San Jose looks lousy in 1-0 loss to Seattle
Fredy Montero provided the only goal his team would need for the win in the 26th minute, powering an unmarked header past Jon Busch. Photo: Joe Nuxoll, centerlinesoccer.com.
Center Line Soccer’s complete coverage of the match includes this photo gallery as well as audio interviews with players and coaches from both teams.
(Santa Clara) “It was a massive game for us, and we just laid down and died,” San Jose coach Frank Yallop said after watching his Earthquakes drop a 1-0 game to Seattle Saturday night at Buck Shaw Stadium.
A Fredy Montero first half goal was all Seattle needed to beat a disjointed San Jose side, as Sounders FC leapt past the Earthquakes in the playoff race.
“I thought it was our worst performance this season, definitely, including (the season opening 3-0 loss to) Salt Lake,” Yallop said. “From the opening whistle, we didn’t seem to have any real idea.”
Seattle’s win, their third straight in MLS play, moves the Sounders into sixth place overall in the MLS standings with 25 points.
San Jose, with 23 points, clings to a tie for eighth place and the last playoff spot. Earthquakes fans can take solace in the fact that their team has played three fewer games than the Sounders, but the team they saw on Saturday bore no resemblance to a playoff bound side.
The game could have gotten out of hand early if not for some quality goalkeeping from the Quakes Jon Busch. Seattle pounded the left side of the San Jose defense in the first half, resulting in several scoring opportunities. The Sounders Blaise Nkufo should have scored in the second minute when Montero’s cross from the right wing found him in front of goal, but Busch was able to punch his header wide.
In the 10th minute, another right side attack saw Sanna Nyassi crossing for Montero at the near post. Busch did well to get his left hand up quickly to deflect Montero’s shot into the cross bar before San Jose could clear it away. Montero forced Busch to make another save in the 10th minute with a left footed blast from 15 yards, before finally breaking through in the 26th minute for the game’s lone goal.
The deciding play began with Montero releasing Nyassi down the right wing, then making a 40 yard run to get on the end of the return pass to bury a header from point blank range.
San Jose’s attack in the opening period was mostly limited to thumping long balls aimlessly downfield, but the Earthquakes almost found an equalizer when an innocent looking pass out of the back from Ike Opara was misplayed by Seattle’s Jeff Parke, allowing Cornell Glen an open path to goal. Coming down the left side, Glen fired from 15 yards, only to be denied by Seattle goalkeeper Kasey Keller.
At the half hour mark, the Earthquakes came as close to scoring as they would all night when a long throw in by Brandon McDonald was flicked on by Opara to Scott Sealy inside the six yard box, but Sealy could only push his shot into the right post.
Yallop shuffled his midfield at half time, replacing McDonald with Arturo Alvarez, with Alvarez playing on the right side, Joey Gjertsen rotated into the middle and Sam Cronin moved back to the holding midfield role. Forward Ryan Johnson also came in for Scott Sealy to start the second half, but the Earthquakes attack still sputtered.
As San Jose struggled to mount an attack, Jon Busch again kept the game close, diving to his left to make a fingertip save of Nkufo’s low shot in the 63rd minute.
Gjertsen had a chance for San Jose in the 67th minute, taking a pass down the left and cutting back to his right inside the penalty area, but his 15 yard effort flew high and wide.
The game saw the debut of Seattle’s newest Designated Player, when Uruguay International Alvaro Fernandez entered the game in the 69th minute. San Jose countered by having Chris Wondolowski came on for Jason Hernandez with a quarter hour to play (moving Bobby Convey to left back) but that move had little effect.
San Jose had one last shot on the night, with Convey teeing up Sam Cronin for a 30 yarder in the 87th minute, but that shot missed the target wide right.
“We were very static and on own heels most of the game,” Yallop said. “I’m not singling anybody out, but tonight we didn’t play with confidence. We didn’t deserve to win the game a all, and that was the alarming, the disappointing thing for me.”
Besides 3 points in the playoff chase, the win earned Seattle the Heritage Cup. Both teams had 1-0 road victories in the season series between the two sides, but Seattle was awarded the trophy for having more points overall this season so far, despite San Jose having played three fewer games than their West Coast rival.
The Sounders now travel to El Salvador for a CONCACAF Champions League match against Metapan Tuesday night, to be broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel.
Coming up for San Jose, a trip to Denver to take on the Colorado Rapids next Saturday, and a lot of questions to be answered about whether this is a team worthy of a playoff spot.
• • •
San Jose Earthquakes (6-5-5) vs. Seattle Sounders FC (7-8-4)
July 31, 2010 – Buck Shaw Stadium
Attendance: 10,351
Scoring Summary: SEA – Fredy Montero (Sanna Nyassi) 26.
Misconduct Summary: SJ – Sam Cronin (caution) 15; SJ – Ramiro Corrales (caution) 80; SEA – Osvaldo Alonso (caution) 91+.
San Jose Earthquakes – Jon Busch, Ramiro Corrales, Bobby Burling, Ike Opara, Jason Hernandez (Chris Wondolowski 74), Bobby Convey, Brandon McDonald (Arturo Alvarez 46), Sam Cronin, Joey Gjertsen, Scott Sealy (Ryan Johnson 46), Cornell Glen.
Statistics: Shots: 8; Shots on Goal: 2; Fouls: 8; Offsides: 8; Corners: 5.
Seattle Sounders FC – Kasey Keller, James Riley, Patrick Ianni, Jeff Parke (Tyrone Marshall 46), Leo Gonzalez, Sanna Nyassi, Nathan Sturgis, Osvaldo Alonso, Steve Zakuani (Alvaro Fernandez 69), Fredy Montero, Blaise Nkufo (Nate Jaqua 86).
Statistics: Shots: 9; Shots on Goal: 7; Fouls: 8; Offsides: 4; Corners: 6.
well that could have gone better
pete. thank you for the headline, and frank, thank you for the honesty in your comments…..now let’s do something about this
sealy works so hard with the ball, i have a hard time being frustrated with him….glen seems to live offsides…..the only surprise that seattle scored off of a nyassi cross was that it didn’t happen off of one of the first 5 he served in….between the sun and ramiro’s inability to come close to dealing with nyassi’s pace, it was just a matter of ‘when’, and not ‘if
we need help
To decide the Heritage Cup on points in the season so far is, of course, completely ridiculous when one team has played 3 more matches then the other. They should have just drawn lots.
“the alarming, the disappointing thing for me” was when sanchez was cut. Play robles.
What’s particularly frustrating is reading about all the moves (especially DP moves) that other teams are making this summer… while we stand still. We still lack for a center mid…
“from the opening whistle, we didn’t seem to have any real idea”. well that’s frank being frank alright, but whose fault is it?
i’m trying not to be chicken little here, but if we can’t come out the aggressors and take the game to our opponent at home, we’re not a playoff team and don’t deserve to be. just another HUGE disappointment, after showing up w/ a dozen friends to tailgate.
bah…
man of the match – seattle
drew carey + the rest of their head office & sigi for cutting their losses (lungbergh) and making changes to better their team mid-season.
man of the match – san jose
the ultras!!!! at least they came to the game ready to rumble. best atmosphere at a home game this season bar none and yet the quakes were still stuck in first gear. 10,300 in the stands deserve better.
for me we keep; busch, corrales, opara, burling, convey, gersten & wondo then trade the rest.
isn”t it basic that you can’t have 2 small guys up top (glenn & sealy) as they get mauled by the defense. you need a big body and a smaller speedster and i don”t mean johnson either as the only thing he seems to do is flick the ball off his head to nobody.
“We were very static and on own heels most of the game,” Yallop said. “I’m not singling anybody out, but tonight we didn’t play with confidence. We didn’t deserve to win the game a all, and that was the alarming, the disappointing thing for me.”
well, who the hell is responsible for this?!…wow…in mid season and we’re stinking it up this bad @ HOME on top of it all!! yallop & doyle you guys put this crap together, don’t come around now w/ every cheap excuse in the book.
you can name 5-6 difference makers for seattle, now how many can you name for our quakes….convey….uuhh….’nough said.
To Doyle:
Where was the proof last night that SJ has enough talent to make it to the playoffs?
From what I have seen all season is we have enough to fight for not last place. This is the 3rd season where SJ still has no attacking midfielder and or a forward to who can hold the ball and direct the play hence the dump it over the top clearances out the back.
To Yallop:
When do you start getting angry and start holding people accountable. Point some fingers get aggressive and show that you want to be a winning coach. All I hear is excuses, an oh well attitude, or at least we got a point.
SJ now has only 3 home wins in 8 home games that usually means bottom of the league and every week we fall closer to the bottom.
Here hoping we see some changes, though I am not holding my breath
i agree almost completely with the sentiments being expressed here….how is it that the sounders come into two very talents columbians (montero and montano) as the beginning of their respective careers? what network do they have in place to bring these players into their orbit…or alvaro fernandez for that matter? i’m not predecting MLS stardom for fernandez, but he did most nicely around the pitch…as for us finding these types of players, don’t hold your breath…it is my understanding (and please correct if i’m wrong CLS, or recommend more decaf ;-)) that the quakes get trialists in from some sort of soccer player clearinghouse that represents numerous mediocre int’l players….if this is even remotely accurate, then this is the kind of thing i’m talking about when i say i’d like to see the quakes spend a little more coin…it doesn’t have to be DP’s (although that might be nice), simply realize that you’re now playing in the big-boy sandbox and spend some money like you’d like to be competing for a championship
man, my typing is terrible….let’s try again
i agree almost completely with the sentiments being expressed here….how is it that the sounders come into two very talented columbians (montero and montano) at the beginning of their respective careers? what network do they have in place to bring these players into their orbit…or alvaro fernandez for that matter? i’m not predecting MLS stardom for fernandez, but he did move nicely around the pitch…as for us finding these types of players, don’t hold your breath…it is my understanding, and please correct if i’m wrong CLS (or recommend more decaf ;-)) that the quakes get trialists in from some sort of soccer player clearinghouse that represents numerous mediocre int’l players….if this is even remotely accurate, then this is the kind of thing i’m talking about when i say i’d like to see the quakes spend a little more coin…it doesn’t have to be DP’s (although that might be nice)……just simply realize that you’re now playing in the big-boy sandbox and spend some money like you’d like to be competing for a championship….i understand that lew and co. would prefer to see a greater percentage of the ticket sales in the season-ticket column, but it’s hard to get excited about committing to season tickets when you field a so-so team in a minor-league facility….if we are going to have to endure less-than-ideal digs for the next few seasons, a least field a team that captures the imagination
Quakes were crap on Saturday. Long ball (Yallop Ball as I’ve heard others call it) has to go. Ike gave the ball away atleast a dozen times. We have a hard time possessing the ball and building any sort of attack and we do nothing with the few chances that we get. Glen should have buried his opportunity. The Quakes are not a playoff team – they barely resemble an MLS team right now.
One question, why didn’t Wondo start!?! To me our goal scoring leader NEEDS to be on the field as much as he can be, he is the only one who has shown he can put the ball in the back of the net with any consistency, why in the world does he only get 15 min at the end of the game. I like RJ, but this season he has been flat, why does he get a full 45 and Wondo only 15? Answer me that Yallop!
who’s this guy….
http://www.sjearthquakes.com/news/2010/08/kamani-hill-training-hometown-club-sj
worth any salt?
“I’m not singling anybody out, but tonight we didn’t play with confidence.”
Hey Frank! I’m singling someone out, YOU! No team can play long ball, giving the ball away 90+% of the time and expect to win. Your strategy puts our defense under enormous pressure, so the fact that we eventually give up goals in on YOU! Doyle too.
And then you blame the players in the press?! That’s SHAMEFUL! Our players would do a lot better with a game plan that made sense. When he first started in goal for us, Busch threw the ball out to his defenders, or a midfielder. He made short controlled passes to start our possession and we held onto the ball for a few minutes. When he first joined our team, Cronin actually passed the ball around the midfield, it looked like we wanted to work the ball through the middle, remember that away game to RSL? But now, Busch boots the ball down field almost every time he gets it, and loses possession. Cronin either passes the ball back to a defender, who boots it deep, or Sam boots it deep himself. And we don’t have any target forwards to receive and control the long balls. This is a terrible self-defeating strategy. This loser mentality is on the Coaching Staff and the GM.
Any half way decent coach could do better with the same players. You’re a disgrace Frank! And Doyle? You can’t find good players, you weren’t prepared to bring in new talent in a Word Cup year, your cut Sanchez who was one of our best players, and you like this long ball strategy too?
OUR team has looked awful for weeks. We were terrible against DCU. We were horrible against the Union, got very lucky there. We could have and should have beaten el-lay, but as soon as we scored, we bunkered. We didn’t even try to hold possession. We were horrible against Dallas. But we were good against RSL and Spurs. So it’s not like we lack the talent, it’s that our coach and our GM suck.
Doyle and Frank, resign! You’ve had two and a half seasons and the team is still crap. I am completely disgusted.
GO QUAKES!!
MarkMCF