Photo courtesy of San Jose Earthquakes.
By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
STANFORD- The Earthquakes took on the Galaxy in their special Cali Clásico match hosted at the Stanford’s stadium.
Tonight’s match saw Ian Russel lead the squad for the first time since the team parted ways with former head coach Luchi Gonzalez. For the time being Russel is still considered an interim manager after being promoted from his assistant coaching position.
For the Earthquakes it was William Yarbrough in-between the pipes while for the Galaxy John McCarthy got the nod.
It was a solid start for the quakes who had a couple solid early looks from Jeremy Ebobisse and Hernán López. That pressure lead to Mark Delgado being issued a yellow for a foul at the 22 minute mark giving Amahl Pellegrino a free kick.
Only seven minutes later the Galaxy got their second yellow of the night as this time Edwin Cerrillo was awarded one for a foul.
Once again San Jose was pushing as they forced McCarthy to make two saves in the span of just a few minutes. Despite all that LA got the first goal of the game at the 37 minute mark from Joseph Paintsil as he hit the back of the net with a shot from the center of the box.
The yellow’s in the first half were not done though as Jalen Neal was issued one at the 39th minute and San Jose’s Antônio Josenildo Rodrigues de Oliveira was given one for a foul as well.
At the 55th minute star center back Riqui Puig was subbed into the match and made an immediate impact. Just a couple minutes after being subbed in he won a free kick and then got a shot on goal at the 65th minute that was saved by Yarborough. He was not finished though as at the 72nd minute he surged forward and fired a bullet that beat Yarborough but hit iron. Thankfully for LA Dejan Joveljic was standing right there for the rebound and he headed the ball into a gaping cage making it 2-0.
More yellow’s were handed out as this time McCarthy was given one for poor sportsmanship.
With the game now winding down heading into stoppage time LA completely put the game away scoring at the first minute of stoppage time. The goal came from Mauricio Cuevas and ended up being the last one of the match finishing this one at 3-0.
The victory for LA is now their fourth in a row and now puts them up to 11-3-7.
With the loss San Jose falls to 3-15-2 as this club continues to look for answers in what has been a nightmare season.
San Jose will look to end their losing streak on July 3rd when they take on St. Louis on the road at 5:30 p.m.
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