San Jose vs. Seattle FC

Seattle bids an MLS regular season adieu to Kasey Keller tonight in front of 60,000 plus at Century Link Field while the Quakes and Chris Wondolowski hope to spoil Keller’s regular season swan song tonight. Seattle has locked up a playoff spot in the Western Conference and San Jose has locked up a showing in MLS 2012, since there’s no relegation you see.

What the Quakes do have a chance to play for is the defense of both the Heritage Cup and the Golden Boot for Wondo. The Heritage Cup is a trophy that the supporters for San Jose and Seattle came up with in 2009. It’s a competition amongst the teams in MLS who kept their identities from their NASL days. Last year the Quakes took home the Cup. Vancouver and Portland have the opportunity to join in the Heritage Cup but at least for this year, they passed on the opportunity. Seeing as how Portland, Seattle and Vancouver compete in the Cascadia Cup, it’s not surprising.

The Quakes can also help Wondo defend his Golden Boot award from last year. As of 20 minutes ago, Wondo found himself in 2nd in the race as Dwayne De Rosario scored his 15th of the season on a penalty kick for DC in their 2-1 loss to Chicago. But on a slightly good note, Thierry Henry, who is tied with Wondo at 14 goals, was ejected with a red card during the game against Sporting KC. This means that he will miss out on New York’s final game of the season, effectively canceling him out. Of course there are still some others behind Wondo and Henry, the most dangerous being Landon Donovan.

Depite being 1 behind of De Rosario now, Wondo still has a good shot at overtaking him. It’s possible that the Sounders will trot out a mix of A and B teams tonight since they don’t really have to worry about losing their second place spot unless they lose their next 2 games by huge margins. The Quakes can take advantage of this and hopefully put on a good show and possibly get Wondo some goals tonight. The Quakes don’t have to win necessarily, Keller deserves a good final MLS regular season game, but they could give Wondo some goals too, I’m just saying.

Game starts in 45 minutes on FSC.

GO QUAKES!

Category: Game Preview, Numbers, Player News, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders FC