SAN JOSE, Calif. – When the San Jose Earthquakes referenced how much ground midfielder Anibal Godoy could cover, they probably never envisioned the Panamanian's whirlwind 24 hours last week.
Delayed in his attempts to join his new MLS side while awaiting his P-1 visa, Godoy finally flew from his native Panama to Los Angeles last Thursday. After grabbing a few hours of sleep, he flew into San Jose at 10 am Friday morning. Approximately 10 hours later, he was in the starting lineup for the Quakes’ 1-0 victory against the Colorado Rapids.
“He was brilliant tonight,” San Jose captain Chris Wondolowski told reporters after the match. “I thought he covered an amazing amount of ground. It can’t be easy, stepping into a new team, just coming in right away and not missing a beat. As you can see, he has great talent, a great mind for the game, and made our job a lot easier.”
Godoy stepped in immediately as the defensive fulcrum in San Jose’s typical 4-1-4-1 alignment and made his presence felt all over the Avaya Stadium pitch. The 25-year-old Panama international was credited with 64 touches and 52 passes – both team-highs. He connected on 86.5 percent of his passes and also contributed 11 recoveries (another team best), four interceptions and a pair of tackles.
“I felt like I had 15 games already with this team, because it’s a very good group,” Godoy said Friday in Spanish, via a team translator. “It was great that I spoke with [defender Victor Bernardez] and he gave me some great advice: ‘Play simple, just get into the team, feel comfortable.’ . . . I got a great reception from my teammates.”
There was a natural opening for Godoy in the Quakes’ lineup with the suspension of rookie Fatai Alashe, who has held down San Jose’s starting defensive midfielder spot for months. Did head coach Dominic Kinnear worry at all about playing a guy who not only hadn’t practiced with the team but was meeting some teammates for the first time on gameday?
Short answer: No.
“He’s a good player,” Kinnear said. “At this time of the season, when you bring in a player like him – or somebody new that you think can help the team – he’s not here to blend in and to work his way into the game. The conversations I had with him when I found out he signed – I told him I wanted him to play. And then I had a conversation before the game, and he was more than excited to get going. So it was a pretty easy decision.”
Kinnear’s decisions will get tougher this week. Playmaker Matias Perez Garcia, who missed time last month and earlier this month due to a left hamstring problem, came back against the Rapids but aggravated the muscle almost as soon as the opening whistle sounded.
Perez Garcia stripped off a compression sleeve after 15 minutes and gimped through another 35 minutes at what Kinnear later admitted was 50 or 60 percent of full effectiveness before being pulled. A team spokesman said the Argentinean did not travel for the Quakes’ match at Sporting Kansas City on Wednesday night (8:30 pm ET, MLS LIVE) and is not expected to join the team in Washington, D.C. at the weekend.
“A few minutes into the game, I felt the pain in my hamstring, like what had been there for the last home game [against Portland on Aug. 2],” Perez Garcia said Friday in Spanish, via a team translator. “I played as well as I could for as long as I could. I forced myself to play as long as I could until I had to come out.”
Without Perez Garcia – who admitted the recurring nature of the injury is “a bit worrisome” – Kinnear could simply slot in newcomer Marc Pelosi or Homegrown product Tommy Thompson as a like-for-like move. Or he might toy with the notion of using Godoy and Alashe together, tasking them with the job of getting one or the other upfield to support Wondolowski and Quincy Amarikwa as a way to help fill the attacking void left by Perez Garcia's absence.
“Anytime you lose the quality of having Matias out there, it definitely hurts,” Wondolowski said. “Matias is one of those guys you would [especially] like to have at 100 percent because he can make things happen and open up other avenues for you. If he can’t, then it turns into just a couple of different roads [offensively].”
