The bad thing about playing twice a week is that you don’t get much time between matches.
The good thing about playing twice a week is that you don’t get much time between matches.
The San Jose Earthquakes want to move on from Wednesday’s result as fast as possible, and fortunately due to schedule demands, that won’t be hard to do. Saturday’s match vs. the Colorado Rapids comes less than 72 hours after the conclusion of their defeat in Los Angeles.
After flying high in Orlando, winning three straight games and scoring at will, the Quakes haven’t had quite the same spark since returning to the Golden State. As head coach Matias Almeyda pointed out postgame on Wednesday, things haven’t been easy for San Jose. Following a short post-tournament break, the team was met with weather conditions that included record heat waves and unseasonal thunderstorms. Then the region was filled with smoke due to a number of nearby wildfires, causing the team to fluctuate training times to avoid unhealthy air. Then the team’s match vs. Portland, scheduled for Aug. 26, was postponed just prior to kickoff, and each of the team’s two road matches required travel on the day of the game to avoid as much COVID exposure as possible.
“Our team after Orlando had a very big change at the football level for the worse,” explained Almeyda on Wednesday. “So, training session days are shorter, the uncertainty that one day you train and the other day you can't because of the smoke, whether you play the other day, or you can't, are all things that don't add. They subtract. It's not a pretext, it's a reality."
San Jose finds themselves in a similar position to last year. After a lopsided defeat to LAFC, the team had a home match against a Western Conference opponent with one objective in mind: regain confidence and get the train back on the tracks. The eventual 3-0 win over Portland that day sparked an 11-3-5 run over their next 19 games. To put that into perspective, the Quakes lost just three times in more than half a season worth of matches, and all three losses came on the road.
Saturday vs. Colorado is setting up in a similar way. By all accounts, the Earthquakes are not in a bad position in the standings. With a 2-3-2 record, the club is just three points out of fourth place in a Western Conference that seems as tight as ever. The Quakes have also played one fewer match (7) than every team but Colorado (7) and FC Dallas (7).
Longtime midfielder Shea Salinas remains optimistic and told media members on Wednesday that the team would study their mistakes against LAFC and quickly turn the page.
“I think the main thing is our mentality. We've just got to forget about this game and come out on Saturday with a lot of energy and a lot of purpose,” the 34-year-old said. “We've got to fight for the ball defensively and control it offensively. That was our strength in Orlando: our tenacity on offensive and our control on defense. Those are the two things we need to focus on for Saturday."
Colorado enters Saturday’s match with an identical record to San Jose. After starting the season with consecutive wins over D.C. United and Orlando City SC, the Rapids earned just one point during the MLS is Back Tournament and have since picked up one point across two home matches. Offensively, the Rapids are led by 23-year-old U.S. National Team forward Jonathan Lewis, who has a team-high three goals in seven appearances this season.
Kickoff from Earthquakes Stadium takes place at 7:30 p.m. and the match will be broadcast on NBC Sports California, KNBR 1050 and 1370 KZSF.
