SAN JOSE, Calif. -- After suffering a gut-punch goal that snatched away two points in their previous match, the San Jose Earthquakes were ready to make sure that kind of thing didn’t happen again Saturday night.
So when Columbus Crew SC midfielder Mohammed Saeid got himself sent off in the 33nd minute after picking up a second booking, the Quakes wasted little time in making the visitors pay the full measure with a 2-0 victory.
“I thought tonight, the guys looked sharp,” Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear said. “Sometimes, against 10 [men], you can be your own worst enemy; you take your foot off the gas and the other team can find something. ... They [Quakes] were in the mood. I think they were in the mood to play.”
Goals from Chris Wondolowski and Shea Salinas in the span of five minutes made sure that San Jose wouldn’t suffer the same kind of fate as they did in Colorado on May 8, when Rapids defender James Riley headed home a 93rd-minute equalizer in a 1-1 draw. That was the second tie in quick succession that could have been a win for the Quakes, who still took home five points from a stretch of three road games in eight days.
“We scored goals first in all those games,” said San Jose midfielder Matias Perez Garcia, speaking through a team translator. “Unfortunately, they did score against us in the last minute of two of those games.
“We knew when we came home we had to get a win. And we were able to do that tonight.”
They were able to do that by virtue of a much improved offensive performance. After completing an average of just 62 percent of their passes during the road trip, the Quakes connected on 87 percent Saturday. While the man advantage helped inflate that number, San Jose had an 84 percent rate in the first half, when Columbus Crew SC were mostly at full strength.
“We connected our passes,” Wondolowski said. “During that spell [on the road trip], we were trying to play, but we weren’t connecting easy passes that we normally should and will. So I thought tonight, we did a good job of doing that. When we do that, it just breeds confidence.”
With the game still scoreless, Kinnear’s halftime talk focused on the theme of staying patient against a savvy Columbus defense, then springing to attack when opportunities arose. That paid off when Perez Garcia rolled a simple pass down the outside of Columbus’ left flank, teeing the ball up for Jordan Stewart to deliver a fizzing cross -- which Wondolowski promptly headed into the back of the net for his 99th career MLS regular-season goal.
“Usually, when you play against 10 men, the middle is bottled up, so the path to get behind them is on the outside, and that’s how the first goal started,” Kinnear said. “It was kind of what we talked about – just take your time, be patient and get guys going forward.”
Perez Garcia was not immediately credited with an assist on the play, but he made sure to get one on Salinas’ goal, serving as the intermediary on a give-and-go to set up the winger at close range.
It added up to San Jose’s first multi-goal game in nearly two months, dating back to March 22 when the Quakes beat Chicago 2-1.
“Something that we need to do is get that second goal, to finish games off,” Wondolowski said. “I thought we did that tonight. After that, it made it a bit easier. We could open up, find the ball and start possessing a bit more. ...
“Sometimes, you have to dig deep to get that result. Sometimes, you just have to play pretty football to get the result.”
Geoff Lepper covers the San Jose Earthquakes for MLSsoccer.com.
