Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Chicago Fire (Saturday, 7/28) postgame thread [R]

Fans got their money's worth on that one. The crowd was rocking the house! What a freaking blast Lenhart had. That has to be one of the best goals of his career....

 

At least one of the timeliest. Geez.

 

Lenhart's goal celebration of taking his fake wig and putting it on, so awesome!

Sean Johnson had an amazing game. I don't know how many saves he ended up with, but we had so many great opportunities, it's a shame we couldn't put away at least one more. (Edit: Just checked - 10 saves)

I don't care what people say, I want Simon Dawkins on the field if we are trying to score. Period.

Great crowd - you guys in attendance looked great on TV - Ultras, Casbah, and regulars alike. Kudos to all and kudos for staying until the last second. Goonies never say die!

 

The Quakes played like you would want your team to play at home: send people forward, 3 points or bust.
The end result was a fairly abysmal one, but it was satisfying to watch them fight.
I felt that everything they tried to accomplish with their strategy worked, the ball just wouldn't go in the net.
If only it had been 0-0 going into minute 98!

 

And he scored with his foot!

 

My impression:
We played pretty well, Chicago is a good team.

Dawkins looked good and now we have definitive proof that Frank thinks Dawkins does his best work in the middle and likes him cutting in. I still think Dawkins is not playing to his full ability even for his position.

Zayner is a good backup. Great signing.

Nice to see Opara on again, was he denied another legit goal this time due to a hand of God?

Baca was fine and had some very good forward piercing movement, it was a good sub though.

Garza is fine, I honestly wouldn't have felt strongly about seeing Sercan or Khari in his place though, especially since we already had speed and Khari and Sercan would be much more likely to get off shots since they have a far better touch and play on far smaller margins than Garza, who has that college-ball touch. Still I'm very glad he's on our team.

 

I can understand not calling a hand ball on the Baca jump, since it was inadvertant and no advantage was gained, but Opara was denied a clear goal on the 2nd hand ball. Johnson had no chance of stopping it and it absolutely was going under the bar.
That's two goals this year Opara was robbed on.

 

I agree with this statement, but I did the math and while Dawkins helps a lot on offense, we seem to lose shape on defense and get scored on. I just compared Salinas and Dawkins head to head, and this is what I found:

When Simon starts this year (13 by my count) we have zero shut outs and his plus/minus is +7. Record 7 wins, 3 ties, 3 losses

When Shea starts (10 by my count) we have 4 shut outs and his plus/minus is +11
Record 6 wins, 2 ties, 2 losses.

Strangely enough, tonight was only the 2nd time all season they both started. The other one was the 3-1 victory over Vancouver.

Of course Chavez figures in somewhere, but I didn't do his numbers. I'm still of the opinion that it's better to bring Dawkins off the bench when we need scoring punch.

Having said that, what a game both had tonight. Salinas was nearly as impressive as Dawkins, he just did more of his work indirectly (like crosses, defending, ect)

 

Ok so I'm an idiot. Stayed until the 90th minute and the people I was with had to go to the bathroom so we left. As we left the stadium we heard a roar and someone told us Lenny scored. We should know its a never say die Quakes season.

 

If after tonight you are still not sold on Dawkins as a starter, I'm not sure what other evidence can be offered. Also really liked Jed out wide. Can we work him in as a starter as well? Assuming everyone is healthy, Beita and Zayner out wide, both very willing to get up into the attack which is Franks's style, Then Victor and Justin anchoring the middle.

One of those games, and we've had a fair number, Columbus comes to mind, where we have had the lion's share of the QUALITY chances and as they say in the NHL the keeper stood on his head. Should have been 3 points for us (I'd say 4 or 5 to 2).

Still like Lenny over Gordon as a starter, but it was kind of fun to see the twin towers playing at the same time. Got to say, I'm a little worried about Wondo, seems way out of form. Seems to happen a lot when he is called away for the Nats or other opportunities.

 

Do you think coach Yallop has invented a new activity that can be used as a half-time challenge? "Who can throw the Gatorade tray the farthest onto the field?" (My money would be on Frank.) Maybe Gatorade could become our next jersey sponsor?

 

How did the ref & his assistant miss the two pk's? Incredible!

 

what a game, the quakes bossed them and johnson was playing out of his mind to keep the ball out of the net.

my 2 cents....

-jed played well and had some great crosses especially in the first half, good signing.

-dawkins was OK but for me it seemed all his shots where straight @ johnshon and instead of making the easy pass he'd complicate things and end up losing the ball. i like him more off the bench and not on the wing (ever).

- garza was snappy and has a nice zing on his crosses and he doesn't wait to get closed down which is good.

-opara looked good

shea was good but also had some miscommunications that lost us possession

glad we got the point, bring on swansea!

 

Great game. Johnson was amazing for them, especially that save he made on Gordon's header. Although we dominated for long stretches, it had the feeling of one of those games where the ball just wasn't going to go into the net for us. For Lenny to be the one to get the Goonies their point... well, pure storybook stuff.

Baca had a great game, showing poise and class on the ball as well as making some fine defensive plays. He ran his butt off. Salinas was good getting down the flanks to put in crosses, but he also made quite a few errors. Good crosser, not a very good passer (not as bad as Jason, who once again had too many give-away passes). Dawkins had a nice game, and probably deserved a goal. Gordon was reckless in his tackles, and it could hurt us to have him unavailable, even with Lenny coming back perhaps to start. I hope Bernardez won't be sidelined for too long.

 

All three of the Dawkins losses were on the road, third game in a week, at winning teams.

Salinas started no games that were the third in a week, and only 2 road games against winning teams.

So I'd say those stats say very little.

 

Crazy how this is the third game a goalie has a career best against us...first Pickens, then Greenbaum, and now Johnson. Combined with the the uncalled handballs it was a little frustrating.

Dawkins was robbed of a hat-trick by Johnson, he was one of the Quake's best today along with Morrow and Lenhart.

Way to keep fighting Quakes!

 

GREAT job by the fans tonight. That place looked incredibly energetic and PACKED--right up to the final whistle. Beautiful

 

You left out Kennedy.

 

Also: it's funny how there was a time where there was discussion about whether or not Lenhart was a valuable asset to our team.

Welcome back Lenny

 

I really like how Yallop has developed a substitution strategy to come from behind. Bringing in Lenny for baca and then garza for zayner, and moving Shea to fullback but still having him attack. Wow. What a difference from last year.

I still dont like Dawkins, but it was his best game of the year, IMO. I just hope Bernardez is okay.

And what happened after Gordon's ejection? Did a coach get ejected too? Someone said something about gatorade. Couldn't see from my side of the field, but it looked like someone was getting escorted off after Gordo ran off the field.

And Chris penso should stick to refereeing youth games. How he let those handballs go was pathetic.

 

That would be our head coach.

 

yallop got tossed out after gordon.
I thought zayner looked really good out there. need to see more, but he looked like a solid confident MLSer.