Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Even though the purpose of the Carolina Challenge Cup is mostly for the teams to prepare for the MLS and USL season, the San jose Earthquakes have every reason to be happy with the Trophy they won tonight. They will not only come back to San Jose for the second time (they already won the tounament in 2005)  Most importantly, today, (in the exception of the first ten minutes)  they showed a very convincing performance, with a solid defense, a strong presence in the midfield and, for the first time, an excellent ability to move the ball forward and create chances.

Frank Yallop couldn't hide his satisfacion after the match: "We wanted to come out here and play well. It was very encouraging to win [the tournament]" he said. "I thought our guys showed a lot of spirit not only tonight, but Saturday night against Toronto."
After only 2 games for each team, and with six points, the Earthquakes are already assured to bring the trophy back home as all other teams neutralized themselves in the other matches.


Tonight, in difficult conditions (a strong wind and the rain in the second half prevented a large audience from supporting the home team, but at least, today, no tornado alert prevented the match to go to its term!), San Jose needed 9 minutes to feel comfortable in this game, the time for Charleston to take advantage of this slow start. At the 5th minute, Pato Aguilera took a corner kick from the left side. The ball was punched by Preston Burpo in the feet of one of his teammates and bounced out of reach of the defender...Darren Spicer just had to push the ball into the net. Burpo (and the wind)  was clearly the one to blame on this sequence, but it only reflected the bad start of his team, who had been dominated so far.

What brouht the Quakes back in the game were the main qualities they had shown in the past few weeks: calm and organization. Slowly, they took back the possession and organized the game with, tonight, a better team coordination, creating beautiful moves and great opportunities to score. We are not going to list all of them here, but many triangle combinations on the wings completely desoriented the Battery's defense. The best exemple of the creativity shown tonight was the equalizer. After Gavin Glinton fought to keep the possession of the ball, he passed it back to Ronnie O'Brien. From the right wing, O'Brien passed it back to Ramiro Corrales in the center of the field. Corrales sent a long and precise pass on the ground to Ned Grabavoy who controlled it dribled in the middle of two defenders to pass it in perfect timing back in the run of Corrales who had sprinted forward after his initial pass. He was then face to face with Stewart Wiggans (Charleston's goalkeeper) and didn't miss the chance. 1-1 (26th)

In addition to the strong wind, the second  half started under an heavy rain. The Eartquakes' domination continued, even thoug the Battery showed a great opposition, creating some good chances as well. The goal that brought the final victory in the tournament was created by Corrales again.At the 69th minute, In a similar position as for the first goal, he passed a long ball on the ground to Kei Kamara. This time, he did not have to sprint to finish, as Kamara was running forward when he received the ball. In the back of the defenders who thought he was offsides, he controlled the ball at the edge of the box, dribbled Wiggans and pushed the ball towards the goal, out of reach of the defenders coming back too late to save their team.


Frank Yallop keeps his feet on the ground. Even though he was very happy with his team's performance, he doesn't forget to that "we have to put it in perspective. Not everyone was here for all the teams and there was really nothing at stake. But for us, this was a great chance to build team chemistry and put in the foundation that we can win"
The line-up was similar as last Saturday's against Toronto, which is probably close to the first team Frank Yallop has in mind (1). However, the rest of the team stays under pressure as most of the players are still on trial. Yesterday (Tuesday March 18), a team which could be considered as a mix between 1st team substitutes and Reserves team players played a practice match against the reserves of Toronto. To add to the staff's satisfaction, they won 1-0 (Conrad Smith, 85th).

This is pure speculation, but, as there is not much time left to try new players before the beggining of the season, we can predict that most of the players who are still on trial will be offered a contract, in order, at least, to be part of the reserves. As usual, The Earthquakes have not given any indication on that point and keep the pressure on their boys to make sure they give their best before the final decisions are made.

(1) Interestingly enough to be mentionned, Gavin Glinton, injured (At the time we are writing this article, we have no information about the nature of the injury), was replaced by former DC United Striker, Jamil Walker, who made his first apparition with the Quakes.