Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Colorado Rapids (Saturday, 5/1) postgame thread [R]

This team needs to learn that in a game where they are ahead 1-0 with a few minutes left the primary objective is to not let the other team score. I could see how frustrated Eduardo was getting that the offense was attacking the goal rather than trying to keep posession by passing and playing in the corners. Led to the Rapids getting a couple chances in the last minutes that we did not need to give them. I started to fear a repeat of our last two games with them with a goal in late or extra time.

 

+1

Once again we sucked and were just plain lucky... eventually this luck is going to turn the other way.

1) How many clear looks at the goal did Casey have? On a typical night he converts at least two of those.

2) ALM should not have been playing, he had no range and didn't add anything but a hole in the game. At least Ring looked better when he came in.

3) And once again Wondo was the only dangerous looking player on the team, making good runs the entire game. Does this team understand tactics other than kick as far up field as possible? Something like check to the ball or move to where there are no defenders (or just plain move somewhere when someone else on your team has the ball)?

 

Not super fine, but definitely not 08-09.

 

The not good....

RJ....yikes, stupid to start him coming off 90 on Wed, half way around the world. He couldn't make that assist on purpose, but luckily for us, one of his bad touches worked for us and the linesman missed the offside. I think we lost to a missed offside last week, so I guess it evens out. I think Yallop is wrong to keep starting him. He's not producing and he just flat out looks poor in all aspects of his game.

Jason H....he was better in the 2nd half than the first; but even so, he hasn't looked very good this season. Just not confident on the ball and too easy to beat in the air at times. He was supposed to be our rock in the back and he's just not.

Gjoey....he was okay in the 2nd half, but needs to be a 90 minute guy and not drift out of games. Maybe we can afford that from Alvarez, but not from Gjoey.

The better than I might have hoped....

Burling....he held it together despite a bad first half from Jason and a tough assignment. He's not going to really compete for a starting spot I don't figure, but he did well in a fill-in roll.

Corrales....good game for him.

ALM....finally fighting for things now, despite the knee.

The good....

Bobby Convey....continues to ge the engine of the team. Still has problems with too many poor final passes. I think getting RJ out of the starting line-up and giving him a forward with a better soccer IQ to work with may help this. But how hard he's working is just night and day from last year.

BMac.....still a couple of bad give-aways in the middle, but far better than against Chivas. Completed a few passes which was very important considering we couldn't afford to make our "no possession" problem worse.

Cannon....solid game with some good saves. Thankfully he didn't see enough of the ball to make the distribution failures show up as much.

Ring.....a true box to box midfielder with a decent distance shot. I really hope he can get minutes and show he can work with the pace of MLS. We need him to develop over the course of this year--fingers crossed.

Other things....

I'm glad Eduardo got 30 minutes. Hopefully he can build from that because there were some good examples of what he can bring. Marvelle Wynn really had to respect him and that freed up other people. And Eduardo knows how to bring wingers into the game and to play with his back to goal sooooooo much better than RJ.

Leitch did his job well.

I'm fuming over the ungiven red card /PK when Morrow was given a shot to the throat. Not because we needed a PK, but because it was "not a soccer move" and 100% done merely with intent to injure and yet it went uncalled despite Toledo staring straight at it. That's a very dangerous type of foul, because if you get someone in the larynx with a shot to the throat when they're moving fast, you could dislocate it, which is really, really bad.

Wondo didn't have a great game...not a bad one either....but the goal was a top-notch finish.

Are we deep enough at left back if Morrow is seen as a left middie?

Robles doesn't even make the 18? What is going on with that?

Yallop's subs actually made sense.

 

Did we all see the same match? I was happy with the 1-0 result. This is definitely a much improved team for the last 2 years.

Just seeing Conor Casey mouth off and getting frustrated the ENTIRE night was enough payback for me from last year. Burling did his job although he needs to work on his judgment (i.e. do not rely on your keeper to take over the ball when a dangerous forward is lurking behind you! For jaysus' sake---kick the damn ball out of play and be done with it!).

Everyone did well last night---even our subs. I am starting to have confidence in this team. Maybe, just maybe we will make the playoffs this year.

 

I tend to agree. I'm the first one to try to play glass half full when the team plays well and loses, but to be consistent, when they play poorly and win, I'm going to play glass half empty.

The fundamental problems are still there. They can't work the ball through the midfield. There's a little bit of passing from the back line to the midfield and back, and then comes the boot ball over the midfield, which is quickly dispatched by the opposition, and then here comes the long possession from the opposition back into the Quakes half. Even Frank (sad that I would feel compelled to write that) could see that the team was playing poorly in the first half. Second half, they mostly bunkered and got a little more aggressive challenging possession. And that was enough to eek out the win. But on offense it was the same kind of boot ball, only worse.

The main positive for me is that they didn't make any major defensive gaffes, which seems to be the main improvement in the team relative to last year.

I'd like to see more of Ring, but I'm a little worried about his speed. He looks a bit slow out there. ALM made one run with the ball through the midfield right at the start of the match, then it was back to his just kind of floating around there, showing a little bit for the ball, and then making a quick safe pass, and not really challenging to win balls. Quakes need someone who can force the issue and push the ball through the midfield (and win balls as well) the way DeRo or even ROB did.

 

I don't think so. I am happy also. I see a team that can shut some other teams down.

 

thank you!!!! That is the problem with this league overall. No one understands how to waste the game out when you have a lead. I thought Eduardo did this perfectly himself, especially when he got a ball in the corner, shook the defender and then just STOPPED. You have to learn when its time to attack or not

 

I remember when the 2005 Quakes were having a hard time finishing games, and Dom really worked them on holding possession and not trying to be greedy. As Dom would say, the opposition can't score if they don't have the ball. Once they dialed that in, they went on a tear.

2010 Quakes are so far from that, sadly. Their idea of killing the game last night was to just boot desperately and blindly downfield - they are just so far away from using an "olé" type of possession game.

 

Yeah and they turned it around, if I'm not mistaken, around the middle of June when Alexi LALAs bailed for NY.....

This team has nowhere near the same talent that team had but hey another win is a good thing. Maybe they can build on that?

 

They're not trying to head there either. FY said that in last night's post game interview that that isn't their game.

 

I recall Morrow taking the ball to the corner, but don't recall Eduardo doing that. We needed to see Eduardo on the field, but I'm not happy with what I saw. i.e someone with fresh legs and only 20 minutes to play just jogging around the field. RJ despite flying halfway around the world and playing a full 90 for his country put in more effort in 5 minutes on the field that Eduardo did in 20. RJ stays ahead of Eduardo in my book. If we need a sub next time I'd put in Jasseh over Eduardo. Jasseh will cover more of the field in one 30 second sprint and Eduardo did a full 20 minutes of soccer. I want our highest work-rate players on the field, because I think work-rate is contagious. If one player is working hard than his teammates will work hard also.

 

Yep, I just commented on that in the post just before yours. I much prefer a possession game, and I haven't seen boot ball really work for the Quakes. I'm not sure that the players themselves like the boot ball approach. Joe said after the Chivas match that the "tactical error" was that they gave them too much possession. Well if you want to limit the other team's possession you have to possess it yourself.

 

If it happens once, it is luck. If it happens 3 times out of 5 games, it isn't luck anymore.

I mean, do you watch other MLS games? There are no teams, outside LA, that consistently dominate their opponents. Everyone depends on lucky dips on strikes or people being in the right place at the right time or someone making a boneheaded play and getting a red. It's just the nature of soccer. There is so much action and so little scoring that it's just tiny imperceptibles that make the difference between winning and losing. But if those imperceptibles are constantly bending your way, it means something. It means you are pretty decent. If you keep playing well, then you get those strikes that look like luck and you get in positions that look like luck, and opponents do things that look like luck. Because you know what - maybe those things aren't so much luck after all. Last year the Quakes played many good games. But they tied or lost them. And we would say, oh that's just luck and luck will turn around. You flip a coin and you might get a bunch of tails, but keep flipping and it will tend to even out. But it never turned around for the Quakes. It wasn't bad luck, it was just badness.

Judging by the competition so far, at worst the Quakes are a .500 team. That's great. I'd love that. A .500 record means you are pretty sure of going to the playoffs, if you don't have a bunch of ties. And the playoffs are generally considered the dividing line between a successful season or a failed one. And who knows, a sub .500 team that gets into the playoffs might end up winning it all.

I get why DC or Philly fans think their teams suck. I don't get why people here think the Quakes suck. Colorado fans are more charitable towards a team that lost than we are for a team that won. And they repeatedly won. And they are in an excellent place in the dogfight for second best team in the West. It's like some of you are so certain that the team is a fraud that you are steeling yourself against an inevitable collapse. I'm not thinking that way. I'm thinking that next week it's NY that will be shown to be pretenders. I'm thinking that when San Jose catches up in games played they will be clearly among the top in the West. I'm thinking San Jose is better than most, will be recognized as such by others, and it's the other teams that need to prove themselves against the Quakes. Maybe it's not totally rational, but that's what being a fan is.

 

So are you in the group calling for Frank to be replaced?

 

Different tactics kept Eduardo from really playing well. He was practically the lone striker and the team just kept booting the ball up, not controlling the game and passing to feet/players. Eduardo would've done much better outside of this tactic

 

It's great the Quakes won last night even tho COL dominated possession. However, I am mystified by the change in tactics. ANyone got answers?

1. The long laterals and deep diagonal crosses from right & left fullbacks changed to deep balls straight up. That meant that we got little use out of joeyG, so game not as exciting. Was that tactical change due to some aspect of COL?

2. JoeyG was not marking. I asume he was supposed to mark Thompson, who was often wide ooen, and Chris Leitch had to cover 2 guys sometimes. After Thompson took that shot on which Cannon made a terrific save, then JoeyG stayed a little closer, but not much. Why would coaches let JG do that?

3. BMac and ALM both seem to be playing defensive mid. They rarely rarely pass the ball forward; it's always backward. Since Lima and Elliott used to do the same thing, I guess that's FY's approach to offense? Kind of explains why we are 70-80% long ball and Sanchez/Robles sit on the bench.

4. I thought I saw Jasseh walking around with a cast on his right forearm. Am I right?


OTHER COMMENT5.
a. I won't yet conclude that Eduardo is lazy; he looked like he was trying to avoid further hamstring injury.

b. If BMac improves his shooting aim, he will be a good attacking mid. He wins alot of balls and does well on headers.

c. Baldomero was awful last night. Doesn't keep up with play, called 2-3 fouls the wrong direction, overruled his AR, and I don't know how he ignored those 2 SJ fouls in the middle in the last few minutes. Lucky no players went off on stretchers.

Team appears to be steadily moving forward instead of backward, and we are definitely way ahead of last year.

 

Well, this is the first time that I've seen a quote from him that explicitly endorses route one over a possession-oriented game. I much prefer the possession approach. I think it works better and is more attractive to watch. So Frank's a good guy and all, but I would have to say that I don't like his general philosophy of soccer, and so I'd prefer that the Quakes had a different coach.

That said, I suppose route one can be made to work, but I haven't really seen it work consistently over the last 3 years. They've gotten some fortunate results this year (last night and against Chicago), but forecast calls for pain if they don't get better at it. Having a better defense certainly helps, and the defense is improved this year. And I still think Eduardo will help with his target play. Better ball winning in the midfield would help a lot too and that could improve as well. So in terms of "getting better at" I think it could happen this year, and they can be a reasonably good team. But I would still prefer a different coach with more of a possession-oriented philosophy.

 

RJ isn't a hard working forward since he makes so few off the ball runs.
But in any case, he almost cost us the one goal we did get. If he dummies that ball through, Wondo is onside. His failed trap, but touching it, made Wondo offside and the goal should have been disallowed due to RJ's poor decision. RJ has a soccer IQ of nearly zero.

 

He has a broken wrist, but he played last weekend at Chivas USA with it already broken.

 

How goals has RJ scored in 2010 league games? Also, McDonald is a slug.

 

I liked how Quincy acknowledged the crowd. It was his chance to say goodbye. Nice kid.