GBU Report: Earthquakes vs Sporting KC

The San Jose Earthquakes defeated Sporting Kansas City 1-0 at Avaya Stadium on Sunday, April 24th; here is the Earthquakes GBU Report of the match.

GBU Report: Earthquakes vs Sporting KC

The Good

• Goalkeeper David Bingham came up huge for his third shutout of the season. The ‘keeper had five saves, including a spectacular stop against a Dom Dwyer far-post header at 29’. He also made himself big to cut down the angle on a Saad Abdul-Salaam shot at 25′ to preserve the clean sheet.
• Forward Chris Wondolowski scored his league-leading seventh goal in eight games, a penalty kick at 60′.
• Center-Back Victor Bernardez bailed out the Quakes defense several times, including a goal-saving tackle against Dom Dwyer at 11′.

The Bad

• The Quakes Offense: The press stymied the Quakes attack for most of the game. Not counting the Wondolowski PK, the Quakes had just one shot on goal on eight shots total, generated five scoring chances (one in the second half), and had just three shots from inside the 18 yard box.
• Forward Chris Wondolowski had room for improvement despite his goal, including three bad turnovers in the defensive half which resulted in scoring chances for Kansas City. He finished with 54% pass accuracy and two run-of-play shots, both of which were not on target.
• Midfielder Anibal Godoy‘s fouls. He picked up an early yellow, had a second foul a minute later, and could have had a red for grabbing forward Dom Dwyer‘s head on a corner right in front of referee Jair Marrufo. He has five yellows in ten games, including three yellows in five games this year alone. He also has 14 fouls for an astonishing 2.8 fouls/game average. Wow.
• The Pitch. Avaya’s pitch is consistently one of the slickest in MLS, resulting in a lot of slips from the players on both sides. Something has to be done to improve the quality of the grass and remove the sliding.

The Ugly

• Midfielder Simon Dawkins had an awful game. He dribbled to a bad position resulting in blocked cross at 5′, forced a bad shot which was blocked from 20 yards out at 9′, forced a second bad shot which was blocked at the top of the box at 21′, had a poor corner by attempting a pass to midfielder Alberto Quintero which was intercepted by Graham Zusi at 23′ (a foul saved the corner), had a poor ball reception which set up an Saad Abdul-Salaam breakaway at 25′ that hit the side-netting, tried to thread a through-ball to Quintero at 36′ which went unanswered, and was relatively quiet for the second half with just 20 touches. He ended the day with just 77% of his passes being successful. He did draw the yellow to set up the Wondolowski PK goal, but that was basically it.
• Center-back Andres Imperiale was quick to resort to tackling, which caused him to get burned numerous times by Dom Dwyer. I counted at least six times the Argentinian was beat by Dwyer which could have resulted in goals for Sporting KC: at minutes 10′, 27′, 29′, 32′ (which should have been a yellow card), 49′, and the clip from behind to save a goal-scoring opportunity at 55′. He also got burned by Graham Zusi at 70′.
• Forward Quincy Amarikwa failed to impress. Amarikwa had 28 touches, zero shots all game, and a 69% pass-completion percentage. As long as he is not a threat to score, expect defenders to keep swarming Wondolowski and limiting the Quakes attack.

The GBU Report is a post-match report which analyzes the good, the bad, and the ugly performances of Earthquakes players and the team after each match.

Main Photo: Dan Burkhead, LWOS