San Jose Earthquakes - Seattle Sounders FC (Sunday, 3/15) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

F#$&!

Seattle — as always — should have been called for a ton more fouls. POS’s!!

That said, Niko had a shit game.
We kept passing to Timo and ignoring our right side attacks.

Fernandez was OK, but not great. Skahan was decent. Costa was a wasted sub, should have been Ricketts. Marie should have come in sooner.

We did not have a good game. Losing at home sucks monkey butt!
I’m pissed. Good thing I’m drinking tomorrow.

F#$&!!

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Actually , hubby wasn’t feeling well, so we left after SEA’s 2nd goal, which we heard was called back as we got to the parking lot.

SEA looked so good during warmups but just average during the game, altho they pass better in small spaces.

so did u guys feel SEA were parking the bus the whole game? That’s what hubby thought. I thought they just had a great back line…

 

We left our finishing boots in the locker room.

Also, the ref allowed Shittle to foul Judd with impunity. And he should have called a hand ball on them, and we should have gotten at least one PK.

That said, we played poorly. Niko is Not ready for this level of competition.

F#$&!!

 

We played 3 shit teams and won, we played one good team and lost. The next four games will make everything clear, if we're contenders or pretenders. Vancouver, San Diego, SKC and LAFC are our next 4 games, we'll know then.

PS: Timo isn't a striker, we need much better than Judd starting.

 

A very unlucky loss. It happens sometimes. Bummer that it happened in front of so many people and there was nothing to cheer about. Corner execution from both Timo and Niko needs to be better. Too many easily grabbed by the keeper or over everybody.

Timo is good. We’re driving our attack thru him and he’s able to take guys on and do good things with the ball. The best chance was when he turned the corner and took it right to the end line near the goal and cut it back. We had guys there. All they had to do was put their stomach in the way.

Glad to see Nick Fernandez get more than 3 minutes out there. He made a couple of good plays on the right side of the box that led to chances.

Anyway for games like this you have to trust the process and not let it eat you up. The process was good. You’re usually gonna win games like that. But we do need better corner execution and better ideas / execution in the box.

 

Lots of positives, but we're not going far with Judd as our starting CF.

 

That’s the most obvious place for a new signing / DP. Even if Judd competes with that person to start, if Judd goes down we don’t have anyone. I don’t think Adimabua is very good.

 

Rewatching the handball on the broadcast they said it would have been an "incredibly harsh" call but didn't bother to explain why. Maybe because it hit off of Bouhou's body first, or maybe because his arm was out to brace his fall? 'Cause it clearly hit his hand, and that changed the trajectory of the ball. Would have been nice not to have it swept under the rug so quickly and eagerly by the broadcast crew.

 

"Wasn't trying to play it" should not be a factor. I don't think intent is a factor anymore the way they're calling handballs. But coming off his own body may be a factor. I think it was a double ricochet - foot to thigh to hand.

 

We are clearly making progress because a "bigger" club like seattle came here and had to play a boring compact defend-and-counter strategy against us. In years past they would go toe to toe or try to take it to us.

Not precise enough in final third, not enough ideas. Corner kicks were poor. Ragen was eating up all the aerial crosses from Jones for breakfast.

 

Those criteria are "or's" not "and's". The 2nd criterion, "touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger" says nothing about intent. It's just - hey the ball hit your hand / arm and your hand / arm was making your body unnaturally bigger. Tough luck. So I think the Bouhou non-call is either due to the ball coming off his own body (I don't see anything about that in the criteria but maybe MLS has adopted that in its own "interpretation"), or excused because he was presumably "naturally" using his hand to brace his fall.

I'm MLS these days, the discussion is almost always about "natural or unnatural position / making the body bigger", and nothing about intent. There was an intentional slap of the ball out of the goal in CONCACAF by Duah last week in CONCACAF. But it's very rare that you see that.

On the broadcast, as I said, they quickly dismissed it, saying it would be "incredibly harsh" w/o giving any reason whatsoever. Then when the fans reacted to the replay, they chastised Quakes fans, saying we'd be on the opposite side of the issue if the shoe was on the other foot. So not only is it not a handball and we're not telling you why, but it's also *your* fault for complaining about it because you are not sufficiently objective! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Welp not the result we wanted, however it was somewhat made better by going to Original Joe's after the game. One of my wife's favorite restaurants, introduced to her by her Dad who worked for DeSilva Gates for 40ish years and built many of the roads in the Bay Area.

 

Was his arm in an unnatural position? I think so.
Did his team benefit from the touch? Definitely. That’s not a criteria, but it ought to be.

His arm was way out to his side, and he benefitted from the touch. I don’t see how you don’t call that. And we’ve given up handballs on much more questionable plays.

BUT! We did not play well enough to win. That’s the bottom line here.

Grrrrrrr!

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Philly are not shit. Not as good as last year, but still a decent team.

And the next four games will set the tone for our season, at least the first half.

And F#$& Seattle!!

Go Quakesfans!!

 

What bugs me about the no-call is that there was no explanation for it. On the broadcast the explanation was "that would be very harsh" to call a handball there. Why? Humor us, give us a reason.

 

I watched stoppage time in the first half, and all the rest of the game.

I'm tired, so a brief synopsis of what I saw.

Timo was great. Nothing from the right side. A very down game from Bouda.

We desperately need another offensive piece

 

Tough loss. Really unfortunate situation on their first goal. We got caught pulling up our line...there was a seattle attacker clearly offsides in the middle of the field, we're pulling our line. And they cleverly account for us pushing up and hit us with Rothrock flying at the line we're pulling up. Munie and Roberts actually have Rothrock trapped, but Benji isn't watching Munie's line and runs back through it...keeps Rothrock onsides...Roberts actually recovers just enough, imo to block or deflect a cross goal shot, but Daniel gets beat near post which is his primary responsibility....not good.

Probably the worst thing possible...giving schmetzer the lead in our house...he can choke out a game...and stack his D. Seattle's box D is excellent, shot blocking is stellar. Ragan was clearing all the high stuff.

Right now with the young guys we don't have enough savvy on the field to break down a super compact D. We're good in open space but can't threaten a packed D. When we did get behind them we didn't have the savvy or composure to finish.

along those lines Bouda had an absolute howler of a game...fighting his touch most of the game...slightly better at the end, but he killed opportunities left and right.

Timo was a real bright spot though...a total menace to seattle. Winning so many 1 v 1s they had to stack up defenders on his side...but it breaks down when he plays it to someone else, and that player makes a hash of it.

i thought Vierra was solid. Niko was good, Beau was hot and cold...fantastic ball to Judd but couldn't get the finish.

Bruce is giving Judd a chance to state his case, but he won't play good enough to prevent us from bringing in a savvy forward...it's pretty glaring we need a Quality 9.

overall, we moved the ball well but ran out of ideas in the attacking third. We were unfortunate to not get a point out of that game. With so much of the game played in their box in the second half...with that amount of pressure you would expect at least a rattle around garbage goal.

i also thought it was a great test for Munie and Roberts, especially for Roberts.

we got schmetzer'd...unfortunately at home...it's not the end of the world.

 

It's been mentioned but how stupid was it going into the season with Judd as our only #9?!?
Could have used something different up top yesterday. It's going to cost us games not having someone else fighting with Judd for that spot. Might be to late come summer.
We deserved at least a tie. Then again when your forward option is only Judd, outcomes like these are expected from time to time.

 

I find it hard to pin this one on Judd. Didn’t score on either of 2 1v1’s with the keeper but he had the speed to get those 1v1’s in the first place, and the second one was gonna be a goal but saved at the last minute.That said, we do need competition and depth at that spot.

I also didn’t think Bouda was that bad. Not his best game but not bad.

Anyway, I’m not sure people realize that 1) Seattle was on about 2 and 1/2 days rest, 2) they started 2 “emergency starter” Tacoma Defiance players, one at CB and one in midfield, and they’ve got 3 of their best players injured (Morris, De La Vega, and Yeimar ). Add us playing at home and if there was ever a game to beat Seattle that was the one. Big missed opportunity. But it happens sometimes in soccer. I’d feel much much worse if we were outplayed.

 

The announcers are shit. They have no idea why the refs make whatever decision. They are just guessing. They might hear from the referees later, but usually not at the moment.

Also, the announcers are generally told not to criticize the refs. So they are unlikely to question debatable calls.

Judd had a one-on-one with the keeper. The defender behind him pushed him in the back with both hands. Judd got the shot off, but that should have been a PK. Pushing a player in the back is clearly a foul. It prevented a clean shot on goal. There were no other defenders present.

But we’re not going to get any slack from the refs, because we’re not a Big Team.

All that said, we did not play well enough to win. Niko had a poor game. None of our guys shot well. We were not good.

Oh, we got away with a foul that should have been a yellow. At least I thought so.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Mark, they're shit this year: 0 wins 4 losses 0 ties 2 goals scored 7 goals against

That fits my definition of a shit team....lol

 

I sat right above the corner flag and looking at the subs warming up, I didn't see any striker at all. All we have on the team is Judd. And when Timo is starting, the only "attacking" options are Skahan and Rickett. We have a bunch of CMs. Would it make sense to include Nonso? He may be useful with all the corners and crosses.

Speaking of corners and crosses, high or low, many of them didn't even pass the first defender. We made no runs to meet the ball too.

If Judd was bad missing the 1 on 1 chances, Bouda was worse. He did absolutely nothing the whole game. Had bad touches, forced passes and no runs.

I think Niko had a good game being active and trying to connect. Too bad his free kick hit the post at the end of first half.

 

NIck Fernandez can play a central attacker role, like a 10. Bruce subbed him for Beau at 75' or so, so his responsiblity was more #8, but I think the idea is that he'd be more attack minded than Beau and with fresh legs. He got in there and helped spur attacks on the right side a few times, and drew a free kick just outside the box. I think he's better in the middle but I'd rather see him sub in for Bouda than Skahan.

Bringing in Adimabua for Judd is going to be a downgrade, unless Judd is knackered.