SAN JOSE, Calif. – Playing their third game in eight days, the San Jose Earthquakes fell 3-1 to D.C. United Saturday night at Avaya Stadium.
Danny Hoesen scored the Quakes’ lone goal in the 43rd minute, marking his team-leading sixth tally of the season and the third consecutive match in which he has found the back of the net. Chris Wehan, the 2017 USL Rookie of the Year, made his first MLS start.
The Quakes hit the road to take on the rival LA Galaxy at StubHub Center on Friday, May 25. The match will kick off at 8 p.m. PT and will be broadcast live on UniMas, KNBR 1050 and 1370 KZSF.
MLS Regular Season
San Jose Earthquakes 1-3 D.C. United
May 19, 2018 – Avaya Stadium in San Jose, Calif.
Attendance: 17,644
Scoring Summary: DC – Zoltan Stieber (Luciano Acosta) 15; DC – Darren Mattocks (Luciano Acosta) 20; DC – Yamil Asad (Paul Arriola) 37; SJ – Danny Hoesen (unassisted) 43.
Misconduct Summary: DC – Christopher Durkin (caution) 60; SJ – Florian Jungwirth (caution) 90.
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES: Andrew Tarbell; Florian Jungwirth, Jimmy Ockford, Harold Cummings; Chris Wehan (Chris Wondolowski 45), Anibal Godoy, Jackson Yueill (Quincy Amarikwa 62), Nick Lima; Vako (Tommy Thompson 82), Danny Hoesen, Magnus Eriksson.
SHOTS: 19; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; SAVES: 2; FOULS: 13; CORNER KICKS: 4, OFFSIDES: 2.
D.C. UNITED: David Ousted; Nick DeLeon, Steve Birnbaum, Frederic Brillant, Oniel Fisher; Christopher Durkin, Zoltan Stieber, Yamil Asad (Ian Harkes 83), Paul Arriola, Luciano Acosta; Darren Mattocks (Patrick Mullins 72).
SHOTS: 14; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; SAVES: 5; FOULS: 14; CORNER KICKS: 1, OFFSIDES: 1.
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES HEAD COACH MIKAEL STAHRE
On moving forward from the loss:
“Of course we have to analyze it in an appropriate way. We will start to do that when I get home in an hour. We came out well this week with two good games on the road so of course we are really disappointed after this poor performance.”
On the team’s performance in the second half:
“In the second half, we wanted to play longer and have a more direct approach. More crosses, more players in the box, which we felt was the easier way to play. We tried to get one goal and put some pressure on them. I think the commitment of the players in the second half was excellent, actually, so I can’t complain about that. Obviously, there were some bad decisions from the coach with the lineups and some technical things so we conceded three goals in the first half.”
On the reason for the team’s mistakes:
“It’s hard to answer that now at this point. Look at the energy and commitment the players played with in the second half after 70 minutes. We came out totally wrong, we created some mistakes with the ball, we couldn’t press them well enough, they could easily find spaces behind us and to be frank, they were much better than us this evening.”
On how the coaching staff will prepare for the LA Galaxy:
“It’s a new game for sure. Now we have to analyze this game and we will start the preparations next week and that’s normal. Right now it’s really hard to deal with this defeat, especially in this way. The performance in the first half was really poor. One of the worst so far.”
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES FORWARD CHRIS WONDOLOWSKI
Overall thoughts on the game:
“A lot of the goals came from self-inflicted wounds. We need to take it more personally. We need to take it step-by-step, do the simple things right and do them better than we have been because we’ve been trying to do too much and costing ourselves.”
On his thoughts while watching the first half from the bench:
“It was tough to watch and tough to see those guys go through. It’s tough because we play well at times and string together a couple of passes, but then we have a self-inflicting wound, and the next thing we’re digging ourselves out of a hole and chasing the game. Especially against D.C. United, you do not want to chase a game against them because their front five are pretty impressive and dangerous. They showed it today.”
On what was missing from the team:
“It just comes to the final finish. We were creating some chances and creating some pressure on them, but the final third, we need to be sharper and execute a little better.”
On preparing for this game:
“We knew what we were doing coming in here. We knew D.C. was going to be a tough team, but we were excited to come home. I just feel for the fans. It’s not fair to them – that performance – and we all apologize for that.”
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES MIDFIELDER MAGNUS ERIKSSON
On what went wrong for the Earthquakes:
“I actually don’t know because the feeling before the game was really good. We gave away three goals. We gave away the initiative of the game. We’ll have to look ourselves in the mirror now because there is nobody else to blame. It was ourselves.”
On the energy in the game:
“We conceded three goals in 30 minutes, so that’s tough. That’s not good enough. We’ll have to step it up because we’re better than this. We have a big game on Friday so we have to look forward. Of course we have to analyze this game and see what went wrong.”
On mistakes during the season:
“We concede a lot of goals at the moment. It’s our fault most of the time. We need to be better than that. We have a great goalkeeper in Andrew Tarbell, but as a team we don’t help him at all. I feel bad for him and I feel bad for the whole team because we need to be better as a unit out there. It felt good during the road trip, but today was a bad game. We have to stay positive. We have a big game on Friday.”
On the formation:
“It was almost the exact and similar system as we played against Vancouver. We had three central defenders with two wide backs in Nick Lima and Chris Wehan. It went really good against Vancouver. There’s nothing to blame. We have to be better as a team especially.”
