San Jose Earthquakes 2-Vancouver Whitecaps 3

If we have said it once, we will say it again: 2-0 is the toughest lead to sustain in football. On Saturday night at Avaya Stadium the San Jose Earthquakes certainly proved that to be true. After taking an early lead on the Vancouver Whitecaps some second half misfortune and some good attacking work on the part of Vancouver led to another difficult result: this time a 3-2 loss.

San Jose jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to a Jahmir Hyka volley in the seventh minute and Magnus Eriksson converting on a penalty kick chance in the 18th. But things took an odd turn in the second half with Yordy Reyna (59′) cutting the lead to one off of a free kick that took a hop before hitting the back of the net.

Now with a little bit of momentum, the ‘Caps would come alive. Just two minutes after the Reyna free kick Vancouver tied things up with Kei Kamara leading the counter-attack. The Sierra Leone international found Cristian Techera on the left side with ample space to score his eighth goal of the season and second in three matches. Kamara put a cap on a strong ten minutes of play for Vancouver with a counter-attack goal of his own in the 68th minute.

With the win, Vancouver (10-9-7, 37 points ) moves into seventh place in the Western Conference with sixth place Portland Timbers (10-9-7, 37 points) and eighth place Seattle Sounders (10-9-5, 35 points) set to play later this evening. As it stands Portland holds the tiebreaker over Vancouver in Goal Differential (plus one to minus eight).

As for San Jose (3-14-8, 17 points) the club currently stands seven points behind the Colorado Rapids (6-14-6, 27 points) for last place in the Western Conference. They are also the current front-runners for the top spot in the 2019 MLS SuperDraft six points ahead of Orlando City SC (7-16-2, 23 points).

You can read our full recap of the match from Brian Taylor below. In the meantime please enjoy some of our photos from Lyndsay Radnedge and Center Line Soccer. You can also check all of our Earthquake photos from the 2018 season on  SmugMug .