Post-match: Sporting Kansas City - San Jose Earthquakes (Wednesday, 8/19) postgame thread [R]

So I just rewatched the "condensed" game on MLS Live. I was looking specifically for what was so successful in this game. A few big things stood out:
1. The first 25 minutes had more highlights than most entire games this season. The guys were playing incredibly confident.
2. Amarikwa is freaking killing it. I know he is a midseason acquisition, and he didn't score tonight, but seriously, my vote for MVP. It's his to lose. He has the spark, the hold up play, the speed, technical ability we have been lacking in the attack. The biggest thing he does is make runs. He makes a pass and is immediately running into open space and beating defenders before it reaches his teammates foot. He looks hungry out there and like he wants to save this team's season. Please do so, Quincy.
3. Cato looks good making runs into the box and finishing. Dribbling in and taking shots or passing, not so much. I want to see him moved to LB and MPG or TT at the LM. Acronyms....
4. Godoy looks like the real deal. I hope he is. I actually liked the Godoy-Alashe pairing in the center.
5. Wondo up top. Wondo stretches defenses. Wondo and teammates score. It's pretty freaking simple. Look at the goals and where Wondo is. Wondo up top with Quincy was the major reason why we bossed this game.
6. Bingham is playing well. He's getting into the groove of MLS now, and it's starting to show.

KC certainly helped us out by not showing up. But we looked damn good. I hope the guys take this and build on it.

 

Now that I've seen the whole game on DVR, this is what I saw as the differences in today's team:

1. Godoy is huge, his work rate keeps positioning intact in the middle so that players are playing in support of one another. He is also hard to knock off the ball, much better at that than MPG, who goes down to draw a foul. Whereas Godoy fights off the opponent and makes a good pass.
2. There were very few back passes. The whole team was trying to advance the ball. And in a lot of the attempts on goal, there were 2-3 players running in, not just the goal scorer.
3. Quincy's constant badgering of defenders is also key, plus he had some great passes.
4. Having Godoy and Alashe working together in the middle, with them and Cordell running crisis-cross gave the SKC midfield and back line too much to handle.

Like everyone else said, who is this team, and what did they do with our Quakes? Be great if this version sticks around.

 

This game is why chance creation matters. The Quakes missed a half dozen opportunities. The score could have been something like 12-1. Which means KC basically missed one good chance. In most games over the last two seasons that is the Quakes, just a handful of shots, a couple on target. Pretty much last in the league or close to it, in terms of chances created. And we don't concede too many goals for the most part so the one missed chance for us usually stands out. So many times last year Watson pointed to one missed shot being the difference when the team lost by one goal... but was outshot like 15-2. When you create a dozen good chances and put away five, you don't really have to worry about the half dozen that were blown. Not many people complaining about Wondo missing that sitter in this thread...

 

I wish Wondo could figure out why he is missing all these sitters, and stop doing it...

 

5. Everyone playing in support of each other allowed more compact <10 yd passing, especially on the ground.​

 

This is why I love the Spanish soccer term "llegada". It translates to "arrival" and succinctly describes a teams ability to arrive at the opponents goal and create chances. For the first time all season, the Quakes "tiene llegada"

 

the repaly will be on again at 4am on Comcast SportsNet, if anyone is interested.

 

The home team is having a good season and in fact is undefeated at home after a dozen games.

The visiting team is struggling and hasn't beaten the home team on their turf in over a decade.

Visiting team wins 5-nil. This is soccer. This is why you watch soccer. This is why you love soccer.

 

It's not so much soccer in general as it is MLS. The parity in MLS is just ridiculous at this point... I don't think there has ever been a season like this before.

7 teams between 1.56 and 1.74 points: KC, NYRB, DC, Vancouver, LA, Dallas, Portland
7 teams between 1.29 and 1.4 points: Seattle, Columbus, New England, Toronto, San Jose, Montreal, Houston
6 teams between .96 and 1.16 points: RSL, NYC, Orlando, Colorado, Chicago, Philly


That bottom tier has RSL, who have been one of the 2-3 best teams in the league over the last half decade, and two expansion teams that are top three in average attendance and willing to spend lots of money... only Colorado, Chicago, and Philly seem like hopeless cases (and all three have fan protests / boycotts going on at the moment).

 

Please, folks, pushing Wondo a little bit more forward was not really what made this happen. The Quakes just killed KC with their speed - Salinas, Quincy, Cato, Wynne, as well as Godoy and Alashe to a lesser extent, and KC was just really, really flat. It was such a strange game, like KC just didn't show up, and it soon became like a mausoleum in the stadium, and all you could hear was Dom shouting instructions to his players, and ball going "dink" off the bottom posts in the KC net, and then some Quakes players shouting in celebration.

At the end of the game, KC, down 5-0, in the ultimate act of humiliation, was defending with their whole team in the own half! That's incredible - the team that has made its name on high pressure, down 5 goals, and just playing back to avoid the embarrassment of giving up even more goals.

I noticed Vermes and Dom having a bit of a heated discussion towards the end, and Dom just kind of turned away with a bemused / smug expression. I'm sure he was really enjoying this one. Wonder if Vermes didn't like the Quakes "running up the score"? He's got to realize that goal differential can be a factor in playoff selection.

 

It was only two years ago, the Quakes missed the playoffs on goal differential...

 

In a season where they gave up a 2 goal lead to Montreal which cost 2 points...

You have to play the full 90 minutes, nobody can complain about final scores in a pro league regular season. But if the Quakes really wanted to overdo it, they could have pressed harder once KC was down to 10 men. But I doubt Vermes would have complained to Dom about that to be honest. He was pretty frank in postgame interview and gave Quakes props for being much better on the night.

 

I just saw the game...fantastic win. Great to see what we all wanted, two forwards...it wouldn't have been possible if we didn't have Godoy and Alashe in the middle.

Godoy's signing is the key to the whole midfield. We couldn't play a two man central mid with a Dmid and MPG...way too weak. So we couldn't play a sound 4-4-2 prior to Godoy's arrival. Unfortunately with Alashe out against Colorado , we didn't get to see both of them together. My gut feeling was it was going to be solid and allow Dom a lot of flexibility with Wondo and MPG, but the Alashe/Godoy pairing in the middle exceeded my expectations. Defensively it was fantastic and Godoy's distribution and savvy up field was great to see. It was so good that I don't want to see MPG primarily in the middle. I'd rather see him as a tucked in Rmid...a creator cutting into the middle from the outside.

Granted we caught KC a bit washed out and took advantage of their narrow 4-3-3, but our central midfield play is seriously legit...and quite a big deal.

Quincy played his ass off, causing Lenny level havoc up top..maybe even more due to his speed.. looks great with Wondo under him.

The boys are playing with a sense of purpose...Dom has most of the pieces he needs in place now....we're going give teams trouble...no way I'm backing away from us making the playoffs.

 

One thing I like about Alashe that I like over MPG is he uses both feet and make nicely weighted balls on the ground. MPG tends to be li

Seemed he was arguing with Dom. You could hear him on camera saying, I believe "seriously?" Over and over. And Dom just shrugged him off.

 

Godoy was an absolute monster out there.

@a_godoy03 57/61(93%) passes, 3 sht, 2 SOG, 1 goal, 9 duels won, 7 recoveries, 2 INTs. #SKCvSJ http://t.co/AHusn6aJmR pic.twitter.com/rWOphhJeVA

— David Windmueller (@DWindm) August 20, 2015

 

5-0 road victory Wednesday

 

As I watched the condensed match, particularly with crowd shots, I could not help but recall Conan's wise words about the best in life: To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And hear the lamentations of their women.

 

And the awareness and patience of guys picking out that pass made the difference - danger zone passing at its finest.

Fantastic result.

 

Generally those passes were not very hard though because guys were wide open. On the first one Salinas went to the end line and easily rounded the corner while Cato was wide open pointing at his feet. It was just so oddly easy, like twilight zone soccer where your opponent is only half playing and everything that had been hard is now suddenly ridiculously easy.

 

Average age of last nights starters:

27.72 years!

Bingham (age 25)


Goodson (age 33)


Bernardez (age 33)


Francis (age 28)


Wynne (age 29)


Godoy (age 25)


Alashe (age 21)


Salinas (age 29)


Cato (age 23)


Amarikwa (age 27)


Wondo (age 32)

 

Two wins on the trot for our new Technical Director!