After that two goal performance by Marco Ureña against the USA, the Quakes could stand to make some good money by selling him off!
Wondo doesn't even make the bench for the national team while Urena stars and scores twice! What is wrong with this picture?
Yeah Urena is amazing, a clinical finisher... dude has ice in his veins... https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/m...-vs-san-jose-earthquakes/details/video/132354
If only MLS defenses would roll out the welcome mat like the Nats D tonight. Or maybe we can pick up Ruiz to drop perfectly weighted dimes on Urena from the midfield. Howard overplayed his near post angle exactly the way Rimando did when Marco scored far post against him from the same crap angle. As a Nats fan, I wanted him to fail miserably...
LOL. Can't believe Urena finished that goal tonight. Lots of people making sample size mistakes. "oh my god look how awesome he did in that one international game!!!" like when sissoko had one decent game at euro 2016 and somehow got tottenham to waste 30m on him last summer. Urena rarely finishes those in league play. Week in, week out, he is very unreliable. Wondo starts over him in my book. And Vako has shown better goal scoring prowess than urena so far (though admittedly not the same work rate).
Sad the nats lost but I'm happy for Ureña. Its not a great way to put the Quakes on the map but that is exactly what he did. At least now the club will get recognition for signing him.
Urena missed multiple goal scoring chances against the US in the Gold Cup tournament, too; otherwise, Costa Rica would have advanced. Bruce Arena may have been too arrogant to notice or appreciate his team might not be so fortunate the next time.
It is rather striking, pardon the pun. His goals / 90 for the Costa Rica nats must by like 10x his goals / 90 for the Quakes. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad instead, or funny if you are a Costa Rica nats fan and not a Quakes fan. I don't think there's really anything to it, though, just sample size stuff. Or maybe he gets service that he likes better with Costa Rica? I don't think Domball helped his goals / 90 earlier in the season with the Quakes either.
Marco is clearly not as consistent a finisher as we would want. However, he MAKES opportunities for himself better than Wondo does. He is decent at running at defenders (which Wondo can't do) and his positioning (Wondo's strength) is pretty good too, as we saw today. On balance, I think he is more fit to start than Wondo because he is a more complete player.
That was so sad. Same play as the ones he scored today - a through ball that splits the defense, and the shot is like 30 feet wide. TT intercepted the ball in the box to break up a scoring opportunity, played a give and go with Vako, ran the ball for several yards and played Urena through beautifully. That should have been a 2-point swing that TT gave the team - saved a goal against and assisted on a goal for in the same sequence. For those wondering why TT is starting over Hyka, that sequence demonstrates why (though Hyka is a good player and would ideally be starting as well).
Maybe when Marco plays for Costa Rica he does the "RealUrena", but when he plays for SJ, he does the "MockUrena".
Could be part of it, but as has been mentioned, as an example, there was nearly an identical play early against LA in the last game where Tommy played Urena thru perfectly, he's in on goal 1v1 with the keeper and he shot like literally 30 feet wide. The shot was not even in the same zip code as the goal, that's how bad it was. The other thing about those goals is that they were both saveable. It was pretty poor goalkeeping from Howard.
Urena is inconsistent in finishing for Costa Rica, as well. It has nothing to do with his surrounding cast, and indeed as I recall the poor finishing was part of the scouting report when the Quakes signed him. As I mentioned, if he had finished his excellent chances against the US in the Gold Cup, Costa Rica rather than the USMNT would have advanced.
I think every forward is an inconsistent finisher to some degree. Wondo is generally considered to be a good finisher but blows lots of chances. So it's just a matter of degree. I don't have the numbers right now but Urena's goals / 90 for Costa Rica looks like it could be 2-:3x his goals / 90 for the Quakes, if not actually an order of magnitude. Still I think it is mostly an aberration and he is an inconsistent finisher like the rest, just maybe a little more so. I will say this. He is good at finding the corners from a wide angle. I've seen him do it about 4 times in the last 3 months.
He's had pretty inconsistent play time with the Quakes, which may be a factor in his inconsistent finishing. It doesn't help that the lineups have changed pretty dramatically...except for Wondolowski, for several games in a row. These guys are not getting the chance to really play together and become a unit. Part of that is asinine MLS scheduling and FIFA conflicts, part of that is some unknown plan by the coaching staff that has been frustrating to watch and one can only hope there is a greater goal behind it.
Ureña started with Wondo for most of the first many games, and had only 1 or 2 goals for the longest time. So there was some real lack of production there that can't necessarily be excused except that the team was often playing in a relatively defensive posture and not generating a lot of chances #Domball. BTW I looked up the numbers - his productivity with Costa Rica vs. the Quakes. It is not as bad as I thought though there is still a marked difference. For Costa Rica he scores about every 2.5 matches. For the Quakes he scores about every 4 matches (where matches are 90 minute blocks of playing time carved out of total minutes, not the potentially totally misleading "appearances"). And there was a time where that was probably like once every 6-7 matches for the Quakes, which is treading into 2016 Quincy Amarikwa territory. IOW I think through the first 1/3 of the season at least, he had only 1 or 2 goals - after many starts.
Yeah, I'd put most of the blame on Kinnear for the way the team played. I'm sure he blew some opportunities, so Urena isn't completely without blame, but the lack of chances generated was mostly on Kinnear. He did play pretty regularly early in the season, but his playing time serious dropped off after that, which probably didn't help matters. Still, he's at least scored some goals, which is more than we can say for several forwards we've had the displeasure of watching take the field, so I'm not all that concerned about it. I'm far more concerned that Leitch doesn't seem particularly committed to any particular way of playing and the mishmash of players he keeps throwing together. My sincerest hope is that the coaching staff is communicating with the players well, especially with those that they will want to retain for future seasons. It would be a shame to lose good players in a teardown year simply because the players lose hope.
Yeah, Urena is now at 4 goals in about a half of a full season's worth of minutes. So he projects out to 8 goals, which is not that bad for a forward, especially one who presses so hard on defense. I think all of Ureña, Hoesen, Hyka, and of course Flo are good acquisitions and worth keeping around for next year.
While we're on the subject, think Urena could convince Navas to ditch that crappy ol' Madrid team for the Quakes?