SAN JOSE, Calif. — The San Jose Earthquakes made several offseason changes in their midfield and forward ranks, jettisoning players who hadn’t performed well and bringing in replacements via every available avenue: trade, draft, loan and free agency.
The defense they left alone, figuring that a core featuring captain Ramiro Corrales, Bobby Burling, Jason Hernandez, Chris Leitch, Brandon McDonald, Ike Opara and Tim Ward — all of whom helped the club post a franchise-record 13 shutouts in 2010 — would be enough to hold down the fort.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Heading into Saturday’s trip to Philadelphia to face the Union (4 pm ET; WatchONLINE), San Jose are tied for 12th out of 18 MLS teams with a 1.50 goals-against average this year. Over the Quakes’ last four matches, however, that number jumps to 2.00, lowlighted by a 3-0 defeat in New York which featured nothing but one-way traffic in the Red Bulls’ favor and a 2-1 home loss to Chivas USA that would have been significantly worse if not for several key stops by San Jose goalkeeper Jon Busch.
“We hate to harp on the year we had, but to get back to where we were last year, I think we’ve got to do the little things,” Burling told MLSsoccer.com. “Fighting for every ball, getting to the second ball. We’re kind of waiting to react. We need to be anticipating, as a team.”
The Quakes have lost some of the bite they featured defensively in their midfield and forward corps in 2010, a fact that adds to the pressure placed on the back line.
“It starts at a certain point in the field, and it’s just a snowball effect, and we’re taking the brunt of it,” Hernandez said. “We beat ourselves up over it, because that’s our job, to keep the ball out of the net, but it’s not a back four and a goalie situation. It’s a team situation. We need to get better defending, that’s for sure.”
[inline_node:328622]Coach Frank Yallop agrees that the Quakes’ defensive problems are exacerbated by a trickle-down effect, but also argues that San Jose are seeing every mistake magnified by opportunistic opponents.
“It’s not just the defenders and the goalkeeper when you concede goals. It’s overloading of what we’ve not done up the field – pressing properly, staying with runners," Yallop said.
"Sometimes it’s just unfortunate [that] any little tiny thing you do wrong gets punished and then it’s highlighted because it’s a goal, whereas before, if someone misses a glaring chance, it’s like, ‘Ooof, wow, got away with that,’ and you don’t even look at it, don’t even talk about it. When they stick it in the net, it’s like, ‘You made a mistake and it cost us the game.’”
Whether those mistakes are an unintended or unforeseen consequence of the Quakes’ move to a possession-based 4-3-3 this season is up for debate. Is trying to play a more beautiful game keeping the Quakes from bringing the required toughness?
“I don’t think so,” McDonald said. “I just think – you know, you ask anybody, the fight is not there. The grit, the stuff that we had last year. The aggression — clamping down, biting your teeth, going in and winning balls, second balls, challenges. It’s just not there for us right now.”
One option available to Yallop is to move back to the more brutish 4-4-2 style the Quakes used for the first half of last season to add more physicality to their defensive presence. Or he could switch McDonald from center back to holding midfielder in place of the better-passing but lighter-tackling Sam Cronin.
Whatever changes need to take place, sooner is better for the Quakes. In 2008 and ’09, they had similarly poor starts that extended into May and torpedoed the team’s playoff hopes.
“Last year, there was a great understanding of how we wanted to play defensively, and how we wanted to avoid being broken down in defending,” Hernandez said. “I think our results as of late would show that we’re not on that same page.
"For whatever reason, we haven’t put it together, from the front to the back. And I think we need to start figuring out that situation.”
Geoff Lepper covers the Earthquakes for MLSsoccer.com. He can be reached at sanjosequakes@gmail.com. On Twitter: @sjquakes
