Z/Web

After Sunday’s awkward (and unfair) loss to the Galaxy Scum, the Quakes really needed a win tonight against the last place Burn. Unfortunately, I knew from the start that wasn’t going to happen. The score was 0-0 as I arrived at the stadium. By the time I got to my seat with my dollar hot dogs (it was value night), the Burn had scored (just five minutes in). In the first half the Quakes were just terrible. I swear they connected more passes with Burn players than their own teammates! Unfortunately, the Quakes’ playing style is all passing-based, so if they can’t completely passes, they have no offense. They did manage to get one goal (off a corner, not a passing combination), and DeRosario criminally missed an open net to give the Quakes the lead. I don’t know what he did — he was alone in front of an open goal with the ball at his feet — but somehow he booted it over the goal. Was he trying to be fancy or something? It certainly didn’t look like it was spinning or bouncing weird (usually the reasons for a bad shank). Just side-foot it in, dude! When the Quakes gave up an awful goal late in the game with just minutes left, I wasn’t surprised at all. The players were just letting the Burn guy go right through the defense and stood around and watched him line up and take a shot. Goal-keeper Pat Onstad stood on his line and just watched the ball go in — it was like he thought it was going wide and didn’t even try to stop it. Very bizarre. When the Quakes earned a penalty kick in stopage time and had the chance to tie it, I told my brother “Watch Cassar [Burn keeper] stop it.” Sure enough, he did. Dallas won, deservedly. Not because they played great — they were pretty lousy — but because we played horrible. No rhythm, no communication, no passing, no creativity, no spark, no drive, no nothing. The worst performance in years. We haven’t played this badly since we last lost to the Burn in April 2001 (a terrible game I still have nightmares about). There was also so coaching strangeness. Granted, we really missed Brian Mullan (he got that ridiculous and unfair red card on Sunday when Carlos Ruiz dived and Hollywooded that he’d been shot), but Coach Kinnear made some unusual moves. First, he started both Donovan and Ekelund in the midfield, which didn’t work at all as neither saw the ball in the first half. Late in the game when Donovan was pushed up front, he played much better, actually running and creating a few chances. For MLS, I think Landon’s better up top, especially when paired with DeRo or Ching. Ching and Dwayne are too much alike to play up top together. Then the coach put in Chris Brown for an injured Ian Russell at minute 21, but in minute 72 he replaced Brown with Alvarez! Then he took out central defender Ryan Cochrane and put in Todd Dunnivant (later I found out Ryan was injured). But this wasn’t a game lost by coaching decisions or a single player: it was a team effort. Nobody played well (I swear Craig Waibel was the best player on the pitch), everyone was giving away passes (even our core of Donovan, Ekelund, and Mulrooney), DeRo played like he was the only one on the field, only passing when there was no Earthquake player around, and while Ching did his usual job, he’d not the kind of player who’s effective by himself: he needs teammates. The ref did suck, but not as bad as usual. He made one puzzling mistake. Twice when the Quakes had the ball in their offensive half and were attacking, the ref ordered our player to kick the ball out of play because a Burn player was injured. Why didn’t the ref just blow the whistle to stop play? Bizarre. But it got unfair when the Burn were attacking and one of their own players was down elsewhere on the field and everyone was shouting at the Burn to kick the ball out and they did not. Did the ref then order the Burn player to stop the play by kicking the ball out? No, he waved play on! Ridiculous and the ref should never be allowed in MLS again for blatant unfairness like that. But of course that wasn’t what cost us the game at all. As far as the game went, we did that to ourselves, and the ref actually gave us a gift with the penalty which we spurned.

Usually I’m so depressed after a Quakes loss I can’t go to sleep or get out of bed the next day, but for this game I was actually glad we lost. If we play that like, we deserve to lose, and I hope the players learn from it. This is a very competitive league and you cannot just go out and give a half-hearted performance and expect to get anything from the game. Final: 2-1 Dallas.