Zip It: San Jose Earthquakes vs FC Dallas
June 7th, 2009 . 10:30 pm . By: Jay Brownlee
San Jose earned their first road point of the year on the strength of an FC Dallas own goal from the head of Pablo Ricchetti and a late goal from Arturo Alvarez that looked to be the match winner from the former FC Dallas man. FC Dallas, meanwhile, experienced some firsts of their own. David Ferreira netted the opening goal of the match and his first of the year on an assist from Jeff Cunningham. Kenny Cooper, beaten, battered and bloody, scored the game-tying goal off Brek Shea’s first assist of the year. The Red Stripes dominated the first half of play, controlling both the tempo and possession of the match. San Jose, depleted by both injury and international call-ups, looked to have a mountain to climb to earn a point out of the match. But then the weirdness began. Approaching the 60’, Tom Sanchez was kicked off the ball, a clear foul to everyone watching at home or in the park. Apparently referee Tim Weyland was watching the FC Dallas Dancers as Sanchez toppled to the ground and play was allowed to go San Jose’s way. To add insult to Sanchez’ injury, a foul committed by Ferreira resulted in a San Jose free-kick. With Dallas still down a man, the ball was played in a dangerous area, and Ricchetti was not able to get enough of it on his head to redirect the shot, instead nodded it past a sprawling Ray Burse. Suddenly the match was 1-1. And San Jose suddenly had life. San Jose began to take over the match from a shocked FC Dallas team now playing without Sanchez, who had been one of the better men in stripes on the day. Poor clearance from Drew Moor, who was challenged at the top of the box, led to a pass to Alvarez, who beat both Marcelo Saragosa and Kenny Cooper to push San Jose into the lead 2-1 at the 82’ mark. A bright start for Dallas had started to look like another poor loss. But Dallas would bounce back. Andre Rocha replaced Sanchez and Brek Shea came on as striker in favor of Jeff Cunningham with 20 minutes left to play, dropping Cooper into the right wing role. A later substitution of Eric Avila for Saragosa allowed Cooper to move back to the center of the pitch. This latter move was key in setting up a nice play from Rocha and Shea to spring Cooper for the game-tying goal. Suddenly this weird afternoon looked to not be a complete disaster, although supporters of both clubs must have had their hearts in their throats as both sides attempted to snatch a late win. The great news for Dallas is that a point was salvaged. The terrible news is that Dallas should have won all three. Add in a nasty-looking ankle injury for Sanchez, and the outlook is suddenly shaky again in Frisco. The Red Stripes neither played so well as to give supporters hope for the rest of the season, nor so poorly as to squash hopes. The 4-1-4-1 employed for the second week in a row by Coach Schellas Hyndman once again seemed to make sense for this team. Hyndman, of course, will be the ultimate judge of that, however, as he was afforded a view from somewhere in Pizza Hut Park other than the bench as he served a one match suspension for jawing with Chicago fans in last week’s game. And while it is reasonably certain Jeff Cunningham is not really a right winger, his ability to use his speed tortured San Jose’s back line on a warm afternoon. However, Cunningham’s instincts are still somewhat lacking. He showed better head on his assist, however, keeping the ball on the ground and square to the goal. All Ferreira had to do was punch it in. Dax McCarty was impressive again. La Flech Roja is playing his game now, and that is as Defensive Pest Number One. McCarty was literally all over the place, checking back to steal errant passes, and moving forward to pick up any free balls left behind by either team. McCarty was good on the ball, too, providing the link usually best performed by Ricchetti. Also playing notably well was Anthony Wallace. Wally’s emergence is a major event for this club. He should get high marks from Hyndman for consistently providing shut-down outside coverage and dangerous overlaps all match long. Saragosa, on the other hand, was again let down by his brain. His intentional handball from a corner as the first quarter-hour expired meant he would have to deal carefully with Alvarez all afternoon. To credit Saragosa, he was tagged as an emergency starter when Daniel Torres came up lame before the start of the match. But he was finally beaten by Alvarez, something that might not have happened if he’d been afforded free play. So armchair quarterbacks, chew on this: Saragosa, in my opinion, should have remained on the bench. I would have liked to have seen Kyle Davies replace Torres with Drew Moor on the right. Based on the practice reports, it’s a matter of time before Davies gets his chance. Why not today? But that decision was not the only strangeness on the day. Perhaps FC Dallas did not make another stride forward; they also did not fall back. But the club has to be left with the feeling that a match got away from them, a feeling that if not for a few weird breaks, could have been all theirs. 20 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Exactly what I said on the blog. When you are forced by injury to make a change to a winning lineup, you only make that one change, not two. Davies for Torres was a straight swap and allowed everyone else to remain as they were for Chicago, and it’s not like Davies doesn’t deserve the start from the way he’s been doing in training and the scrimmage.
Putting Saragosa in meant that Moor had to move too, creating more confusion in the backline than there would have been with just a Davies swap.
I just don’t understand Hyndman’s thinking on this move. His favoritism for the Brazilians is hurting the team.
I thought about the impact of Saragosa’s first yellow on Alvarez’s goal too — I wondered if he backed off because of the yellow. But since the play began right outside the penalty area and happened inside the penalty area, I figured that Saragosa probably was being careful not to give the penalty, especially at that angle.
But then I realized that I was thinking about Saragosa and realized that he probably just couldn’t get close enough to Alvarez to foul him.
Thankfully, I have a macro for this, as I have to write it every single week:
Saragosa sucks.
He is killing this team. He demonstrates very capably that one guy can consistently hurt an entire team. Who raises their hand in the box on a corner kick? And carrying that yellow had NOTHING to do with his defense on the Alvarez goal. He’s going to get beat in that situation 100% of the time. I was almost hoping he’d get a second yellow during the 2nd half so I wouldn’t have to see him on the pitch anymore.
Wallace is definitely the answer at LB. He does not allow crosses and rarely gets turned the wrong way.
Dax is the kind of work horse we need in the center of the park.
Richetti has slotted in nicely at CB.
Brek Shea is showing why he needs to play regularly.
Tom Sanchez was terrific before the injury. Let’s hope that’s nothing serious, but it didn’t look good.
Ferreira took his goal well and is finding his role.
DVB is so important to this team, it’s hard to put into words.
Burse has been pretty good standing in for Sala.
I could not see what happened to Sanchez. WHat was the off-the-ball foul? And not even the assistant ref saw it?
Saragosa belongs on the bench. The handball was just ridiculous. Even his teammates looked bewildered by that play. The SJ second goal was a result of his poor clearance that bounced straight off the sliding SJ player.
Another solid performance from Wally and Dax. Wally to Brek to Cooper for the second goal is something I hope we see more of for a long time to come.
Just shows were two equally bad teams play it’s very entertaining. It will be interesting to see who finishes last in the West.
The foul on Sanchez was obvious; he was kicked in the back of the foot or leg area. To me it looked like achilles.
I was at the game. The injury to Sanchez, which not not called a foul, occurred when Chris Leitch clipped the back of Sanchez’s ankle, so it was a legit injury. After the whistle blew to stop play, Leitch came up to Sanchez and I could hear him saying that he didn’t know he’d touched him as he may have thought Sanchez was faking the injury.
Anyway, it’s pathetic that:
A) there were so few people in the stands that I could actually hear the players conversing with each other
B) it was a sunny afternoon with no other sports competition and just over 5700 people is all they could draw?!
C) Hyndman keeps going back to the same players that cost this team points week in and week out ie. Saragosa who has no business being on the field. I have no idea what Hyndman’s fascination with this guy.
Come on FO… it’s
Sorry about that….
To the F.O: It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon and there is no other sports competition in town; no Rangers, no Mavericks, no Stars. OK, so the Rough Riders were in town but they played at 6:00 pm. I get to the ticket window and the cheapest walk-up ticket is $20! WTF!!!
The bad economic times has hit many people hard so help us out with the pricing here. Charge $5 for end line seats, $10 for the west side seats, and $15 for the east side. And yes, I say charge $2 for parking, which I think is more than reasonable. (It sure beats $40 at Cowboys Stadium.) AND HIRE AN ADVERTISING AGENCY TO LET THE CITY KNOW ABOUT THE TEAM!!!!! Get people involved and excited about FCD, which is just not happening. Anyway, the savings could be utilized for concessions. Come on guys! I went to the Rangers game on a Thursday afternoon two weeks ago and got a great seat for $7.00. True, I had to pay for parking, which I split with my friends. But even if I hadn’t split the parking, it was still less than the price of the cheapest seat at PHP.
I just love Cooper and Shea as a striking partnership. I can’t put my finger exactly on why it works, but it does.
With Kenny as the lone striker he seems to be constantly double/triple teamed and generally smothered and ineffective. Brek gets into enough dangerous positions that he allows Kenny a little more freedom to work in and generally be more effective. Brek’s height and speed are great assets for him as a stiker.. holds the ball reasonabley well too.. just needs a little more work on first touch.
I was loving Sanchez yesterday too.. that’s a big blow to see him taken out when he was just starting to gel.
As for Saragosa.. I have nothing else to say that hasnt’ already been said.
McCarty, as I’ve said all year, is the man. If he plays 90 mins and all year and Saragosa plays 0, this team will make the playoffs
“I just love Cooper and Shea as a striking partnership. I can’t put my finger exactly on why it works, but it does.”
I like it too and I’ll tell you why. Because this gives us size, speed, and strength up top. Combine that with the crosses that come from VdB and you got a good air game and ground game.
My only criticism about Cooper is that he needs to use his size and strength more to his advantage.
It pains me to say that Hyndman is clueless, and as an SMU alum I have held on to whatever shred of hope could possibly be held onto. He has proven that his stubbornness and unabashed favoratism towards Brazilians are beyond reproach. If this team ever wins, it will be because of the players taking it into their own hands, a la McCarty, not anything that Hyndman did.
He repeatedly shows that he cannot judge talent, putting the wrong players on the field and only letting younger, brighter players play when the team is in the pooper. He won’t even adjust the formation until they’ve hit rock bottom. This sort of myopic view on coaching is horrible for the players of FCD.
I’m sure there’s someone in the world that disagrees with me, but no self-respecting coach would have played Saragosa this weekend. I don’t care about emergency injuries. After Saragosa’s lapses in judgment, silly fouls and repeated torchings by opposing players, Hyndman should have put anyone, including
Davies, Dello-Russo or Wagner, who have all shown they actually have some idea of how to play outside back. You could have slotted Wallace in on the right. Even Rocha would make more sense.
I don’t care about the result, Richetti’s own goal was unfortunate. I care about how teams key on going at Saragosa, and laughing as they chalk up goal of the week candidates.
Everyone needs to quit giving Hyndman any credit when formation changes actually pan out. They’re akin to blind squirrels finding nuts. Maybe one day he’ll get it, but right now, it’s simply a roll of the dice each week.
This aggression will not stand. Rant off.
On a positive note, I like Shea, Sanchez, McCarty and Wallace right now. And Richetti is still great.
“Everyone needs to quit giving Hyndman any credit when formation changes actually pan out. They’re akin to blind squirrels finding nuts. Maybe one day he’ll get it, but right now, it’s simply a roll of the dice each week”
Well said.
Shea has a knack for being able to get behind defenses when it doesn’t look like he should. Cooper only does so on long balls.
I really like Kenny, but he loses the ball too easily. When he played wider it wasn’t as obvious because he likes to make plays with his feet. But playing inside more, he needs to learn to shield & possess.
Several good comments here that I won’t bother repeating, but, in particular, thank you to Rex and Toffee for channelling my thoughts exactly.
We all know that it probably should have been a simple Davies for Torres swap, but the bus driver once again shows that he doesn’t have either the brains or the guts to put in one of the kids when he SHOULD instead of just when he HAS TO.
Toffee. Well said, except for “one day he’ll get it.” I dont believe this will happen. My opinion: change coaches now.
An entire year of questionable coaching has gone by, and the only players we count on are those who were here prior to the bus driver.The Brazilian connection has failed AGAIN.Randy is right. Maybe
we should try Oscar/Marco or Marco/Oscar to get back on track.
Glad to see you’re not defending the Saragosa decision Zippy. I am only surprised because even Buzz’s reports didn’t hint at it. I totally agree with the Davies comment. This is basically all us ACM’s have been about this year. Buzz raves about players but SH plays favorites.
Count me as the one person who likes Brek in this role as a sub off the bench that comes in only to wreak havoc and make something happen. I know thats considered sacrilege nowadays, but if anyone remembers how he plays when he’s on the field for 90 (i.e. red and yellow cards and constant fouling cuz he was out of position when defending) says the its fools gold when we see him excel for 15 minutes.
I say let him remain in this role, especially while Cunningham is doing well on the right, and he can grow into a player alongside Cooper. Remember, this was a player w/o a position just in spring training. SH wanted to make him a center back and SM wanted him to play d-mid and left mid.
saban – it would be interesting for fcd to load up on us youth nats. each week it would be the future of us soccer vs s.america. right now, dax,wallace,lambo,davies,and shea and avila. – not a bad group.