Z/Web

Not a lame game by any means, though a disappointing result. The Quakes dominated the whole game, but couldn’t score. Colorado keeper and former Earthquake Joe Cannon was a wall, controlling his box, catching and punching crosses, and stopping a number of point blank chances. It seemed like surely the Quakes would break the deadlock at some point, but the Quakes never really got angry enough to attack desperately. There was one sequence where they tried, but Colorado actually looked dangerous on the counter, and after that San Jose didn’t want to risk giving up a goal. The Rapids did have a chance to two, but our keeper only had to make a couple routine saves. I wonder if Coach Kinnear should have put in our subs earlier, tried to get a win. It was obvious the players were tired (they’ve played two games a week for several weeks now) and creativity was lacking. Subs wouldn’t have hurt and might have inspired something. The Quakes really deserved a win based on aggressive play, but they couldn’t finish and so we got yet another tie at home. That’s two points lost. With a win we would have jumped to third, but this tie and Dallas’ win over Chicago drops us back to the bottom. Fortunately, all the teams are tightly bunched now, and despite being in last place in the West, the Quakes are only four points from first! We do have a game in hand on everyone but K.C. and most of our final games are against Western Conference opponents, so the Quakes have it in their power to finish in the lead if we go on a good run. But with World Cup qualifying in full swing, it looks like we’ll be missing Landon Donovan and Brian Ching to the National Team, meaning we’ll have to win some of those key games with our B team. That’s asking a lot, but we’ll see. Final: 0-0 draw.