Post-match: Vancouver Whitecaps FC - San Earthquakes (Saturday, 5/14) postgame thread [R]

Where exactly did you see JT being at fault today? He actually saved two 100% chances today.

 

Jebo was back on top, at least until Jesus Ferreira's brace for Dallas... Surprised to see no one from Portland up there, considering they just dropped SEVEN on SKC tonight! It's pretty cool to see three Quakes among the league leaders in goals and assists. Jebo plus both Espinoza and Gregus. Those three plus Monteiro and Cowell (both currently at 1g 3a), that's some decent firepower especially if Cowell gets going...



Now the defense just needs to stop hemorrhaging goals... maybe there's more to it that's required than benching Calvo in favor of Beason, but it's a good starting point!

Edit: Bersano for JT would be absolute madness, falvo is the Calvo of Quakes fans! But hopefully Covelo gives Judson a shot over Remedi once he's back from injury...

 

Because he wasn't? It didn't look like Vancouver even made a case for it. The camera angle is deceptive, bit, it looks like he is behind or even with the ball when it is played.

 

JT made a save that has a good chance of being Save of the Week in this one.

Good to see assists from the people that are supposed to be getting them. Counting hockey assists, 2 each from Cowell and Espinoza and one from Monteiro to go along with his goal.

 

I missed the first half but from what I saw in the second when all the goals were scored, he seemed to be bird watching.

Not sure why it's such taboo to criticize the GK or JT, for that matter but I thought he was crap. He is even starting to make Vega look good.

I don’t get how no one else sees the guy isn’t that good but I'm not impressed by him.

So he made some saves ok, big deal but that's what he is supposed to do.

Sure the defense has lapses but a good GK is supposed to command the box , be vocal to direct the backline and prevent goals from being scored as that is his job.

He didn't do any of that and was just looking at the ball going right past him without even making an attempt at a dive.

This isn't a mark of a good or even average GK and no I don't see all this great play from him.

It's time to make a change.

 

Luckily, so did Vancouver's.

 

You're sure that this is not even worth a discussion, even - yeah, he was barely on or even? I said that it looks like he might be offside. The camera angle is "deceptive", sure, but you know that it's deceptive in a way that would make it look maybe offside when it isn't because Vancouver didn't complain much? I think Flo raised his hand but not sure if that was a wtf to teammates or call for offside. Regardless, I don't think "level of defense complaint" is a scientific way to determine offside calls.

 

you must not have received the fan email with the sheet music attachment (titled "groupthink") so please allow me to update you...

Chris Leitch = amazing as Quakes coach, sure to be a great GM but needs time, lots of time, playoff appearance by 2024 should be doable.

Ian Russell = omg yes the sooner the better.

JT = two rules to remember, (1) JT is an amazing young shot stopper, (2) when JT isn't very good, see rule #1.

Matias = boo! all the Quakes problems from 2019 thru 2024, his fault. Quakes still shaking off the ill-effects of man-marking, FoM's, lack of a proper preseason, etc.

as long as you're singing from this sheet of music, you should be fine.

 

Great shot to looks at! I had a similar question in watching live, but in replays it looked to me like Jebo was behind Espinoza, so it did not matter that he was in front of the VC defenders. The foreshortening in really hard to see through in this photo, but if you extend the 6-yard box line out Espinoza's foot, and most importantly the ball (which is behind the defender), they seem to be closer to that line than Jebo. Agreed that this was closer than the VC players lack of protest indicated, but they had a much better view of getting beat.

 

That's a good point - was the ball in front of Jebo when it was passed? Looks to me like Espinoza's pass had a slight forward trajectory, but that doesn't necessarily prove anything because you have to account for the forward motion of the player you are passing to. Here's another clip from just after the ball was passed. I think it's pretty clear Jebo is ahead of Flo here, and probably Espi too, but it is a split second after the pass. If we knew the speed and angle of the pass, the distance from Espi to Jebo, and the speed of Jebo, we could calculate the relative position of Espi to Jebo .

Anyway, I much prefer that these really close bang-bang plays are not called offside, because oftentimes I think they get it wrong - not properly accounting for the rapid movement of the attacking player. So when it's close like this I'm glad that they let it go. These kinds of plays are among the best in the game to me - those perfectly timed runs / passes. We should be rewarding them and not calling them back because you think maybe it might have been offside.

 

So I believe that was our first road point, in season, this year. Yet another thing MA couldn't do.

 

Yes, our first road point. Folks will say that was our "easiest" road game so far, which is true, but the data shows clearly - winning on the road in MLS is hard. It only happens about 25% of the time. You'd figure that strong road team - weak home team and that % goes up, weak road team, strong home team that % goes down. But for roughly evenly matched teams it would be pretty close to 25%. And I think on balance we did outplay VC (xG something like 1.8 to 1.2).

 

Baby steps? Hopefully, the coaching staff can recognize some existing errors and make it better as we go along. Judson will be back soon, so maybe we can reintroduce him and get a better line up for the back line at the same time.

 

This game has been a Rorschach test for folks on here.

 

I kind of liked not having Gregus in there even though we scored 3 goals after he came in. But we also let in 2, so I think we might have missed Remedi's defensive presence. But with Gregus-Yueill-Monteiro we have our sort of "3 #8's" lineup. It's a sort of trading defense for offense thing, but usually the offense we are trading for is not too impressive. Gregus, Yueill, and Monteiro tend to be "cycle the ball around midfield" players, though Monteiro had a good game yesterday getting more involved in the attack.

 

even though he's now busy house shopping in Greece, incessant whining about Matias still obfuscates the truth about what's really going on in SJ, well done.

 

And the fact that VAR either didn't see it as warranting review, or did look at it and thought the information available didn't support overturning the goal.
Premier League seems to have the technology to decide close offside calls, wonder when MLS adopts it.

 

Yeah, I'm just suprised that there was no mention even in the booth on a close play like that.

BTW it was kind of entertaining listening to Danger and Danielle working together in the booth. They were both essentially doing color and every now and then Danielle would remember - oh yeah, I'm supposed to do PbP, and do it very diligently for about 20 seconds and then blow it off again. And then she'd do a kind of lukewarm "Goal San Jose!" But I enjoyed their banter, and was surprised to hear that Danger played with not only George Best but also Johann Cruyff!!

 

Patient: "It was an awful, awful performance by the Quakes. We have the worst roster in the history of MLS. No coach could win a game with this roster. Chris Leitch is doing a horrible job".

Shrink: "At what age did you feel neglected by your mother"?

 

Of course all players are fair game to criticize and certainly JT who, in my opinion, is just a decent MLS level keeper at this point. However, I just find it interesting that you chose this match to criticize him for bad play when he actually had a very good game.

Every keeper should be making routine saves but the two 100% scoring chances by Cavelli that he saved are nowhere close to being considered routine saves.

We have other gaping holes in this team that need to be plugged before we should turn our attention and resources towards replacing JT.

 

JT made some pretty good saves...

 

- I thought the Quakes were actually passing the ball around pretty well, especially in the first half. Most of the time, however, ran out of ideas in the final third and just made a lot of back passes.

- Impressive come back from behind to take the lead. I actually started getting my hopes up.

- Kept telling my wife the coach needs to start subbing soon. Vancouver was going for it and a couple of our guys looked gassed.

- When the subs finally showed up I yelled, "No! Don't sub on a corner kick!!".

- I agree with another poster who put this tie on the coach.

 

On their first and third goals, I thought JT's reaction time could've been quicker. on their second, his defense was completely missing but he was beaten near post.

He had two outstanding saves but it's never great conceding three. He saves one of those and the Quakes come away with all the points.

 

Agree, but, the ball has to get through 10 other Quakesplayers before it gets to him. I did think there was one goal VC had that, had JT been hugging the post, it would have, maybe should have, been a save. I'll also agree with the poster that stated we have some bigger issues to deal with right right now than GK.

And I will also agree with the poster who was glad GreyGoose didn't start. He made a really lazy play and coughed up the ball which, I believe, led to one of VC's goals.

 

One more thing - JT is actually looking much more comfortable with the ball at his feet. Night and day compared to last season. I'm impressed with whoever has been working with him on that aspect of his play!