San Jose - Los Angeles (Saturday, 10/25) during-game/postgame thread [R]

We've forced two Hartman saves in OT. This is improvement. I don't care too much about the result, I'm just glad that maybe we seem to be able to hang with LA after all.

 

I don't think there's ever been a question of that.

However, what worries me is that L.A. scored on what basically was their only threatening foray of the match.

 

Game ended 1-1.

Oh, well, a point's better than nothing. Does something for the morale, I guess, considering that the Quakes had much of the attacking play and fought like hell for that equaliser.

 

I think Faria and lagos are useless,we better come out with a better line-up for the playoffs or we are dog-meat.I was not too convinced with our performance tonight granted no L.D.no Agoos and no Corrales.I'll go with this line-up next week. Onstad on net,Roner agoos Dayakor Robinson and Dunivant on "D",Corrales,mulrooney,Eklund and Mullan on midfield with Landon and De Ro up top. And if De ro struggles up front like he has been for the last 3 games you bring in Walker which by the way was my man of the match tonight.

 

Amen on that line up.

 

Faria and Levesque did not belong out there.

Jamil was really fun to watch. He almost got the golden goal, too. He will become a very strong additional to the line-up. He kicked Califf's ass a couple of times.

Roner did quite well at central D. I was surprised by the line-up. For the play-offs, it might be meaningless, but Spartan was packed. The team still needs to produce an entertaining event.

 

Just got home from the game.

Jamil's goal was a shot from about 5 yards directly at Hartman. It was a hard shot and Hartman got a peice of it and it barely crossed the line into the goal.

Also, VERY late in the game, the exact same ball was played to Walker at the 5 yard box and it just went off his foot directly into Hartman again. This time Kevin made no mistake.

How did the Ultras' look to everyone else? Pretty good I might guess.

IBT took one for the team tonight I guess. I could walk on my right leg through the end of the game after the 'Quakes goal, but after I got out of my car on the way home, theres a tennis ball sticking out of my shin :\. Thats what getting pushed into the Spartan bleachers can do to you.
Oh well.
At least the LA Yellow *#*#*#*#'s didn't win.

 

They really represented. Not a good night for the Casbah.

 

QuakeMagic article did a great job of summing up the game. Pretty well played exhibition game...

I thought Roner did quite well at an unfamiliar Central D spot with little notice coming into the game. And I really like Mullan at Right Back. He's basically Frankie Hejduk with ball skill and *occasionally* a good cross. He's been pretty valuable at Right Mid, but when in form, Ian is a close 2nd. Maybe it's too late to make that switch this year, but if I'm FY, I've got to be considering that possiblity going into next year.

One big positive coming out of this game: It's proven now that when Dayak is in, Ruiz is negated. And since he is most of their offense (at least with Serna out), that bodes well for the next two games.

Also, we've seen enough of Faria now to know that it will be LD and DeRo paired up top. And I take Walker as the go-to guy off the bench in the late going.

BTW, anybody near section 132 hear my soccer team kids chanting through-out the OT? I was quite proud of them...

 

This evening was the first time this season I was near the Ultras. Considering all the hoopla over their past actions, they were fairly mellow, with far more spirit than the Casbah.

Unfortunately, this being the first close encounter with the Ultras, they showed their stripes, or age, when they responded to the Riot Squad/Galaxians taunts with an anti-gay slur/cheer (which showed their lack of imagaination, class, and maturity). During the second half, disregarding all the other fans, including children nearby, they began a mosh-pit during the game.

What has happened to the Casbah? The North end of the stands sounded as if a wake was taking place. Seems as if they Casbah has taken lost their enthusiasm and direction.

Over the last 15 minutes of regulation and during both overtimes, they were absolutely dead quiet.

What goes???

 

The attendance for tonight's game looked pretty good I guess considering there was a Shark's game and the last game of the World Series (woo-hoo)! I was kind of disappointed though considering last year there was an attendance of about 26,000 for this game. Brian Mullan was definately my man of the match, he had a great first half! Russell had a pretty good game tonight, it was great to see Troy not let Ruiz near the ball most of the game, and Jamil really is a "supersub!" The only thing that sucked was the inccident at the end of the game between some LA fans and a quakes fan. I don't really know what happened because all I saw was a quakes fan get thrown into the bleachers by a galaxy fan and then a whole group around him started kicking him when he was on the floor. It was horrible and I wonder if he got hurt, I just hate seeing this kind of behavior up close!

 

Besides from my bag getting snatched, really a nothing game, except for the egotistical notion that the Quakes were able to keep the Galaxy from posting a road win this season. Even more so was resting Agoos and Donovan for the MLS Cup home and home, which counts for a lot more.

Walker is starting to be the supersub with the in the pinch goals. Faria factored into the scoresheet so he could be starting to get into a groove. However, he's paid to score goals, not set up so the jury is still out. Most important is that the team was able to score so they are off the scoreless slump.

The next 2 games will count for a lot more--might as well determine who will get a chance to play for the MLS Cup. What was important was playing out the string and being sure everyone didn't get hurt.

Let the real games begin. Cheers (despite not being in a very happy mood)!

 

I'm glad Jamil scored so that all those kids at least got to see something. Really an unsatisfying performance by the Quakes for most of the game.

In my opinion, 2nd week in a row that Frank employed the opposite approach to what we'll see in the playoffs. This time, sitting back at home instead of sending numbers forward and pressuring the ball all over the field. I think we'll see rope-a-dope in playoff game 1 and high pressure game 2.

Dayak looked healthy, glad he could play 90. I don't like hearing that he had "failed surgery" on his knee.

Faria doesn't have enough aggression for my tastes. Manny was a step behind all night, though he looks fitter than ever. Dunivant got beat a few too many times for my liking.

Mullan is going to rip the Galaxy a new one next weekend.

 

Good point. Troy does an excellent job in shutting the minnow down. And he loves it!!

In regard to Frank's strategy, I think he was just letting these two games slide. He's got a better line up to put out on that field (when it's all healed up and rested), the Galaxy doesn't. What you saw tonight is what you get. When it comes to playoff time that's what they're going to have to go with (unless of course, Sigi has something we don't know about hidden in that large tum-tum of his).

I wouldn't say that Faria is useless, he still has to get on the same page as the other forwards (no combination of Dwayne and Rodrigo, please). He did several give-aways that bordered on the unforgiveable for a person of his talent. Jamil rates very highly, no doubt about it.

Surprisingly, my "friend" Ricardo Valenzuela performed a bit better than I was afraid he would. I think he did a fairly good job of keeping things under control.

Casbah--From 131, I could not hear you guys. The battle between the Ultras and the yellow people was drowning you out. I think you're going to have to get some more drums (I keep looking in the "for sale" ads, but don't see anything that fits within my budget.) The Ultras were doing very well (the competition from the Scum must have inspired), and you did get your south end section, contrary to what you told me earlier.

Despite the tie, this game left me with a much better taste in my mouth (Stella Artois and jello shots?) than last week's.

 

I have to admit, I was getting a little worried during the game (yeah, it WAS on shootout!) but then we decided to pour it on at the end, and Galaxy had no answer for us. We had them backtracking and they were on their heels. It was almost like we were just playing around with them all game, letting them feel good about themselves, and then all of a sudden, okay, now we're going to show you why you can't win....and we did it without our No. 1 defender and No. 1 point-getter. To me, that's the clencher; they pretty much threw it all at us and couldn't put us away. We didn't field our best team at all. And despite Sigi's comments at the end of the game, Ruiz would not have won the game for them in the second half. Please, Dayak's got his number.

The best part was how Jamil's goal (yea, Super Sub Jamil!) completely shut up Max Bretos. Before that, he was all, Yeah, Galaxy is sending a message, the Quakes are worried, Frank is really gotta be worried about their scoring drought (yeah, so worried his top scorer is sitting on the bench) . He had Galaxy winning their first game and then going all the way and winning the Championship! Then when we scored, he couldn't gloat about them at all anymore and all he could say was that Sigi must be pretty steamed. Ha!

 

Max Bretos is an idiot.

He loves the sound of his own vocalizations. He would ask question and then answer before Hopkins could utter a sound. And he did indeed have the Gals in the Cup already until Walker put one in. At one point he asked if the Quakes were sandbagging iy; apparently another rhetorical question. He said no, they had to be worried...yeah, so worried that the Q's top player was on the bench.

Next time I watch the Quakes/Galaxy with Bretos breathlessly homering for the Gals, it will be mute button to the rescue. He's bad enough on FSW, why do we have to endure him on the shootout.
That's a rhetorical question, Max, don't answer it.

 

Jamil's goal was a joke. 6 yards away, and he drills right into Cartman? We're lucky his relflexes weren't top-notch for that play, as they usually are.

Its too bad Faria couldn't have come earleir, they jury's still our on him for me.

Does anyone know how long Onstad's contract is? I'm ready for Saunders. 1 real chance = 1 goal doesn't please me.

Though I can't speak for the Casbah, they were missing their one main drum (Guy) so that could've been a reason for not as much sound in that end. Don't know.

Overall, I have to agree with Nap. After 300+ minutes, its nice to put one in, dribbler or not.

 

About the Casbah. The thing I notice is that there are too many periods of silence. That's the biggest problem. When I went to LA to see the Metros, we NEVER stopped chanting and making noise. And I mean NEVER. And we had no drums or noise makers of any kind - just songs. Casbah, you have to keep making noise. Hold your chants out longer if you need to. This will help you get louder by keeping your momentum and enthusiasm up. When I do sit over in the north end I try to get chants going, you all look over at me, maybe get it going for a round and then drop it. Last night you at least held out the "Ohhhhh, San Jose...." chant for a while, but you have to get people in there to start the chants and then hold them out. The other thing is that I think you may be in need of more material. That's not an easy one. But starting with keeping your chants going will help.

 

I disagree. I watched the play again when I got home and the key was Jamil had a very hard and fast shot LOW. All the other shots we missed were skyballs. I think Faria had 3, Ronér had one and there were probably others I don't remember.

I haven't seen a stastical breakdown but I am willing to bet that low balls (below the waist of the goalie) score alot more often then the high balls. They certainly score infinitely more than the skyballs we have been raking up in the last few weeks.

I wanted a win out of the this game, but we did destroy their momentum. And there is also that lovely little revenge feeling that builds up as we insured the Galaxy where the first club in MLS history to go completely without a road win.

Now we just need to put them on their backs by winning the first Playoff game at HDC. I think with all our 1st string on the field and rested up we will do very well.

 

The attendence last night ws 16,282 according to MLSnet. Under all the other sports conditions last night, I think that was an excellent crowd. Personally I will be very interested to see how we draw for the playoffs.

 

I am a bit disappointed in the result and quality of play last night. Our celtic rep was schooling me on the finer points of Euro-soccer and how this game means nothing and how big the next two games are. I see his point, but disagree slightly. We were playing LA at home with one of our biggest attendance pulls. If we don't play spirited soccer, and try to win these fans will pack it up and not return. The way we are ending the season reminds me too much of last year. Great all season long and then get waxed at the end.

The game was boring and there was a certain amount of flair that only existed in the first five minutes of OT.

Brian Mullan is my vote for MOTM. That guy is incredible and never stoppped. Go and tell him this was only an exhibition match...I think he would disagree.

I am a little bitter this morning!

GO Quakes!