Photo courtesy of San Jose Earthquakes Twitter. Cristian Espinoza dribbles the ball upfield.
By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
San Jose hoped to open their regular season on the right foot but unfortunately faltered right at the finish losing against Atlanta 2-1.
For the Earthquakes Daniel De Sousa Brito started in net while Brad Guzan started for Atlanta.
An important debut was made as well in tonights game as Carlos Akapo made his first appearance for San Jose.
The Earthquakes in this match got off to as good of a start as a team could ask for as at the 12′ mark of the first half the offense struck gold.
The goal started off with Rodrigues crossing it beautifully to Espinoza who found Jeremy Ebobisse crashing the net who headed it home making it 1-0.
Despite the good start just a minute after the goal Carlos Cruezo was handed a yellow card on a foul.
On the foul Atlanta was awarded a penalty shot which went wide.
At the end of the first half the score remained the same at 1-0.
The second half was closely played with Atlanta pushing to tie the match at one.
At the 85′ mark of the second half the Earthquakes made three substitutions putting in Tanner Beason, Jack Skahan, and Michael Baldisimo. While Miguel Trauco, Cristian Espinoza, and Jamiro Monteiro were taken off.
The 90′ mark had another yellow card given out to San Jose this time Benjamin Kikanovic was given the foul.
In the extra time was when Atlanta did their damage as at the 90′ +3′ mark Thiago Almada scored to tie the match up at one.
On the goal though Almada was also given a yellow card for excessive celebration.
That did not seem to deter Almada who instead scored another goal this time at the 90′ +9′ mark to give Atlanta the lead.
With that goal Almada put the game away as San Jose could not respond.
The Earthquakes next game will be on March 4th against Vancouver at home at 7:30 p.m.
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