Rapids and Earthquakes Battle to a Draw by Chris Brown
September 17, 2016 – Colorado Rapids returned home after a three game road trip to face San Jose Earthquake.
These two sides met on MLS match day one all the way back on March 6th at Avaya Stadium when a Chris Wondolowski goal just after halftime was all that separated the two Western Conference rivals.
Colorado lost 1-0 to San Jose on match day one, on March 6th. (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)
Colorado came into the weekend sitting in third place in the Western Conference on 46 points, five points behind FC Dallas and one point behind LA Galaxy, though the Rapids had two games in hand on the Western Conference leaders coming into the match.
San Jose entered the match sitting in ninth place in the West with playoffs looking like a distant dream for the Californian side.
After scoring the only goal in Colorado’s road win against Supporter’s Shield leaders FC Dallas last week Dominique Badji was rewarded with a starting spot again this week as Kevin Doyle is still out injured. Sebastien Le Toux started on the left wing for Colorado while Marlon Hairston started on the right wing. Dillon Powers started the game in the center of the Rapids midfield while Sam Cronin and Michael Azira anchored the Rapid midfield.
The match started out sluggish with both sides content to stay in their own half when defending and only venturing forward to attack. It looked like the match could have been a poke and prod affair with both teams willing to be patient and look for their opening, but after ten minutes the game opened up.
There was controversy in the 16th minute when a Rapid fast break saw Marlon Hairston through one on one with Earthquake keeper David Bingham. Hairston seemed to chip the bouncing through ball over Bingham and as the ball left his foot was tackled roughly by the San Jose keeper. The ball went wide of goal but the Rapid bench erupted in outrage, calling for a penalty. Replays showed that Hairston seemed to going down already, before Bingham collided with him, but it would have been understandable if the referee pointed to the spot.
Just minutes later Tim Howard was tested for the first time as a cross found the head of Chris Wondolowski. However the prolific strikers header went straight at Tim Howard who was surprised unable to catch the ball, but the rebound was cleared by a sliding Marc Burch.
In the 24th minute it seemed to be a sure deal that Colorado would take the lead when Dominique Badji was set free one on one with Bingham with acres of space to set up his shot. Badji dribbled all the way into the penalty area and attempted to round the keeper and shoot. David Bingham reacted well to get a touch on the ball as Badji rounded him and the strikers lackadaisical run up allowed the San Jose defense to recover and shield the goal from Badji’s feeble shot. The match remained scoreless and the missed chance will haunt Badji.
Dominique Badji tries to round San Jose Keeper David Bingham. (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)
Colorado were the more impressive side for the first half hour but the Earthquakes crept into the match. A ten minute span towards the end of the half saw the Rapids accrue three yellow cards and San Jose began to open Colorado up. They found joy dribbling directly at the Rapids big center backs Axel Sjoberg and Jared Watts. Sjoberg and Watts are very tall and excel at corralling target men like Chris Wondolowski, but aren’t as strong when defending against fast and skilled dribblers.
At halftime the score remained level and nil-nil.
Dom Kinnear’s halftime pep talk seemed to galvanize San Jose as the Quakes came out the brighter of the two sides after halftime. There was a noticeable change in passing tempo and San Jose was able to maintain possession and pressure better than they had in the first 45 minutes.
San Jose’s first substitute came early in the second half as Alberto Quintero came off for Shea Salinas. Salinas began dribbling straight at Rapid defenders with a lot of success. After a few attempts defenders had to come out of their compact home in the box to help defend against the winger, leaving Wondolowski a larger window attempt to impact the match.
Pablo Mastroeni attempted to do something similar by bringing Sebastien Le Toux off in favor of Shkelzen Gashi.
Shea Salinas was a bright in attack after coming on as a second half substitute. (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)
In the 68th minute Badji was set free again one on one with David Bingham and again was unable to capitalize. The absence of Kevin Doyle a major problem for Colorado as the Irishman was sure to have converted one of the many chances Badji had on the evening.
The Earthquakes were able to create several half chances in the second half but ultimately ended up shooting at Howards goal from distance and even though the shots were on target, the saves were simple for Howard to make.
The match ended in a scoreless draw.
For San Jose a draw on the road seems like a good result, but when the team badly needs points if they would like to make the playoffs, a single point isn’t good enough. The draw was San Jose’s seventh draw on the road in 2016.
The result is enough to see Colorado level on points with Los Angeles in second place in the west. The Rapids will lament the result though. They created the better chances to score and plenty of them. In previous Rapids games the problem for the offense has been creating chances, on a night when creating seemed easy for Colorado it was the finishing that went missing.
