Chivas USA (7-11-7) fell, 4-0, Sunday evening at Buck Shaw Stadium to the San Jose Earthquakes (16-6-5) before a crowd of 10,545. The Quakes took a two-goal advantage in the first half behind goals from Victor Bernardez and Simon Dawkins. In the second half San Jose knocked in two more goals on Ramiro Corrales’ two free kicks. With the loss the Red-and-White remains with 28 points in the Western Conference.
· Chivas USA started the match getting into dangerous spots and creating several goal opportunities. Midfielder Tristan Bowen – making his third consecutive start – was active on the right side and crossed several dangerous passes into the box. In the 6th minute Bowen’s cross to forward Juan Agudelo reached Quakes’ goalkeeper Jon Busch’s door step, but he was able to make the stop.
· Agudelo was able to get Busch on two separate one-on-one attacks (14th and 34th minutes), but again the Goats were not able to capitalize on the attack. In the 28th minute Bowen again served a dangerous cross into the box, this time to forward Casey Townsend, who’s header sailed right of the post.
· As the second half got underway, the Rojiblancos continued to pepper the ball into the San Jose box in search of a score. In the 52nd minute, midfielder Miller Bolaños’ corner kick was headed backwards by Agudelo to Danny Califf, whose shot was just over the crossbar. The Goats were able to move their numbers forward throughout the match, as they outshot San Jose 18-14 and took more corner kicks (6-3).
· In the second half, the Quakes scored their third and fourth goals thanks to two Corrales’ free kicks, coming in the 71st and 81st minutes. On both strikes Corrales placed the ball into the net from impressive distances.
COACH REACTIONS:
CHIVAS USA HEAD COACH – ROBIN FRASER:
General thoughts on tonight’s game: “It was a difficult one to swallow. In the first half, we certainly played well to create a number of chances, and if we convert on those chances we are probably in a different place. We made a number of mistakes that led to goals and we found ourselves down 2-0 after playing what was a pretty good half.”
On San Jose’s free kicks: “Probably the better question is how are we giving up free kicks or how are the free kicks coming about? Losing on 3 free kicks; certainly San Jose executed well, but the first one was pretty far out, the second one, I think a player doesn’t jump in the wall, that might have been the third one, but it is frustrating. It is frustrating no matter what the goals are. If you play pretty well and you put yourself in a position to go ahead and you don’t, and you turn around and make mistakes, it’s a difficult situation.”
On generating opportunities: “For a lot of the year we weren’t creating opportunities, and in the last three games we’ve created quite a few, but we have not scored as many as we have liked to. Really the goals that we have given up in the past three games have been just subpar, and inexcusable to be quite honest. As I said, for most of the year we have been talking about the fact that we are not creating enough, and over the past couple of games we have created enough chances, but we have given up some really, really poor goals.”
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES HEAD COACH FRANK YALLOP
On game: “Tonight was a fantastic performance from the whole team. I talked to the guys about maintaining the standard that we have set this year every game and we certainly did that tonight. As a group, we kept pushing the entire game and never took our foot off the gas. We really wanted a clean sheet and we worked hard for it.”
On team’s chemistry: “The biggest thing for this squad is the chemistry and it really shows in our play right now. The guys are together and on a mission to do well. As a coaching staff, we love going out to training every day with this group. They do all the little things right and they are very focused right now on winning the league. It is a tight race and we have to keep winning to accomplish that goal.”
