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Dwayne De Rosario, man of the match tonight- Photo: Nap - The ProjectFC
The Bay Soccer is finally back. Darren Huckerby as well! Unfortunately for the San Jose Earthquakes, even though the english player scored the only goal of his team, he didn't make a huge difference...
The game started as last week's game at Salt Lake City ended for the Quakes: It was disappointing.
San Jose was not able to put 2 passes together and after a few chances for Toronto, brilliantly saved by Joe Cannon and Jason Hernandez, the keeper couldn't do anything when Dwayne De Rosario lobbed Mike Zaher inside the box to pass the ball to Chad Barrett. Alone at the 6-yard line, Toronto's striker easily found the back of the net (0-1, 6')
If the beginning of the game was disappointing, the end was going to be worse. "Disaster" could be a good word to describe the events of the second half.
Before that, the Quakes had a better period in the last 15 minutes of the first half. They had a few good opportunities and managed to cash in one of them in the 34th minute. Arturo Alvarez sent a long ball in Ryan Johnson's run. The forward perfectly controlled it and brought it into the box before being closed down by 3 defenders. He somehow managed to hold on to the ball until Darren Huckerby arrived, unmarked, at the penalty spot. Johnson found a space between the 3 defenders to pass the ball to Huckerby who just had to push it inside the net, out of reach of Stefan Frei (1-1, 34')
Fired up by the equalizer, the Quakes then had a good end of the first half, and even created a few good situations that were close to giving them the lead. They seemed to be definitely back in the game.
It is difficult to tell why they came back from the locker room so "flat" (to use Frank Yallop's word), but, as they did in the first 30 minutes of the first half, they looked like they were not ready to play this game.
In the 54th minute, Nana Attakora beat Chris Leitch in the air and pushed the ball to Pablo Vitti, incredibly free 2 yards from the goal. Joe Cannon had anticipated at the far post and Vitti just had to push the ball into the net. (1-2, 54')
This time, the Quakes were not going to come back. After 58 minutes, Yallop finally decided to replace Pablo Campos by Cornell Glen. After just 2 minutes, he brought back some hope at Buck Shaw, almost making the difference himself twice. Unfortunately, too many one on one challenges lost and too many easy passes missed didn't allow him to receive the ball in good conditions and Toronto quickly managed to control the game again.
The Quakes' performance was poor. It turned into a disaster in the 69th minute when, in a good position to easily win a long ball from De Rosario, San Jose's defender suddenly collapsed, leaving the way free to Barrett who just had to dribble Cannon at the edge of the box to kill the game (1-3, 69')
Aaron Pitchkolan and Mike Zaher couldn't stop Chad Barrett - Photo: Nap - The ProjectFC
Tonight, the Earthquakes didn't only lose a game. They lost their last chances to make the playoffs, and proved they didn't deserve it. They lost an important player, probably for several weeks with a harmstring injury and Frank Yallop, after a few better performances by his team in the past weeks, lost a lot of illusions. After the game, he admitted that his team "didn't look ready to play this game" and couldn't explain why. "I am surprised", he said.
After 17 games, the Quakes' head coach is still looking for solutions. "I don't want to talk about that right now" he said, "I need to look at the video and see who I want to change, but there will be some changes".
Obviously, he couldn't be happy with what his team showed tonight. However, trying new players at each game as if it was still the preseason is not a good sign. Maybe he just doesn't have enough quality in his roster to build a competitive team.
