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Club America to visit SJ Earthquakes in international friendly

By on July 13, 2015

Where’s Wondo?

That’s the question San Jose Earthquakes fans are already asking as they eagerly await star forward Chris Wondolowski’s return from Gold Cup duty with the US national team. Wondo has scored nine of the Quakes’ nineteen regular season goals so far this season and each of their two goals in the US Open Cup. Having appeared in every one of the Quakes’ sixteen 2015 MLS matches before his departure a week-and-half ago, the side he left behind has since managed just five shots on target in two games. They haven’t converted any of them.

The two-goal defeat to Houston at Avaya Stadium — only their home loss this regular season — was particularly tough to swallow. “I’ll take the blame for this one,” Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear confessed after the match. “I think every once in a while, a coach doesn’t prepare his team properly and I don’t think we played well tonight and I think I had a big part in that. I hold my hand up to the guys in the locker room and the coaching staff. A coach is supposed to help his team win the game. Or help his team not lose the game. And I don’t think I coached a very good game tonight, and I don’t feel good about that.”

Granted, Kinnear only had four days to incorporate new signing Quincy Amarikwa into the side and Matias Perez Garcia still didn’t appear match-fit after returning from injury. Starting with Amarikwa up front instead of Adam Jahn or Mark Sherrod, their six-foot-three target men, the Quakes were dismantled by a struggling Houston side.

Although Kinnear’s men also lost 1-0 without Wondolowski in Portland, the Houston loss stung on a different level. “Last week I thought our fighting spirit in Portland was fantastic and this week it was inconsistent,” Kinnear mused. “I’m not saying the guys didn’t try hard, I just thought that our alertness and awareness of getting close and doing certain things was in a way where it gave them [Houston] opportunities.”

Kinnear has a full week to rethink his squad before their next MLS match, a crucial matchup against the LA Galaxy; however, it’s sandwiched between two tough international friendlies at Avaya Stadium. This first, against Club America tomorrow night and the second versus Manchester United in a week’s time. Considering the MLS season is reaching a crucial boiling point and the gaps are beginning to split in the table, Kinnear has to carefully weigh how much the friendlies are worth.

“Changing formations, go three at the back … I don’t think we’re going to go [that route]. We’re going to keep it similar,” Kinnear told MLSsoccer.com’s Geoff Lepper.

“You always want to try to have guys in the position where they’re the most comfortable. To have somebody play out of position in these types of games would be a bit of a mistake. You want guys to get minutes, you want them to get chances for confidence, but also you want to keep them hungry.”

Nonetheless, the America match, part of the International Champions Cup, will provide Kinnear with an opportunity to fiddle with his startling eleven. The Mexican side finished second in the Clausura 2015 — the first half of Liga MX’s season — and won the 2014 Apertura. But as much as the game is a challenge on the pitch, winning would only be the icing on the cake.

”I don’t think it gets any bigger or any better than that,” Quakes general manager John Doyle said per the San Jose Mercury News’ Matt Schwab. “We’ve played Club America at Spartan Stadium. We’ve played Pumas at Newark Memorial High, so we’ve played big Mexican teams at smaller venues.

“To bring them here and sort of show off our team, our stadium, where Major League Soccer has come, is excellent.”

Whatever happens on the pitch at the friendlies, the Quakes’ have already won the day by hosting some of the world’s best.

Photo credit: Noah Salzman, via Wikipedia Commons

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.