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San Jose easily beats Seattle Sounders, 4-1
By Randy Leighton
August 2, 2009
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Santa Clara, CA - 9,919 Quakes fans turned out to see their home team put up one of the their best games of the season today. San Jose easily defeated the Seattle Sounders 4-1.
San Jose shot into the first half looking like a new team. The two new international acquisitions Andre Luiz and Ramon Sanchez both showed leadership on the midfield, and it showed in the play. The Quakes passing game was phenomenal, the best they have played all season.
Only two minutes into the game and the Quakes offense was already in full steam. Ryan Johnson looked to cross over a pass to his team mates that found a waiting Osvoldo Alonso of Seattle, who kicked a lazy kick and put the ball right into the net. Fire the cannons, the Quakes got a momentum building goal in the first two minutes!
The play the rest of the first half was strong and heated, resulting in the referee issuing quite a few cards to both sides. The cards culminated in the 33rd minute for Seattle as former Quake James Riley picked up a red card for serious foul play, and Moreno picking one up 2 minutes later.
The tale of the tape is clear: San Jose put up 6 shots, 5 of which were on goal. Seattle put up 0 shots, 0 of which were on goal. San Jose shut them out the first half.
The only scare of the first half for San Jose was in the 26th minute when Cannon fumbled a standard kick back and clear out play when Seattle’s Sebastian Le Toux sprinted in and caught him before he kicked it. Cannon and Le Toux grappled a little, but in the end Cannon grabbed the ball back and got a foul call to clear it up.
Seattle definitely came out of halftime looking more in control of their game, although the Quakes didn’t falter and continued to play their passing control game that served them well in the first half.
The controlled passing and offense domination payed off in the 53rd minute as Shea Salinas sent across a low pass to Cornell Glen on top of the box. Glenn set it up and fired a hard shot to the left post, beating Kasey Keller for the second goal of the day, and Glen’s third of the season.
Seattle subbed in to players in the 57th minute and their play style became much faster paced. Seattle looked to pull San Jose off its control game, by running long fast passes and plays to their forwards, and even changing the style they were using coming out of the locker rooms. Being down 2 goals and playing with 10 men on the field necessitated this faster play style though.
The 77th minute saw Darren Huckerby get his 3rd goal of the season. Huckerby caught a pass right in front of the keeper, fire a shot right at Keller that deflected, Huckerby followed right into it and shot it into the net. San Jose 3, Seattle 0.
Seven minutes later in the 84th minute, Shea Salinas would find a pass coming to him in front of the net and instead of firing an off-balance shot, he funneled a quick pass over to Chris Wondowlowski who aimed and fired a hard shot right past a diving Kasey Keller for a goal. This was Wondowlowski’s first goal of the season as an Earthquake.
San Jose plays next weekend during the Night of Champions event with FC Barcelona on August 8th at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, CA.
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