Not good enough

Fellow CLS writer Pete Ratajczak visited Liverpool last year to see his beloved ‘Pool play at Anfield. The match ended in a 2-2 draw and Pete recalls that everyone he spoke to had a three-word review of the game: “Not good enough.” Any other comment he made about the match, including compliments to Fernando Torres for his heroic, stoppage-time equalizer, was immediately met with those same three words: “Not good enough.” That phrase trumped everything.

And so we come to last night’s 1-0 home loss for the Earthquakes against the best team in Los Angeles, Chivas USA. No matter how lopsided the scoresheet — 13 shots for the Quakes, 8 for Chivas, or 10 corners for the Quakes to only 3 for Chivas — the result was simply not good enough. As Ronnie O’Brien told us last night, “it’s one of those things — statistics don’t win you games. Goals do.”

San Jose hasn’t been mathematically eliminated from the playoff hunt, but they’ll need to win their three remaining matches and have some other results go their way if they’re going to get in. So, despite all the Quakes have accomplished this year — their record as an expansion team is much better than Toronto, Salt Lake, or Chivas in their first seasons — when it comes to the playoffs, it may be that they’re just not good enough.

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Here’s the post-game news wrap:

-  MLSnet.com has a match report, post-game story, and video highlights.

-  From the newspapers, we have match reports from the Mercury News and the L.A. Times.