SAN JOSE, Calif. – The San Jose Earthquakes won’t be playing any meaningless games at Avaya Stadium this season.
San Jose made sure of that Saturday with a 1-1 tie against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Combined with Portland’s 1-0 loss to Sporting Kansas City, the Quakes moved into a sixth-place tie with the Timbers. Although San Jose lead on the second tiebreaker – goal differential – Portland has one game in hand. That means the Quakes’ Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoff hopes will be on the line during their regular-season home finale – Oct. 16against SKC – rather than it simply being a placeholder match until the offseason begins.
“Zero [points] would have really knocked us out,” said Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski, who conjured up an equalizer in the 62nd minute after Vancouver took a first-half lead through Cristian Techera. “One [point, we’re] still hanging, so that’s always a good thing. Kansas City [Oct. 16] was going to be a must-win anyways. ... I do enjoy being in this locker room, because everyone’s had belief. A lot people had already written us off before that Kansas City-D.C. trip. What was that, the beginning of August? I think that just shows our resilience.”
With only two matches remaining, San Jose’s margin for error has all but evaporated. Victories against SKC and on the road against FC Dallas are almost certainly prerequisites for getting back into the postseason for the first time in three years.
“We kept an ear on the score from what was happening up [in Portland],” Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear said. “It was one of those [situations] where a tie is OK. It’s not wonderful. It creates great drama, and a lot of worry at times. This next game against Kansas City, you look at it and go, ‘If we want to make the playoffs, we need to win.’”
San Jose came out with a sense of urgency against the Whitecaps, who were fighting to jump into first place in the West and become the conference’s first guaranteed playoff team. Perhaps too much urgency, if the hosts’ number of turnovers – Kinnear invoked “ping pong” to describe the style of play early – was any indication.
“We came in here [at halftime], we told ourselves we need to stay the course,” Wondolowski said. “I thought we were a bit excited. We wanted to go and we were giving away little silly fouls, a little bit too eager. Instead of playing a bit smarter, we were kind of just going in too hard.”
The Quakes grew more willing to take risks as the second half unfolded. Center back Clarence Goodson often remained upfield to try and serve as a knockdown artist for long balls, and Kinnear chased a winner by putting on young attacker Tommy Thompson at the cost of right back Marvell Wynne.
“You always get fight out of this group,” Goodson said. “You’ve got a lot of guys with a lot of pride, working their tails off. We’re not always the most beautiful team to watch – although I think we’re capable of playing some beautiful soccer, much more so than years past – but no matter what, you get fight out of the group. You’ve got guys battling and scrapping and giving everything. We’ll do the same in those last two games.”
One word of caution: Don’t describe the Quakes as merely “hanging on” in the playoff chase.
“We don’t look at it as hanging on,” goalkeeper David Bingham said. “If you look at it as hanging on, you’ve already defeated yourself. We know that our destiny is kind of in our hands, in a way. When it’s like that, all you have to do is think about yourself. We don’t need to scoreboard watch, or anything. We need to come in, we need to prepare for the next game and we need to get three points.”
