Z/Web

After struggling last week in an extremely poor performance against Colorado, the Quakes are back with an improvement, but are still not the championship team from last year. I am not too worried, however. They show glimpses of their old form and just need more time to settle down. If they can peak toward the end of the season the team should be fine, make the play-offs, and defend their championship in the final again.

This game was a huge sellout (18,000 packed into tiny Spartan Stadium) because it was 14-year-old Freddy Adu’s first visit to the Bay Area. And he started his first match! It was cool to see Freddy — my season ticket seat is front row and he was almost close enough to touch — but other than a few nice plays, he really wasn’t a factor in the game. That’s too be expected: keep in mind he’s only 14 and though he’s got fantastic skills, it still takes a while to get used to playing at this level. He’ll be fine. I just worry the media will put too much pressure on the league, creating an atmosphere where the non-soccer watching public will expect Freddy to do awesome stuff and when he doesn’t, they’ll fade away. Freddy will do awesome stuff: just maybe not this year.

Not counting the Freddy factor, this was still a decent game. The Quakes had tons of early changes and scored in the first half off a Jeff Agoos free kick and Troy Dayak header. Great goal. But in the second half the heat (it was a 1 p.m. kickoff and quite warm) seemed to take its toll. Landon played 90 minutes for the USA against Mexico on Wednesday and it showed as he faded late in the half. None of the Quakes really sparkled in the second half. A bit of missed marking and poor timing gave D.C. a tiny opening and they took it, with Dema Kovalenko scoring. I felt that was harsh, because ten minutes earlier Dema should have been red carded. He had a violent foul against Brian Mullan and was yellow carded. In the very next play he deliberately shoulder-charged Mullan into the sideline, knocking Brian down. He didn’t even try for the ball, just took out the man. That’s normally an automatic yellow. If I was the ref I’d give it even faster considering he’d just been booked — a yellow’s supposed to be a warning after all — but this ref decided to be merciful and just called a foul with no second yellow card. Poor decision in my opinion, but we really can’t say it decided the match since the Quakes didn’t really deserve a win considering their lackluster second half. But they certainly didn’t deserve to lose and a point each seems like a fair result in the end. Final: 1-1.