San Jose - Columbus (Saturday, 5/17) postgame thread [R]

Ya know, THANK GOD the QUAKES pulled it off IN SPITE of that freakin ref. And I hate to be so negative and seeming to be focusing on the ref, but for cripes freakin sake....

And as for the MLS review (or whatever it's called) on FSW. They didn't even show ANY of the plays that earned yellows. Pathetic.

Exciting just the same. Excellent win and well deserved.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

 

heck of a win for our guys,well deserved and the penalty on McBride I'll say very questionable anyways we won,just over 7k for attendance,what's up with that!

 

It was a bad day for attendance across MLS. Not sure what was up with that really.

 

A shame so many Bay Area soccer fans missed what turned out to be a highly entertaining, exciting, well played and poorly ref'd game. The ref kept the excitement level up by handing the Crew a suspect PK for one goal and a foul outside the box that ended in another. But, I think that was the best overall game I've seen in MLS this season. Not just because there were some actual goals, but the pace and high number of quality chances was great. And both teams were able to hold possession of the ball despite high defensive pressure all over the field.

The Quakes have the Crew for a four-game series this season and this will be a great one to watch. When Martino and Buddle return and maybe ERob for the Quakes - Man, I can't wait.

BTW, did anyone see what the Ref called on the PK? At first I was booing because I thought he awarded the Crew a corner. When I figured out it was a PK, I assumed it must have been something off the ball that I just didn't see. But the MLS write-up said it was a foul by Waibel on McBride, so I look forward to seeing the 'goal of the week' replay on that one. At least it didn't affect the final outcome.

Random thoughts....
Did ya like Waibel's run into the Crew box? For a second there I thought he may just sneak a goal in. What irony that would be. Rarely does anything good offensively come off that guys foot.

Mullan had a hat-trick of missed sitters! Maybe he should try crossing more, that's how he scored the goal - it was an attempted cross, I'll bet.

The more I see of Ching the more I like him. If he keeps this up, I'll have to start a bandwagon. He's very adept at holding off defenders. If only he could shoot with his left - at least two misses with it tonight.

Donovan looks like he's playing half speed and sort of out of it, and he walks away from the game with a goal and assist. The assist was a thing of beauty, the ball was perfectly placed for Ching.

Agoos and Dayak. Toughest tandem in MLS. Agoos was on tonight, especially that free kick - wow. He did have that one slip were the Crew were able to walk in on Onstad, but fortunately they missed the net.

How many times did Mullan make great runs in the second half on Quake counters, and the guys running down the left didn't get him the ball. Do they not see him? Do they think he'll screw it up? Do they not expect him to be that fast to actually get to that position?

 

I unfortunately couldn't make it tonight, but from what I've heard it sounded like a typical Quakes-Columbus affair (weren't both games at home last year 4-3 thrillers?) It seems to me that Mullan needs to take a game off; unfortunately, without a healthy Russel, we can't do that. Once we have a healthy bench we'll be a much stronger and much more productive team.

BTW, the only real dissapointment is the attendance. What in the world is going on? Hello, AEG, get your act together!

 

Great game, nice win. Front office, better figure out how to get more people in the seats.

 

Personally...I'm spent! If we'd scored on any one or more of those missed chances in the last 10 minutes, you'd have never heard me saying who scored it...I'm shredded!

And I'm torn on MOTM...Mullan and/or Ching could have sewn it up with any decent finishing. Agoos? Sweet free kick and consistently got the ball out of danger at the back. But for my money...here's Golden Boy. Not only was his assist a thing of beauty, but so was his goal. It looks like he's playing a bit of "rope-a-dope"...lulling the opposition -- then *BANG!* -- a bolt of brilliance. Unfortunately, I think sometimes Ching gets caught up in the same as well...like he's not expecting the service Donovan provides...or maybe he's as awed by it as we all are.

Still, better to be lucky than good...'cause lucky's got us 5 points clear of the pack out West...and 11 clear of LA.

Life is good.

 

FWIW, MLSnet names Landon as MOTM.

 

While I can't answer that one I did count about four times that Lagos failed to feed the ball to a onsides goal headed Brian Ching.

At any rate it was an exciting match with incredible goals by everyone , an incredible Ref. and incredible misses by Ching , Mullen , and Wieble

 

GREAT game. The Quakes were awesome. Never a dull moment. Oh yeah, the ref SUCKED

The attendance was SUPER low. I swear, the stands were so empty except for section 111-112 and 129-130. I mean this was one of the biggest matches so far in the 2003 MLS season. Come on people!

Donovan played a great match, he deserves MOTM. After what he's gone through these past couple weeks and he still somehow manages an assist and a goal.

Brian Mullan's goal set the tone out there, he played well as well as Brian Ching. Agoos' goal was a little surprising to me but well done. Also Dunivant was all over the ball, and he played well. Onstad had a pretty good night, not the best, but just enough to pull us over the top!

McBride's penalty kick was questionable but the Crew did pretty well considering how many players are hurt. They pulled off that last goal well but luckily the stretch was to much and we won!!

 

And how, if our pitch is so "narrow" and "compact" did he consistently find such wide open spaces?

 

Great game, fustrating result for crew fans. If Cunny doesn't sky one over from 2 yards out it's 4-4. but he didn't. and the injuries are now excuse. the quakes played better and deserved the win...

 

Is it time to say it--are these Quakes for real?
Somehow it just seems that once we get Russell, Ekelund, and Robinson back we will have the dominance of 2002 with the attitude of 2001 on the road and could easily make it to the post season and make a run to MLS Cup 2003.....

The West, so far, and unusually, is the weaker of the two conferences this season with only 2 of the 5 teams managing a win. Min. 5 games played. If we keep it up, especially if the poor form of Dallas, Colorado, and KC continue, we could easily wrap up our first Western Conference title.

Can't wait for the next match, back to a solid 2-0 victory, get another clean sheet and continue to stifle all teams not named Columbus.

 

After today, I realize when SJ attendance is always so low..

Anyway a good day out for us Ultras'.
Website is back up.

Anyway this game should have been around 7-4.

Ching had a sitter but thought the net was open so he tried to tap it in. Hedjuk(?) was there and cleared it off the line easily.
Mullan should have/could have had a hat trick in the first half.
Lagos really isn't cutting it anymore.
Cunningham.. well I just dont know what to say about that one.

I'd like to thank the Crew fan who decided to jump up run and run to the railing in sec. 103. For anyone who didn't see, he jumped up, and fell backwards on his @$$. My Play of the Game!!

No wait.
Jeff Agoos scored a BEAUTY!!!!

 

Best Quakes game of the season. Best game of the MLS season so far. And from what I heard no TV anywhere. And no where near enough people in the stands. So if there were only 7K why were the lines at the walk up windows so long ten minutes before game time? No one who misses half the first half because not enough windows are open is going to come back.

First goal - Manny finally looked up and found Mullan running in - Mullan had a great touch on the one timer to finish.

PK - it was a foul, it was in the box, but McBride would have had to been Geoffrey the Giraffe to finish, the ball was way over his head.

Quakes 2nd goal was LD with his weekly assist of the year. Ching finished.

Crews' 2nd goal came off a free kick given after a lot of play on. One of our defenders headed it out initially but it got headed back in and then into the net.

Agoos scored off a free kick from 25 to 30 yards from the right side of the north goal. Looked to me like he found upper corner of the near post.

Donovan sprung himself down the left side, could have crossed into the middle but took the tight angle himself.

In stoppage the crew put away another header.

Donovan exploded in the second half, seemed to me like he spent the first half jumping out of the way of tackles and avoiding body shots on 50-50 balls.

Dunivant’s wasn’t as solid as usual but his errors led to near misses not goals. Wiable played pretty well even started a few counter attacks in the second half.

Mullan’s best game, he could have finished better but he was finding open space all night long. Played good D too. He is my man of the match.

Goat of the match has to go to the Crew back line – they flat out stunk.

I didn’t think the ref did that bad early but after a couple of tough calls went against the Quakes and our players started to complain he seemed to let his ego get involved. I don’t think he called a foul on Columbus in the last thirty minutes. And every time a guy in yellow went down he called the foul on us.

 

hangthadj, it was just as frustrating for Quakes fans, with all the sitters we missed. Is it just me, or should the score have been more like 9-1?

Columbus has very skillful players, but our defense, even though it was back on its heels for the first 15 minutes, generally kept the Crew from making things happen.

The 3 goals Columbus scored were all on uncharacteristically bad defensive plays.

Whereas the Quakes, with decent finishing, should have broken MLS records tonight.

Well, it was exciting.

- Mulroony should shoot from distance more often
- Ching and Mullan should have had 5 - 6 goals between them. 2 isn't bad though.
- We should have scored on counters many times late in the game. The boys were just too tired to attack like they meant it. There's going to be a lot of pain as they watch the video.
- I don't think Onstad was at fault on any of the goals, but I'll have to watch the video.
- Landon had a dreadful first half, but a stellar second half.
- If we had a super sub or two, it might not have been such a nail-biter at the end.

 

Can you believe that that was only Donovan's first goal of the season to come from the run of play?? Man, he sucks...

...Well, this is BigSoccer. Somebody's got to find something to complain about, right?

 

Eye-popping results...in many ways. The score (4-3) who'd have thought we would really see that many goals? (Credit to Johnny Moore, who told us at the CQ tailgate beforehand that he just had a feeling we were going to explode tonight.) Equally astonishing was the low turnout for such a marquee matchup on a spectacularly perfect (weather) night.

The game lived up to the billing. GREAT all-out efforts from both sides. Lots of near-misses to keep fans of both teams grasping their heads in extreme anguish and enough really pretty finishes to make everyone walk out feeling they got their money's worth.

Agoos' free kick???....WOW! I'm glad I was there to witness that. I'm so happy for him after all the crap I've heard dished out about him since World Cup. That free kick was a candidate for Goal of the Week. You don't bend it/place it any more perfect than that, friends!

MOTM--Tough one. I know Landon got it. He bagged one onion and helped dice another on little rest this week. I also give lots of credit to Ching who I saw checking back HARD on the defensive end on a few occasions tonight. We all know what he did on the other end....and can't overlook the great hustle of Mullan. I'm going with Ching for my MOTM because of all the effort and the finish (though a bit more OOMPH on the stoppage time shot might have netted a second goal for him.)

Also, hats off to the Cowboy who sure didn't look like there was any issue with that knee, though I'm sure he was gritting it out. A well deserved rest for him the next couple of weeks.

What a dream start to this season!

 

Most entertaining game of the year, even without the goals. And the fans, though few in number, were totally in to it from the opening whistle. Figures this would be the one to not be on TV.

Man of the Match has to be Brian Ching. He was ten feet tall in the first half, winning every ball in the air and flicking it on to teammates. It quite a luxory to have a guy who can hold possession like this, it's a new feeling as a Quake fan. Plus he cleared a lot of air balls out of our penalty box. I am certain of at least 3, 2 corners and the set piece on which the Crew eventually scored somehow.

Donovan was a complete zero in the first half, looked like he was sleepwalking. Somebody must have said something at halftime because he put on an amazing passing display in the second half.

You have to love these one on six breaks where Brian Mullen comes flying in out of nowhere to turn it into a dangerous play. That guy really has jets and he never runs out of fuel. Unfortunately his SCUD-like accuracy means he'll never be a natural striker. Still, his regular game = Ian Russell at his best.

You have to love Agoos' fist-pumping after his goal. I think the Quakes really wanted this win and the Crew goals were stunning disappointments.

Dunivant sucked out there in the first half. Player of the month jinx. I felt Lagos and Ching held us together for the first 45. This wasn't one of those days where the entire 11 come out of the gate going 90 miles an hour.

The Quake plan of attack up the left side leaving tons of space for Mullan on the right really seems to be clicking. And the Ching-Donovan connection looks like it will only get better.

Pretty good job defending today, given that the Quakes just can't ever handle McBride or Cunningham one-on-one.

It seemed as if the Crew played with 2 defenders the entire match.

Dayak could hardly walk after the game. We sure needed him out there but I hope he gets plenty of rest the next two weeks.

 

it's gotta be the blue panties.

 

If you read the report on Quakemagic, that "somebody" was Donovan himself. Says he knew he played awful the first half, got mad at himself, and determined to play better the 2nd half. I almost wish he didn't have to play in the Wales game next weekend; think he could use some time off.

 

Was out of town and missed my first one of the year. Wow, was that bad timing!

As for Donovan, I think just returning to one match a week will be enough for him to recover. This was his fourth game in ten days! Look forward to some good play against Wales.

How amazing that the Quakes are undefeated after six games! And this without a host of injuries. Credit Yallop for finding capable replacements for DeRosario, Russell, Conway, Ekelund, etc.