked like he stepped on the guy’s foot or ankle. The replay online isn’t very good.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

I thought Wondo's was a clear red. You are trying to get the ball, but instead you get your weight on your cleats on a player's ankle and then down onto the side of the foot? Red. Clearly an accident, though.

Cowell was perfect. I don't know if I like the assist or the goal better. Both were beautiful. A few more of those and he won't be with us next season... and maybe even not when summer ends.

Those first... seven(?) minutes were insane. I couldn't believe my eyes. Every player was taking too long on the ball. I was thinking "is this the Quakes this year? We are doomed."

Espinoza was terrible in the first half. JY didn't have a good game.

In general, even when things were going our way, waaaaaay too many risky slide tackles inside the penalty box on defense. Today we managed not to foul, but you can't slide that much in the box and not pay before long. Dallas fans won't come away thinking the Quakes are good, just that they are bad.

I was very entertained after the 10th minute, even with the edge-of-a-cliff defense. My whole family had a blast. Almeyda's style generates lots of action both ways.

 

I wasn't able to get English SAP either, but I found the video on the Twitter account and was surprised to discover that it was still up, and wasn't just a live stream. I don't know how long they keep them up there, but I was watching it a couple hours delayed and it worked great. I cast the tab in the Chrome browser to my TV via Chromecast, and had a nice quality display and English audio. Only issue was that pausing was on my computer not the remote control, and moving around required dragging the slider around instead of using the rewind/ffwd buttons.

In the past few years, the English SAP has worked great for me, I just programmed my TiVo to prefer English, and every MLS game on there was recorded with the English feed. Maybe because it's a new season someone messed up, or maybe because it was on TUDN and not regular Univision? In any case I don't think it was Xfinity's fault, though it might be.

The English announcers thought Wondo did it on accident, but that it deserved to be a red card because of the studs on achilles tendon.

 

Always struggled with SAP on Comcast. I can get it to work for Giants games but not with the Univision/TUDN games.

I don't like watching the games delayed. I feel my emotional angst and yearning helps motivate the team in realtime through some sort of cosmic spiritual connection.

 

I vote for the assist. The goal you could argue that the defense was a little sloppy.
The assist was unstoppable.

 

That was truly an outstanding pass, especially because it would not have worked without the bend he put on it.

 

Yeah, but when I watched again, the way he juked both defenders with his feet. He never touched the ball but still got each to bite. I mean, the assist... it is so beautiful, could literally have not been more perfect and was a 9 of 10 in difficulty, let alone the vision to see it at a sprint. But the shot beat three defenders and the keeper, using just the power/placement balance needed, with no hesitation after two successful feints. But the assist... I do think it wins. Those are the things I watch soccer for.