San Jose Earthquakes - Vancouver Whitecaps FC (Saturday, 5/9) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

Pundits are saying our defense is the big diff with the other teams. We (along with Vancouver and Seattle) still have single-digit GA. Plus in the recording, the announcers said the quakes have not given up a set piece goal yet this season. Pundits attribute a lot of the defensive success to Munie+Roberts

 

Possibly, but as you noted, they seem more interested in SF or East Bay which I think is a mistake. The crowds are not as large, and I expect any move would mean losing season ticket holders such as ourselves (of course they probably think they can pick up more). We shall see...

 

Tough game and happy with a tie. Team looked in better condition in the first half, but slowly Vancouver took over in the first half and dominated in the second half. Better finishing from Vancouver and Daniel having an average game would have been a lose for the Quakes.

With Timo and Niko out, it appears Bruce got a little more conservative, especially with a good possession team like Vancouver. They dominated the midfield and the Quakes looked slow for the first time this season (especially with decision making).

Munie had his first bad game. Fortunately, we weren't penalized, but playing a more bunker defense doesn't fit his and Robert's strength. Rickets, Benji, PM, and Beau has solid games which saved the team because Veira, Judd, and subs didn't.

I think the team is in survivor mode until the WC break. Not good seeing the picture of Niko on crutches. Hopefully is a bad ankle sprain and opposed to knee other issue with his leg.

 

Looks like adductor (which he's had before and missed 2 and 1/2 months) or quad. He had one of those kinds of injuries last year also I think and it was 2 months. With him still on crutches, I think we're looking at 3 months+.

 

I listened to the Soccerwise podcast guys' (Doyle, Gass, Humphrey Bogert) briefly discuss the Vancouver game. Their takeaways were - oh, too bad with the injuries, otherwise this could have been a game of the year kind of game. And then it was paeans to Bruce for getting our lineup to a draw. They kind of poked fun at our front 4 (Ricketts, Judd, Bouda, Marie), saying it was 2 fullbacks, etc. and implying that it was a very weak attacking lineup, and that we bunkered in the game. FWIW I don't think the game plan was to bunker, but that's how it kind of played out because we couldn't hold possession or win the ball in midfield. Bruce more or less said as much in the postgame.

Then they said that we have like 8 players that we can't take off the field w/o taking a big hit. Once again, I think people are underestimating our depth. Marie is a depth player, and he got another assist in the game. Skahan has 2g, 1a in 300 minutes. Ricketts was our starting LW when we won a bunch of games before Timo started playing. I think the only really critical players are Munie, Daniel, and Judd. The rest I think we can replace w/o suffering too much.

 

I'm on board wrt not trusting xG. The nerds are very frequently out of sync with real world results and given the choice between making judgments based on w/l/t or xG I will go with the former almost every time.

 

In the latest MLS Power Rankings they kind of reluctantly kept us in 1st though qualified it with "the underlying numbers still favor Vancouver". OK, well Vancouver has also played 8 home games and just 3 away games. At least they didn't put Vancouver ahead of us on the basis of "underlying numbers".