SAN JOSE, Calif. -- As in the case of this year’s Barcelona squad, there can be a ruthless efficiency at the core of beautiful soccer.
Can there also be beauty at the heart of efficient results?
To the San Jose Earthquakes, the answer is “yes.”
Sure, the Quakes know what people took from their recent spate of three road games in eight matches -- including a painfully chopped-up match at Real Salt Lake which featured 37 fouls -- and that it wasn’t an appreciation of San Jose’s artistry. But there’s still something to be said for grabbing five out of nine points during a grueling stretch, no matter how it gets done.
“Don’t get me wrong: We want to try to play beautiful soccer, too,” Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear told MLSsoccer.com this week. “I look around and see people are writing and saying some things. You can’t control what they think and what they want. We’re trying to play the game the correct way. Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want, so you have to try to play another way.”
For the Quakes during their long absence from Avaya Stadium, that way was to sit back and strike on the counterattack. San Jose kept 39 percent of possession against Real Salt Lake, 33.7 percent against Houston and 34.4 percent against Colorado -- but the Quakes also had an aggregate scoreline of 3-2 in those matches, and that included an own goal coughed up by defender Victor Bernardez.
“You’re not always able to play the prettiest of styles on the road like that, and we’ve had 10 games and only three of them at home,” Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski told MLSsoccer.com. “It’s not an easy thing. I think it just shows you, sometimes you have to bear down and grit out wins. I think we were able to do that, and now we can start connecting some passes.”
One positive of the trip is that it showed San Jose can still gain points even when they have to dig deep into their bench. On Friday against the Rapids, the Quakes featured Khari Stephenson (making his season debut), Tommy Thompson (getting his first start of 2015) and Paulo Renato (re-entering the lineup nearly two months after his last start), yet still held the home side scoreless into second-half injury time.
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“We’ve had a lot of different pairings,” Wondolowski said. “We haven’t thrown out the same team very often. . . . You never know when you’re going to get called on, but you have to make the most of it.”
And, as Kinnear pointed out, the Quakes had chances in each of their three matches to increase their 1-0 advantage to 2-0 before allowing (in RSL and Colorado) an equalizer. Will that second goal be easier to find at Avaya, where San Jose have averaged 51.3 percent possession, compared to 40.6 on the road, this season? The Quakes will find out Saturday when Columbus come calling (10:30 pm ET, MLS LIVE).
“Just because we’re home, it doesn’t guarantee us anything,” Kinnear said. “The one thing it guarantees is that the game is the same, and it’s still hard. And even though we did well on the road, we can’t rest on that and say, ‘Well, we’ve done well on the road, we’re going to be guaranteed to play well at home.’ If our attitude remains the same and our effort remains the same, find more connecting passes, then our possession will grow.”
