The Portland Timbers get a two goal defeat over the San Jose Earthquakes at Providence Park in Portland on Wed May 15, 2024 (San Jose Earthquakes image)
By William Espy
The San Jose Earthquakes concluded their short two-game road trip on Wednesday night against the Portland Timbers at Providence Park. The Quakes pulled off a comeback in their last outing against the Colorado Rapids and hoped for a much better start in this affair. The Quakes couldn’t repeat the same performance taking loss to the Timbers 4-2.
San Jose Starting XI: Yarbrough, Costa, Wilson, Rodrigues, Akapo, Tsakiris, Gruezo, Pellegrino, Lopez, Espinoza, Ebobisse
Portland Starting XI: Crepeau, Zuparic, Mabiala, Miller, Mosquera, Chara, Evander, Asprilla, Antony, Mora, Moreno
Portland got off to a quick start, getting the first scoring attempt of the night in the second minute on a Dairon Asprilla shot that was saved by William Yarbrough. They continued bringing pressure as well, however, the Earthquake’s backline was holding strong as a shot from Antony from inside of the box a minute later was blocked by Carlos Akapo.
The following corner didn’t yield any results for the Timbers, but another scoring opportunity from Juan Mosquera sailed over the crossbar in the fourth minute. From there, things turned the corner a bit. The Earthquakes attack woke up and started creating some offensive opportunities of their own. Hernan Lopez and Cristian Espinoza both had shots blocked by Kamal Miller before Carlos Gruezo’s shot sailed wide left.
Things evened out a bit from there, with opportunities being far in between for roughly the next 20 minutes. Maxime Crepeau had to make his first real save of the night in the 31st minute when he got in front of a Jeremy Ebobisse header, however, it immediately led to Amahl Pellegrino getting it past him to make it 1-0 for the Quakes.
Just three minutes later, Hernan Lopez continued his dominant performance since joining the MLS by adding one of his own to make it 2-0 in favor of the visiting team. It quickly went from a tied game to the Timbers finding themselves in a very tough situation.
They desperately tried to get themselves on the board before halftime but were ultimately unsuccessful and heading into the break, the Earthquakes maintained their lead.
The TImbers made a couple of substitutions in the second half, bringing on Eric Miller and Jonathan Rodriguez to start the second half. The Earthquakes continuing their strong attack to start the second half, with Ebobisse having another shot blocked just a couple of minutes in.
In the 51st minute, Lopez nearly scored a second of the night but hit the crossbar. From there, Portland’s attack came alive with scoring chances from Antony and Rodriguez in short succession. Over the next 20 minutes, there was a lot of back and forth between the two teams, however, everything changed in the 71st minute when Bruno Wilson was shown a red card and the Earthquakes went down to ten men.
Just three minutes later, the Timbers would get themselves on the board when Evander scored on a penalty resulting from Wilson’s foul. The Quakes made a few moves at this point, bringing on Preston Judd and Tanner Beason. It wouldn’t take Portland long to tie things up, scoring a second goal in the 80th minute when Rodriguez was able to find the back of the net.
In the 90th minute, the Timbers would end up getting a second penalty and scored on that attempt as well to give them a 3-2 lead heading into stoppage time. They controlled the attack for the entirety of stoppage time, and eventually, Rodriguez scored his second of the night in the 100th minute making it 4-2 and that’s how the game would end.
The Earthquakes started off strong, but a red card was ultimately the difference between them potentially walking out with another victory and another heartbreaking loss
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