San Jose, CA: The San Jose Earthquakes host their last home game of the season — a scoreless tie against the Vancouver Whitecaps.
A wet and rainy Avaya Stadium played host to the San Jose Earthquakes and Vancouver Whitecaps as San Jose played their last home game of the season. The penultimate match served as fan appreciation day in San Jose and the drab and dreary weather was an omen of the disappointing match to come. Both teams had already been eliminated from playoff contention and it showed as the sides played to an uneventful 0-0 draw.
The Quakes were on attack early in the match earning two early corners and playing most of the first five minutes of the match in the Vancouver half. San Jose was distributing the ball well, finding open spaces, and catching the Caps on their heels.
Whitecaps’ keeper Paolo Tornaghi was called on early to make difficult saves, none more impressive than the diving fingertip save of Cordell Cato in the ninth minute of the match.
Vancouver seemed to wake up after the first 15 minutes of the match as they finally began to find some possession and in the 18th minute finally registered a shot thanks to Cristian Techera.
The game would even out as the half went on although San Jose would continue to have more chances on goal. Neither team seemed to be capable of capitalizing on their chances or their opponents mistakes as the ball would pinball around the box on a number of occasions but would eventually be cleared.
Early in the second half, Cordell Cato almost undid all of his positive play in the first half by giving the ball away in the 54th minute inside the box and with three Vancouver forwards around the ball. David Bingham made a quick reaction save to push the quick shot wide and keep the match tied.
Minutes later Vancouver would force another save as Masato Kudo managed to split two defenders and get a shot away. Bingham again made the save but allowed the ball to rebound back to Kudo for another shot only to have it bounce off the crossbar and just away from another Whitecap attacker.
Chad Barrett would be subbed into the match for Henok Goitom in the 59th minute and almost immediately made a run across the top of the box and unleashed a shot only to have it blocked by the defense.
Next to come on was Shea Salinas in the 70th minute for Tommy Thompson, ending fans hopes of seeing Thompson’s first MLS goal. Salinas’ first involvement in the game saw him get wide and to the endline for a cross that would narrowly miss everyone in the box and be cleared.
The game began to slow down immensely as more substitutes were made and what little momentum either side had disappeared. Vancouver tried to create space with short passes at the top of the box but couldn’t find the space for a decent shot while San Jose continued to make good runs towards the endline only to put a cross into the box with no blue jerseys in sight.
The match would eventually come to an end with the home crowd noticeably disappointed with the performance of their team.
San Jose now travels to Kansas City for the final match of the season against Sporting KC while Vancouver will play host to rivals Portland Timbers in a match which will determine the winner of the 2016 Cascadia Cup.
Summary
Goals
San Jose: None
Vancouver: None
Discipline
San Jose: Godoy 44’ (Caution)
Vancouver: Techera 68’ (Caution)
Lineups:
San Jose: Bingham; Cato (Sarkodie 79’), Wynne, Bernardez, Stewart; Thompson (Salinas 70’), Ceren, Godoy, Dawkins; Wondolowski, Goitom (Barrett 59’)
Vancouver: Tornaghi; Harvey, Waston, Aird, Parker; Techera (de Jong 73’), Laba, Jacobson; Kudo (Bustos 77’), Mezquida (Barnes 63’), Hurtado
