Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Houston Dynamo FC (Saturday, 4/1) postgame thread [R]

Yeah, it was empty when I walked by it.

 

Attendance officially 12,786, which is higher than last week's 12,434. But not significantly. Felt relatively more crowded to me.

 

I thought Ebobisse had his worst game of the year, he always seemed to be a step and a thought too slow. And whether he is trying to dribble the ball, or just control it, the ball always seems to squirt away from him, and then he is always lunging and stretching to try to get the ball back. He rarely seems to know ahead of time where he needs to pass it.
And hard to knock Benji when he doesn't get into the game until like the 85th minute, even though he was called over to go in at least 5 minutes before that. Luchi took an inordinate amount of time on the sideline instructing Benji and Bouda what their role was to be out there.

 

Agree. The Quakes PKs were pretty clear. Houston's PK looked like a double-dive to me. First Carrasquilla drags his back foot and goes down, then Mensah's clearance goes to Baird. Baldi poked his foot in there but I don't think he got contact with Baird, but Baird went down like he was shot and then stayed down. Total BS. I hope they review for simulation. I would have called a yellow on Carrasquilla for diving - end of play. Carrasquilla went down later in the box again - around 50'(?) but Penso didn't go for it. That might have been more legit than the first but maybe Penso was not in the mood to reward him after that dive.

 

I nailed it!

 

Butts-in-concourse was significantly higher.

 

Overall, I was not so impressed with the Quakes win. We didn't really control the game like we usually do at home. I thought Houston was able to cut thru our midfield like butter. They couldn't quite connect on the final ball, but we were just one missplay from a tie or 2 from a loss. I still have a little PTSD from that game last year (or the year before?) where we led Houston 1-0 and seemed in control and then 2 Houston goals in fairly quick succession and we lose 2-1.

- Baldi:

Baldi's passing seems good - he doesn't lose it very often, but I think he's a little reckless in going for tackles. There was a play again (like in Atlanta) where I saw him dive in for the tackle, miss, the counter gets more dangerous as a result, then he gets up and dives in for a tackle again and misses again. Not sure if that 2nd one (or even the 1st one with advantage) was called a foul. Can’t remember.

I think the PK was on him also, though I'm not convinced he fouled Baird. But it was a chance I don't think he had to take, so once again a little reckless. He's got only average speed and quickness so his tackles tend to be a hair late.

Diving in for tackles is fine now and then. But you really have to be pretty sure you're going to get it because there are really 3 things that can happen when you do it, and 2 of them are bad. 1) you make the tackle - good, 2) you miss the tackle and you're on the ground and the attacker runs free - bad, and 3) you get called for a foul (and quite possibly a yellow) - bad.

- Cade:

Early in the game, Cade showed that he's been reading my posts, and took the ball to his left. And it worked great! He had space to cross and hit a good one for a good chance IIRC. Want to see more.

- Closing out the game:

I was not very impressed with how we closed out the game. We seemed kind of afraid to play. I think it was too early to take the air out of the game, and Luchi seemed afraid to sub. As I said, it was kind of like we backed into a win - a kind of afraid to lose vs. go for the jugular. Just once I'd like to see us have a convincing win.

Attendance:

I think if we were smart and diligent enough about it, we could use some metric to gauge relative attendance, like say length of men's bathroom line say 5 minutes into halftime or something. I got to the game late and went to the men's room after halftime had started, and there was a still a line out the door with say 15-20 people.

Seemed like more people waiting by the bridge tonight too but maybe lots of Herrera fans - I don't know.

 

I saw that guy on the Coleman sidewalk afterward and he did get it. He was French and seemed quite happy.

 

I thought Cade's was soft as was theirs and Cade's should have been called since theirs was (thus setting a low standard for the game). The handball was clear to me though.

 

If that is during the game, that would be a bad sign.

 

Gotta assume that was a first for Marie. Good game to ask him for that too.

 

With Cade it was a clear whack across the shin. I didn’t even really see the contact on Baird when he went down like he was shot and then stayed down to feign injury. That was hideous. We shouldn’t fall for the play-acting and Cade should not be penalized for playing thru the foul. It should have been 2 yellows on Houston for simulation. Carrasquilla’s foot drag was possibly even worse than Baird’s “I’ve been shot!” routine. It was like Olsen told them - this ref gives PKs- get into the box and dive, as a strategy.

Really the correct call on that play would have been whistle, play dead, yellow for simulation on Carrasquilla for the embarrassingly hideous foot drag. The league has to be pretty diligent about carding for simulation. Otherwise the game can degrade into a series of flops in the box and it’s hard to tell what real and what isn’t. You can use VAR to distinguish but it‘s very disruptive to the flow of the game.

 

We won but what a snoozer.

 

It was pregame and halftime.

Ned and I and his wife talked to Joe Cannon for a good 15 minutes pregame in the concourse. I also encountered Gary Singh, @Seismothusiast and @Earthshaker, among other luminaries.

 

That's a really funny picture! We need a captioning contest for it.

 

Was thinking the same thing. That's @Goodsport territory though .

She should have turned around and given that guy a yellow, assuming he was whining at her. Should not tolerate interruptions when you're trying to review a play.

 

Someone already did a version, with an image of Penso from behind and "Houston we have a problem" on the VAR screen she's looking at... (Quakes shared it on FB)

 

There were a lot of ups and down in that game, but if we're realistic about the opportunities the Quakes god, they could have had two or three goals in the run of play if not for a vacancy of forwards to finish stuff off. Cowell had a particularly nice cutback with nobody to get on the end of it.

Cowell's confidence looked way up from the last couple games. Maybe getting consistent starts his helping.The reality is that the coaching staff all know that he's not going to be amazing every game. Players need to be able to work through that. And Cowell seems to be responding well to that.

Ebobisse is in a weird slump after a hot start. I'm not sure what's going on there. He did finally manage to get a shot off, but that's about as much as he was able to do all game.

I agree that Marie had a good game, as he did last week. He seems to be much improved. Not sure if that's individual improvement, more confidence in the central defense so he sticks more to his specific role, or some combination. But in any case, I'm glad to see him be more effective.

It's weird to have three penalties called in game with no other goals, but it is what it is. They deserved the penalties they got and Espinoza converted them. They just have to be able to finish in regular play, because they aren't going to get penalties every game.

 

That's where I pulled the picture from . FB doesn't make sharing outside their platform easy, so I screen capped it.

 

Post Incoming.

 

We walked over from Men Bai Ramen and I counted maybe 10 other folks making the walk. In years past it was in the hundreds. Barely any line at the restrooms & concession stands tells me fewer people were at the game last night.

 

Nailed it. He was terrible and should have been pulled early in the 2nd half.

 

Either that or the ramen has really gone downhill!