Late Recap & News: Toronto FC vs San Jose

By: Chris | September 5th, 2011

The Quakes managed to secure another point on the road last Saturday against Toronto FC in Toronto. The result marked the 13th game since the Quakes recorded a win in MLS, but the Quakes were lucky to come out of Toronto with the draw they managed. João Plata managed to slip the offside trap in the second, half thanks to a nice through ball by Ryan Johnson, and beat Jon Busch to finish, but the linesman ruled Plata to be offside. Replays showed he was not, in fact, offside, and the Quakes can relish in the fact that they finally had an iffy call go their way for once. The Quakes equalized in the 87th minute when, who else, Chris Wondolowski put home a throw in by Jacob Peterson that was flicked to the back post by Bobby Burling.

Toronto FC have the worst goal differential in the league, with a negative 23. With their number one keeper out with an injury and a porous backline, in theory, it should have been relatively easy for the Quakes to score multiple goals. However the team, like most instances in the past 13 games, could not figure out how to put the ball in the net. The Quakes held the majority of possession and had the edge on Toronto with shots, 17 – 8 respectively, but that final killer instinct is still missing. Toronto’s goal came off another fluke and bad positioning. Ramiro Corrales went into a challenge with Peri Marosevic and the ball squirted out right in front of Eric Avila who had only Busch to beat with his shot to the far post. The fluke was that the ball fell right in front of Avila, but the bad positioning is on Justin Morrow. Morrow decided to go into the challenge on Marosevic at the exact same time as Corrales, which is why Avila was wide open at the top of the 18.

The Quakes got lucky on the offside call against Plata, but it took until the second half of the second half for the Quakes to regain control of the match. After the offside call, the Quakes managed to hold possession and peppered Toronto goalie Milos Kocic with shots. Unfortunately none of the shots was very dangerous until the 87th minute when Peterson’s throw in was flicked on by Burling which was tucked away by Wondo. The goal marked Wondo’s 9th this season, first goal since the 2-2 draw against Vancouver on July 20th, and only third goal since returning from the Gold Cup. In my mind Wondo is still suffering from some confidence issues, despite his insistence that he is not. In the 11 games before he left for the Gold Cup he had 6 goals, and in his 11 games since returning he has only had 3, and it’s not like the Quakes have been playing against Los Angeles Galaxy caliber teams.

In other late news, the only move the Quakes made during MLS’ summer transfer window was to acquire 27 year old Ecuadorian striker Edmundo Zura.

Zura was brought in in the hope of providing a spark to the offense as well as being the big target forward that Frank Yallop likes so much since Alan Gordon (groin surgery) and Steven Lenhart (family leave) are still unavailable. General Manager John Doyle spent a good deal of time scouting in South America for players because they were going through preseason and the beginning of their seasons, so in theory the players would be close to if not already at match fitness. Unfortunately Doyle secured the “talents” of Zura, whose previous stints included an unsuccessful run as a “Marquee Player” in 2008 in the Australian League (basically Designated Player status) where he played 9 games and scored 0 goals. From 2009-10 he played with El Nacional in Ecuador, scoring 14 goals in 45 appearances. However, in 2010 Zura never played more than 45 minutes at a time in matches. Doyle’s explanation of this was that there were some coaching changes and as such it’s sometimes hard to players to get time as they may not be in favor with the coach.

Well, we all drank the Kool-Aid on that one. While most fans and followers were concerned about his lack of playing time or goal scoring record, we all went along with Doyle’s reasoning and hoped he could be our savior for the last third of the season. Zura’s first opportunity to impress was in the last 20 minutes of the Galaxy game. The Quakes were only down a goal and were playing well enough to possibly score. Yallop likes to test out his new acquires so Zura got thrown on to show what he could do, and boy did he show us what he could do! Nothing. In 20 minutes, Zura had 2 successful passes out of 4; he lost possession of the ball twice; and he took one weak shot at goal from about 25 yards and it was blocked after traveling probably 3 or 4 yards. During training the week after the game Yallop confessed that Zura’s fitness was not at the right level and Zura himself said that he was going to work to get fit. He was left home for the Toronto game because he wasn’t fit enough. Zura was officially let go by the Quakes for failing a more extensive medical exam on Monday. Luckily the Quakes had made sure the contract contained the option to release for failing the medical.

Last year the Quakes ended the season with 46 points and a points per game average of 1.53. At this point in the season the Quakes are averaging 1 point per game, having played 26 games and sitting on 26 points. Obviously at this rate the Quakes would end the season with 34 points, probably not enough to make the playoffs. Because of the longer season this year, the Quakes would need to end with 52 points in order to hit that 1.53 ppg average like last year. That number is impossible at this point because the Quakes could only get a max of 50 points if they won out their schedule. The Quakes are 6 points out of playoff contention, so they are still very much in the hunt, but it won’t be easy. Of the last 8 matches, I’d say the easiest are against Chicago, Portland and New England. The other 5 teams are Houston, Colorado, Sporting KC, Seattle and FC Dallas. I would expect the Quakes to get a minimum of 11 points, beating Chicago, Portland and New England while securing draws against Houston and Sporting KC at minimum. I made a similar prediction when they played their 3 game home stand in early August and they only came out of that with 1 point, so you know, maybe not.

The point is the Quakes can still pick up points, even win some games, if they can work to score goals and convert their possession into goals. We’ll see next weekend against Chicago at home.

GO QUAKES!