Post-match: Club Deportivo Chivas USA - San Jose Earthquakes (Saturday, 10/17) postgame thread [R]

Or, Leitch had planned on lofting the ball into the box, until he saw there was no one within a country mile of Salinas. Hardly "fooling".

 

One thing I was impressed with was Weber's ability clear the ball with BOTH feet. I remember him clearing a couple of back passes that was comfortably sent more than half way up the pitch. Not too bad under pressure...

 

Perhaps you should watch the goal again. Right before Leitch's run up to the ball the defender marking Salinas started to run back into the middle, and the defender facing up Leitch shifts his position away from Salinas and slides toward the middle. Why did they do that at the last second unless they were convinced Leitch intended to make the cross? Salinas wasn't open by a "country mile" because he was never marked, he was. The defender left him at the last second thinking Leitch was going to cross. I still say it was a heads up play by Leitch and deserving of the assist.

 

While a tie on the road is always good, I'm not getting too excited about the result. I did enjoy the game, some players are finally playing to their potential (see Convey), and the team as a whole is playing much better.

However, Frank should have subbed out Elliot, the team died near the end of the game, and we still make major mental mistakes that cost us goals.

Some general observations:

Attack
Typical RJ game. Score goal. Look like crap 80% of the game. AA was dangerous as usual, but to get to the next level, we need his pentrating attacks result in more attempts from teammates. Q was fine off the bench.

Midfield
Other than the beautiful cross for McD goal, Shea had problems with consistancy. Sanchez did a great job keeping the shape of the midfield, but he looked slow. Elliot (see Mark's comments). Convey is starting to look like his good old self. He was very unlucky in not getting through for a goal or assist.

Defense
McD made a youth player mistake on the first goal, but made up for it with a nice goal. Still, not one of his better games. BB has good composure, but needs to clear the ball at times. Leitch was MOTM and Corrales had an average game. Weber is definately a solid backup and could start in the future. Should have done better on the second goal, but as others have stated, Joe wouldn't have done better.

Coaching
Frank, you don't get extra points for not subing your full three. Come on. Even a bad Ribeiro would have been better than dead leg Elliot.

 

Fixed your post :^)