SAN JOSE, Calif. — In the San Jose Earthquakes locker room, there is one voice that’s rarely, if ever, silent. Even in the aftermath of a frustrating 1-0 season-opening defeat to Real Salt Lake, goalkeeper Jon Busch still had plenty of thoughts to share with MLSsoccer.com in this week’s Quakes Q&A:
MLSsoccer.com: Having had a few days to digest it, thoughts on the opener?
Busch: I went home and watched it again that night after I put [wife] Nikki to bed, and I thought we played well, especially the second half. I mean, we had chances. We had two good chances in the first half as well. I thought defensively we were organized.
Again, maybe on a different day we at least get a point out of that game. Credit to them, they are a good team and I think that was their fourth game, if you count the CONCACAF [Champions League]. So they’re into that rhythm already. For us, being our first game, we might have been missing just a little bit of the sharpness that you have after a couple of games. A lot of positives to take from the game. I thought we played well, so that’s encouraging.
MLSsoccer.com: You got a hand to Kyle Beckerman’s goal, which ricocheted off the post and in. Is that one of those goals that drives you nuts, because you got almost enough of it, but not quite?
[inline_node:331583]Busch: Every goalkeeper looks at every goal they give up throughout the year. I looked at it and [Quakes goalkeeper coach Jason] Batty and I talked about it the next day. I was there. I thought I got enough of it. He hit it well. I knew it was going to come off the turf, it was just a matter of how high and how quick. But we were used to that from the last couple of days [of prematch practice in the rain] and obviously warming up in the wet weather, so it wasn’t a surprise.
WATCH: Beckerman fires RSL ahead vs. San Jose
It’s just unfortunate that I can’t get enough on it to get it off the post and out some direction. Not taking anything away from Kyle’s shot, but you always think you can save every shot. That’s just the way we think.
MLSsoccer.com: Is the frustration at not getting points a sign of heightened expectations for this team — that simply playing well isn’t good enough?
Busch: Yeah, I think so. We stressed that at the end of last season and we stressed that in preseason. We’re not just here to be content this year. We raised the bar last year, and now the expectations have got to go with it. We don’t want to say last year was a one-off. We want that to be consistent every year. I think the expectations must be up there, for us to be successful. We can’t be happy with just playing well.
At the end of the day, when you look back on the season, you’re not going to say, “Well, we played well in that game but we didn’t get anything out of it.” At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is they got three points out of it and we didn’t get anything. We have to now build on the good performances but — the words I like to use is, make it effective soccer and get something out of it, whether it’s one (point) or three.
MLSsoccer.com: You guys were second in the league in points won on the road last season. What do you do to recreate that success?
Busch: It starts with our mentality. We’re in it together as one unit. We battle, we fight together. We’re a family. We know everybody’s against us, and we like that. We like that feeling of proving people wrong. That’s what we used last year and we have to continue to use that this year on the road.
MLSsoccer.com: Have you guys talked about the fact that six of your last nine matches are on the road this season? Does that make it more important to get off to a fast start out there?
Busch: We haven’t talked about that. That’s not our concern. Our only concern is one game at a time. Whether it’s at home or on the road, it doesn’t matter to us. Saturday night was game 1 of 34. Now we’re on to game 2 of 34. We’ll deal with the end of the season at the end of the season. Right now, we’re only concerned with Dallas.
Geoff Lepper covers the Earthquakes for MLSsoccer.com. He can be reached at sanjosequakes@gmail.com. On Twitter: @sjquakes
