ORLANDO, FL–The San Jose Earthquakes continue to be one of the more entertaining teams in the MLS-is-Back Tournament and it showed with an emphatic 5-2 win over Real Salt Lake on Monday night. The Quakes will face either Columbus Crew SC or Minnesota United in the quarterfinals on Saturday (5pm PT, ESPN2).
Cristian Espinoza opened the scoring in the 21st minute on a real team goal which he finished off with assists from Vako and Magnus Eriksson. However, RSL equalized 73 seconds later as the Quakes were caught off as Douglas Martinez came in unannounced and chipped Daniel Vega.
It stayed that way at halftime after some end-to-end action, but it would be all Quakes in the second half. It started four minutes in as substitute Alvin Jones was guilty of knocking down Tommy Thompson in the area. Eriksson cooly converted the spot kick to put the Quakes ahead.
Zach MacMath has had a good tournament, but he committed an error in the 61st minute as his distribution went straight to the Quakes and Vako would punish him and put the Quakes up 3-1. RSL were given a lifeline in the 75th minute as Damir Kreilach finally got one past Vega after two previous attempts in the half to make it 3-2. But that lifeline was cut short after Marcelo Silva received a straight red in the 84th minute for a horrible challenge on Jackson Yueill.
The customary-for-this-tournament Chris Wondolowski goal would come two minutes later. It is his third as a substitute. Eriksson would finish off things with a penalty late into stoppage time after a handball on Kyle Beckerman, who was later sent off after the final whistle for kicking the ball at referee Drew Fischer.
The Quakes were one of the first teams to arrive at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex for the tournament and appear to be having the most fun right now.
“Every one of us enjoys being here,” said Eriksson on Monday night. “That was actually one of the things we said before the game, on the field: We’ve been here for almost five weeks, so we can stay two more and then go all the way to the final.
“That’s our goal, and we enjoy it here — we play great as a team and enjoy every minute together. So I’m really happy to be here and a lot of guys on this team are happy to be here. So we’ll make the best out of the situation and try to go as far as we can.”
Now, it is on to the quarterfinals for the San Jose Earthquakes while the ride ends for Real Salt Lake.
