San Jose celebrates Anibal Godoy’s goal against Sporting Kansas City.
There’s three spots left in the Western Conference and thanks to a 1-0 win for the San Jose Earthquakes over Sporting Kansas City there’s now 4 teams within a point of each other fighting to clinch a postseason berth.
It was Anibal Godoy who scored just after the break to give his team the lead and realistically keep their playoff hopes alive. Godoy scored his second of the year for San Jose, both goals coming against Sporting KC and both in big games for the Quakes. Any other result could have spelled the end for San Jose, who are trying to make the playoffs for the first time since 2012 when they won the Supporters’ Shield.
For Sporting Kansas City, it was an opportunity missed to clinch their playoff spot but not a disaster as they still have 2 games left to play this season and a win against Colorado on Oct. 21st would be enough to see KC through to the postseason.
San Jose were the aggressors early in the match, getting several chances to score but failing to capitalize on any of them. Quincy Amarikwa had a majority of those chances, but while the forward did a fantastic job at creating space and beating defenders, he couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.
Clarence Goodson and Matias Perez Garcia too had their chances in the first half to give San Jose the early lead but both of their shots were right at keeper Tim Melia who made the easy save.
The best chance in the first half though came in the 8th minute from Dom Dwyer. Dwyer got behind the San Jose defense and was alone on goal but failed to convert thanks in part to a David Bingham save.
Although unable to score for San Jose, Amarikwa managed to create problems for the Sporting defense. The 47th minute winner by Godoy started with Amarikwa dancing through 4 defenders before passing the ball of to Shea Salinas. Salinas put a perfect cross to Chris Wondolowski at the right of the 6 yard box who then volleyed the ball across the front of goal to Godoy at the far post.
Amarikwa’s play as a holding forward was crucial to San Jose’s attack throughout the match. He was consistently able to put the Sporting defense in tough positions and force the midfield to fall back and begin attacks from deep in their own end. One of his more spectacular plays of the game looked to have earned San Jose their second goal as Amarikwa pirouetted around an incoming defender to get a free look at goal but again Melia did well to step up and block the shot.
Sporting looked to have found an equalizer in the 71st minute when a lofted ball over the Quakes back line from Feilhaber found the head of Mikey Lopez at the top of the 6 yard box. His header went high over the bar though, allowing Quakes fans to exhale sighs of relief.
It was an overly physical match from both sides and referee Kevin Stott was content to let the physicality go largely unpunished. Anibal Godoy, Amobi Okugo, and Dom Dwyer all saw yellow cards in the match for unsporting behavior but there was continuous jersey pulling and hard challenges that were allowed to play on. The lack of calls was in favor of the Quakes late as they looked to close out the match and keep a clean sheet.
San Jose will travel to Dallas next Sunday for the season finale and will need to get a result to have any chance of making the playoffs. Sporting plays Colorado at home on Wednesday before welcoming the Galaxy to Sporting Park on Sunday.
