Quakes 5-0 win in Kansas City wasn’t a one off
Photos by Graham Green
The top six stayed the top six for week after week in the Western Conference. Despite being offered weekly opportunities to step above the red line, none of the chasing pack could take advantage.
It seemed that almost every weekend, while one of San Jose, RSL or Houston Dynamo would win, the other two would lose.
Then (as they used to say), the news came across the wire. Sporting Kansas 0 : San Jose 5. Was it a typo, or at least did an obliging referee dismiss three home players in the first 20 minutes? Sporting Kansas City had been undefeated at home this season – and nobody wins 5-0 away from home in the league of parity.
But Cordell Cato and Shea Salinas both produced their best and, when you produce chances, the goalfinder pursuivant Chris Wondolowski doesn’t need an invitation signed by the Mayor.
What nobody outside San Jose saw coming though was the sudden brilliant form of Quincy Amarikwa. From one unlikely away win, Quakes hopped to an even less likely one – against Easter Conference hotshots DC United.
This time Amarikwa was integral to both goals in a 0-2 win that gave the Quakes their third straight win; though nobody was boasting much about the first; a drab 1-0 win over the Rapids.
Dominic Kinnear’s side dominated United in every aspect of the game, not that the home side played badly. The Quakes looked as disciplined a side as they had all year and behind the fighting and dare one say destructive qualities of Fatai Alashe lies perhaps the most physically imposing back four in MLS.
Shaun Francis has been added to Marvell Wynne, Victor Bernardez and Clarence Goodson in the absence of Jordan Stewart and could already lay claim to be the most successful entrant in the star-not-studded December 2013 MLS Re-Entry Draft, Stage 2.
Wynne and Bernardez have played all but one regular season match but as you continue looking down the minutes played list, there is a singular lack of ‘superstardom’. In 8th place, you get to Matias Perez Garcia.
The rest of them, with all due respect, are not the players Don Garber selects to All Star teams, even when they are kayaking in Botswana, visiting the Space Station or have never actually played in MLS. Salinas is the only outfielder to have played in every game.
Yet Kinnear, who must hate the adjective ‘wily’, has once more woven a team of respected journeymen into a slick outfit, even after losing a Designated Player, Innocent Emeghara, for the entire season.
If you’re looking for an easy answer, Panamanian Anibal Godoy was signed 0n August 6 using Targeted Allocation Money and has played every minute in that four game run. He has been fouled 11 times in 4 games which suggests he’s causing problems. With 54 Panamanian Caps, he has adapted as quickly as Kinnear could have expected.
One would have to say that this is a different Earthquakes outfit from the Frank Yallop side who won a Supporters Shield. Bombardment has been replaced by guile and craft, and they don’t wait until the 88th minute to score.
Those first three wins put the wind up the sides ahead but nobody really thought it would continue when the MLS All Stars (in LA Galaxy uniforms) visited the Avaya on Friday. Galaxy have been cruising and bruising opponents with star names at the forefront. There was no reason to think that would stop on the short hop to Northern California.
Signed in early August, Godoy has play every minute in the San Jose’s 4 game stretch
The Earthquakes were, if anything, eve more disciplined than they had been in the nation’s capital and worked every inch of every butt off to keep the range of attacking forces Bruce Arena’s side could muster at (pardon the pun) Bay.
1-0 suggests it was close but LA did not really look like rattling David Bingham who looked more composed than David Ousted eating his favourite ice cream on Denmark’s National Holiday, having being assured his tax rebate topped five figures.
The win completed a streak of four straight wins and nine goals scored. Even more remarkably, they had kept four clean sheets against Colorado and three of the best sides in the country. With a home game against Philadelphia Union to come, who would bet against five?
That would surely be the perfect platform before their biggest match of the season, when a resurgent Sounders FC visit on September 12 in what could be a playoff decider.
It’s getting harder to tell which side the others would rather see eliminated.
