Counterattacks Can Kill San Jose in the Early Season
Based on week one, the San Jose Earthquakes may be susceptible to counterattacks against the likes of Minnesota United this Saturday
You hate to see it:
Toronto scored twice against San Jose last Saturday:
- On a PK that was iffy, but San Jose put themselves in the situation
- On a very bad giveaway leading to a counterattack.
The old adage is that it takes at least two mistakes to concede a goal. Well, San Jose had several on Laryea’s 50’ strike.
The camera starts here, with Yueill (behind the circle) trying to sneak a pass down to Hoesen (top right in orange shoes) off of a Vega goal kick.
That’s a pretty high-risk pass, with six TFC players ready to spring on the Yueill/Alanis/Kashia triumvirate!
After winning the ball, Jozy niftily dummies a pass to let Pozuelo pick it up steaming towards goal. Both Kashia and Eriksson converge on Pozuelo, leaving Tsubasa Endoh free.
How does Eriksson fare closing down Pozuelo, you ask?
Oh.
While you’re watching that GIF of Eriksson flailing at the best CAM in the league, note the difference between Alanis (left top) and Thompson (left bottom) in angles of retreat.
Alanis gets up to his toes and patiently sits between Altidore and Laryea, while Thompson sells out to get back. As Endoh (bottom in red) curves his run in, Thompson keeps him onside. And then keeps Laryea onside.
It’s hard to set a line in a man-marking system, but Alanis tries. Thompson just didn’t help him out.
So to recount:
- A poor pass by Yueill
- Eriksson takes the wrong guy in transition
- Eriksson doesn’t take a tactical yellow and instead lets Pozuelo lead a 3-v-2 break
- Kashia gets caught in between Pozuelo and Endoh
- Thompson takes a bad angle
- Goal Toronto
It’s early in the season and these things happen. But it’s not a good sign. Here’s two screenshots of Minnesota United (San Jose’s opponent next week) in their victory over Portland on Sunday:
They killed Portland by releasing Ethan Finlay on the counter, and San Jose has preliminarily proven to have no idea how to defend against that.
Maybe Alanis can move intelligently enough to provide cover for a marauding Nick Lima. I can't imagine that either Shea Salinas or Marcos Lopez provide more defensively than Lima — or at least enough more defensively to balance the fact that Lima was the team's best attacking option in the first half.
If San Jose’s defense did demonstrate one thing on Saturday, it’s that they badly miss Judson. As Colin Etnire put it (well, as I put it and Colin quoted me):
Minnesota's passing graph against Portland looked awfully similar to Toronto's versus San Jose:
Graph courtesy of Jamon Moore; Data: @AnalysisEvolved
The Earthquakes need somebody to force the opponent to hit the breaks in these situations. Or, as that Toronto passing graph shows, any situation. For all of 2019, that "someone" was Judson. He is plainly the reason San Jose ended last year at the top right of this xG vs. Counterattacks conceded graph:
Maybe Judson needed that extra week to get his legs under him, but San Jose need to have a backup plan. Maybe it’s Eric Calvillo, or maybe even Nick Lima, but there simply must be a strategy in place besides expecting Yueill to have a perfect game (especially when Yueill’s gone on national team duty).
San Jose was trying a few new things on Saturday, and they got a point to show for it. But the team needs home wins in order to get to the playoffs, and it’s tough to get home wins when you allow counters up the gut as easily as the Quakes did on Leap Day.
