SAN JOSE — The San Jose Earthquakes certainly had opportunities for another season-defining Leagues Cup win against the LA Galaxy on Wednesday. But they didn’t convert enough of them.
The Earthquakes, coming off a dramatic victory over Mexican side Chivas de Guadalajara on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium, had three open looks inside the 18-yard box during a five-minute span midway through the first half.
But Amahl Pellegrino, Carlos Gruezo and Hernan Lopez couldn’t convert the trio of golden opportunities. Twenty minutes later, Diego Fagundez delivered a magnificent curling strike for Galaxy to put LA up 1-0 in the 41st minute.
San Jose finally equalized in the 75th minute on Jeremy Ebobisse’s strike in the box, but Los Angeles responded with substitute Miguel Berry’s tap-in off a Miki Yamane assist in the 89th minute. That was enough for the visitors to eke out a 2-1 win in front of 12,554 fans at PayPal Park.
Though Fagundez’s stunning curler was the goal of the match, LA’s game-winner was similarly impressive. Berry’s volley came off a perfect touch near the goal line from Yamane, who was set up by Riqui Puig’s precise pass that cleared the San Jose backline.
“The problem is we’ve had a few of these late goals, and that’s frustrating,” said Quakes interim coach Ian Russell. “The message is we’re going to come in tomorrow and train, (recover) for some guys. Watch the game, watch the film. And then we got to move on. It is frustrating. This one definitely hurt, but you have to move on. We’re still in this because of our result against Chivas, so we go from there.”
LA now leads West Group 2 in the Leagues Cup table and has a game still to play against Chivas on Sunday. San Jose needs a Galaxy win of any kind to guarantee a spot in the Leagues Cup’s 32-team knockout round.
“You still want more, at least a tie,” Russell said of Wednesday’s match. “I think a tie would have been a fair result with the amount of chances.”
San Jose has struggled most of this season, compiling a 4-2-19 record in MLS regular-season play to put itself in the basement of the league’s Western Conference. But the Quakes have fared far better in the Leagues Cup.
After edging out Chivas in penalty kicks, San Jose looked poised for a result against the best MLS squad on the West Coast. And though the Quakes didn’t get it, they still feel like the last two matches are indicative of what they could accomplish in the second half of the regular season.
“You start to see it,” goalkeeper William Yarbrough said. “Everything takes a little time, but we’ve shown it in a short period of time. If we continue to build on that, I think things will go very well for us. Hopefully, something good happens for us this weekend, and we’re in the next round and we can show it again, and learn from these last couple games.”
There are two scenarios in which San Jose advances to the Leagues Cup knockout round, and both of them involve a Galaxy victory. Even a win by LA in penalty kicks would do the job, as the Quakes’ head-to-head result against Chivas would send them through.
“When your season’s at the margins and we find ourselves where we were tonight, you don’t really get to have that lapse,” said Ebobisse. “But we’ll see what happens. I’m optimistic.”
Russell took over the Earthquakes on June 24 after Luchi Gonzalez’s firing. Since then, San Jose has won just one of six regular-season games.
But if they can carry their increased quality of play from the Leagues Cup forward, things may be different down the stretch. They won’t rival the halcyon days of Russell’s playing career with San Jose, when the Quakes won MLS Cups in 2001 and 2003 — at least, not immediately. Yet it could be a step in the right direction, one that eventually leads to San Jose breathing rarefied air once again.
“The team as a whole, I think you can feel it, you can feel improvement,” Yarbrough said. “You can see it on the field. And that’s what we want, to convince the people that come to watch us to get on the same page with us. But that’s 100% up to us on what we do.”
