Columbus Crew to offer no respite for the SJ Earthquakes

By on May 15, 2015

Seven days, three games, three cities, 3623 miles. At times, the MLS travel schedule can seem almost inhumane. The last time the San Jose Earthquakes played at Avaya Stadium was over a month ago, and between May 1st and May 8th, they toured Salt Lake City, Houston, and Denver in less than a week.

Nonetheless, Dominic Kinnear’s men came home with five from nine possible points, two more than they’d collected in their previous four games; if anything, their form took an upturn. In fact, if it weren’t for their travel the Quakes may have been able to hold onto a 1-0 lead against the Colorado Rapids in the dying moments of the Quakes’ final road trip of the week.

But it wasn’t meant to be. The Quakes sat back for large portions of the game after Chris Wondolowski opened the scoring with an early goal and had only 34% of possession by the end of the match. They had played with the counter-attacking style of the game that they’d adopted whilst on the road; against Real Salt Lake they kept not 39% of the ball and only 33.7% against Houston Dynamo.

Throughout the season the Quakes’ play hasn’t played consistently pretty — they’ve drawn two of their past three and only one of their matches has been decided by more than a single goal — but it has been effective in grinding out away results; indeed, they sit pretty in the MLS Western Conference, in fourth place, albeit level on points with Sporting Kansas City, LA Galaxy, and Real Salt Lake. And while they eventually caved on the night, as James Riley headed home a ninety-third-minute equalizer, Kinnear was happy to come away from the road trip undefeated.

“Yeah, to go unbeaten on a road trip, three games in eight days, when you look at the conditions we played in which is altitude, a little bit of heat and humidity, and then back up to higher altitude, it’s positive,” he said, per Centerline Soccer.

After an exhausting trip, eight days of rest was much needed. Now, the focus turns to Columbus Crew in the comforts of home.

Another tight game seems in the offing. The Quakes’ attack has been inconsistent so far this season — they’ve scored ten goals in ten matches — and a recent injury to Innocent Emeghara signals that they’ll take another defensive outlook against Columbus, the top scorers of the Eastern Conference.  Earlier this season Kinnear struggled to settle on any one formation, but adopted a 4-1-4-1 after the Quakes’ 1-0 win over Vancouver, with Fatai Alashe rooting a midfield diamond and Adam Jahn up front, forcing Chris Wondolowski back into the midfield (a role he has thus far seemed indifferent towards).  Shea Salinas will likely start out wide left as a replacement for Emeghara, giving the underrated winger a chance to take the spotlight.  Against Vancouver, they turned on the spotlights at Avaya Stadium and he most certainly shined; “I thought (Shea) was very good,” Kinnear said of Salinas’ performance.

The Quakes’ defense will be given another tough night, facing a Columbus attack spearheaded by Kei Kamara, the league’s joint top goalscorer with seven goals from nine matches. Columbus will likely funnel their play through the big-man, but Victor Bernandez should match up with Kamara well. Nonetheless, Columbus will most certainly take the game to San Jose — shake things up if you will — and won’t give the Quakes any respite.

Although Columbus had a blip in their run of form two weeks ago in a 2-0 loss to DC United, which highlighted their defensive frailties that San Jose must try to expose on the break, Gregg Berhalter’s men bounced back with a 3-2 win over the Seattle Sounders and had scored seven, allowing just once, in their previous two matches against the Philadelphia Union and Orlando City.

Columbus sit opposite of San Jose, fourth in the Eastern Conference with a five-point cushion above fifth-place Toronto FC. Although there is a long way to go in the regular season, now is the time for both the Quakes and Columbus to pull ahead and establish themselves as playoff shoe-ins, tomorrow’s match being a great starting point.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.