San Jose vs Vancouver

The Vancouver Whitecaps make their first visit to San Jose in 27 years tomorrow night. These two teams first met in 1974 during the first year of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The Quakes ended up beating Vancouver in penalty kicks during their inaugural match. Fast forward to tomorrow night and the Quakes are hoping to repeat the same result, without the extra time penalty kicks though.

Vancouver are currently sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference as well as the league overall. The Quakes are currently sitting 7th in the West, ahead of Vancouver and Portland. In their previous 5 games Vancouver is 1-4-0 with 3 points and San Jose is 0-1-4 with 4 points. Most concerning to the Quakes is that in those 5 games only 2 goals were scored, during the 2-2 draw against New York. The Quakes are definitely in an offensive slump at the moment. Vancouver has been having troubles since the beginning of the season and are looking to salvage points wherever they can.

In their meeting earlier this year the game ended in a draw, with Wondolowski scoring for the Quakes and Chiumiento getting the tying goal in the 90th minute off a set piece. This was Wondo’s 6th and most recent goal for the Quakes. Since his return from national team duty at the Gold Cup Wondo has been bone dry, getting only one real chance at goal during the New York game. The Whitecaps have managed to score 3 goals in their last 5 matches, but they’ve been losing to teams by one goal each game. These stats seem to indicate that tomorrow’s game will be a low scoring affair.

The Quakes played one of their three new trades, Jacob Peterson on Saturday against Columbus. His play didn’t look too different from what I’ve seen of everyone else the Quakes have put in at right midfield this season. With some more playing time and practices with his new teammates he might develop into a right midfielder that can lock down that position. Alan Gordon was on the bench for the Columbus game but did not feature. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Gordon unless something happens to Lenhart and he needs to be taken out of a game or left off the roster for some reason.

In some other good news, Bobby Convey should be ready to make his return tomorrow night. I haven’t heard anything specific, but he was selected by New York Red Bulls managed Hans Backe to be part of the MLS All Star 22 man match roster for the game against Manchester United next week. Backe was on Extra Time Radio yesterday and mentioned that he had been in contact with Frank Yallop about Convey’s fitness after his knee injury in the Galaxy game on June 25. Convey was chosen to play as a left defender for the All Stars. Joining Convey will be Wondo. Wondo was one of 11 players selected by fan votes. This will be Convey’s second consecutive All Star nomination and Wondo’s first.

The Quakes recently released Omar Jasseh from his contract with the team. Jasseh had been part of the team for 2 years but never seemed to click with the team. He featured in a few MLS games, mostly featuring during friendlies and some of the reserve matches this year. He had been nursing an injury for the beginning part of this season. Jasseh was taking up an international roster spot, so releasing him frees that up along with his salary, which was somewhere in the low 40Ks I think. This move negates the international spot traded to Toronto as well as some of the money spent to get Peterson, Gordon and Nana Attakora.

Tomorrow’s night game celebrates San Jose’s Little Italy community. There will be Italian food at the Epicenter before the game along with a pasta eating contest and a silent auction for a “Little Italy” Earthquakes jersey. Continuing in the Italian theme, international Italian tenor, Pasquale Esposito, will be singing the Canadian and American National Anthems prior to the match.

Category: Armchair Coach, Game Preview, Local Love, Player News, San Jose Earthquakes, Vancouver Whitecaps