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Club America beat SJ Earthquakes 2-1 in heated friendly

By on July 14, 2015

Club America fans gathered in numbers outside of Avaya Stadium beginning at 10:00 am. Although it was technically a home game for the San Jose Earthquakes, the America fans made the atmosphere hostile for the home team. As a part of the International Champions Cup, commonly a preseason tournament treated like international friendlies, there wasn’t much for either team in the game – the Quakes, for one, had their minds cast on a key Major League Soccer meeting with the LA Galaxy on Friday. And yet, the atmosphere spilt onto the pitch. The field was set alight with a surprisingly heated contest, although at least it didn’t actually catch fire from the firecrackers Club America fans threw onto the pitch. “It was sometimes a little too competitive,” Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear summarized.

They called it an international friendly but it certainly wasn’t a friendly contest. The game had a faster tempo than many of the Quakes’ MLS matches at Avaya Stadium. “ That’s the first thing I said to the guys in the locker room, that I enjoyed the spirit and their intensity,” Kinnear said after match.

“It was a hard fought game. I think anytime you have an American team and a Mexican team playing, whether its club level or international level, it is always going to be chippy,” said Quakes center-back Clarence Goodson after the match. “I don’t know why that is. I’ve played in a lot of them and I laugh when they call them “friendly games”. That’s what you kind of expect from these games.”

However, Club America’s skill was visibly a class above the Quakes’. The Mexican side dominated large portions of the first half and early on, Jose Guerrero volleyed wide from twenty yards. America set up in a 4-3-3, pushing their full-backs very high up the pitch and catching the Quakes out on the wings on many occasions. Ten minutes in, Carlos Quintero spread the play wide right to Andres Andrado, who cut into the box and blasted a shot across goal. Although Bryan Meredith parried, the rebound fell right to Dario Benedetto, whose rabona-esque effort from point-blank range was straight at the recovering Meredith.

From the beginning both sides were bashing heads. Fourteen minutes in, Clarence Goodson rugby-tackled a breaking Benedetto, prompting the first of many yellow cards. Moments before, Matias Perez Garcia had rattled the upright with a beautiful twenty-five yard free-kick. Apparently the players didn’t get the memo that international rugby at Avaya Stadium is actually next week. At the final whistle, mascot Q tackled a pitch invader.  Kinnear even headed down the tunnel a few minutes early, explaining, “I [thought] I was going to get sent to the locker room by the referee so I beat him to the punch.”

“I think the challenge from Clarence on Benedetto obviously lead to some pushing and shoving and it didn’t stop [there],” Kinnear told Football Every Day. “ I’d say that was the point that lead to the intensity rising. The first fifteen minutes I think the game was played in a good fashion. That [challenge] obviously raised the tempers.”

Twenty-two minutes in the opener came from a set piece, of course. Quincy Amarikwa headed Garcia’s near-post corner on goal and although America goalkeeper Hugo Gonzalez parried it, Goodson was there to convert the rebound.

As if the game hadn’t been as explosive enough already for a friendly. In total, eight yellow cards were dished out throughout the ninety minutes of play. After Sanna Nyassi’s late tackles in the twenty-third minute, referee Alejandro Mariscal signaled for everybody to calm down. Andres Andrade was booked for a late challenge on Leonardo Barrera and on the brink of the half a fight broke out. Nyassi was tackled and lashed out at Paolo Goltz, who in return pushed the winger to the ground. Somewhere in the brawl, the referee was also pushed to the side. Nyassi and Goltz were both sent off but many more could have seen the book.

Kinnear told the Fox broadcast at halftime: “I just saw two guys acting like silly people. You don’t want to see that happen. The game had an edge and that carried over a little.”

A hint of friendly play drifted back into the proceedings when Kinnear made seven halftime substitutions, bringing on two trialists. Yet the tempo, which America forced, hardly abated. In the sixty-fourth minute, Shaun Francis headed a crossed America free-kick just wide of his own goal as America piled the pressure on the Quakes.

In the seventy-second minute, however, the Quakes nearly grabbed a second on the break. Tommy Thompson broke by two players on the counter, nutmegging Erik Pimentel, before slipping the ball through to Adam Jahn in on goal, only for the substitute forward to poked the chance wide of the target.

Nonetheless, when America’s equalizer came in the seventy-sixth minute, it was much deserved. Andres Andrade smacked a low, twenty-five-yard effort across goal and past Meredith. Bryan Colula volleyed just over from thirty-five yards soon after and eighty-three minutes in, Francisco Rivera volleyed a winner home from a nearly identical position to Andrade’s goal.

It was one for the fans. Many of the rowdy Club America supporters who had arrived at 10:00 am were held until 10:00 pm when they were finally let out of the stadium by the police. As for the two teams, both should come away moderately happy with the result. Looking to Friday night it was a confidence booster for the Quakes and for America, a valued win for all the supporters, probably around two-thirds of the crowd. Club America’s assistant coach said after the match through a translator: “These people are working, fighting, and spending their money [to see us play]. So for the reason we take these games very seriously and it helps for the fans to be able to see us up close. It represents something important for us to be able to play in front of them. We know it’s hard working to pay for a ticket, which is why we take these games seriously. Whether it’s one fan or two fans or more it makes us play harder.”

The players’ performances confirmed what he said, however melodramatic.

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.