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Earthquakes work late magic again, top RSL to grab first place in the West

QuakesRSL (Getty)

The San Jose Earthquakes have made it a habit all season of producing goals late in games to snatch points. They did it again on Saturday, and this time the late-game heroics helped them grab first place in the Western Conference.

Chris Wondolowski delivered an 84th-minute goal to give the Earthquakes a 2-1 victory over RSL at Rio Tinto Stadium.

The two Western powers played a scoreless 74 minutes before Alan Gordon broke the deadlock off a long ball from Ramiro Corrales. He beat Nat Borchers and Nick Rimando to the ball and headed it home.

Real Salt Lake responded with an equalizer from Javier Morales just four minutes later on a beautiful free kick finish. That strike looked like it might propel the home team to a victory, but it was the Earthquakes who found a winner when Gordon headed a Justin Morrow throw in right to Wondolowski, who finished it from close range for the winner.

The victory moved San Jose into first place in the West, and also stuck RSL with a second straight home loss.

Here are the match highlights:

 

What did you think of the match? Starting to believe the Earthquakes are an MLS Cup favorite? Think RSL missed Jamison Olave too much on Saturday? See San Jose holding onto first place in the West?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. And I’m sure that the injury to Tanaka that forced Johnson to play in the left back slot for the last thirty minutes did ever so much to shore up and already patchwork back line missing Schuler and Olave. Borchers was absolute crap, so that didn’t help much either.

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  2. Well, I thought RSL had a fair shout for one in the first half (though morales made a meal out of it) but the phantom foul on espindola that led to their free kick goal seemed to balance things out. Fact is, SJ wanted it more and played with more intensity.

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  3. Good game both teams were sloppy but the Best team in MLS came out ahead! Well done Quakes. Great seeing a small market team showing all the big money squads how to play!

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  4. Credit to San Jose for hanging on, definitely not the better team, but they took advantage of some huge errors on RSL’s part. RSL needs to figure out what is up with their defense, absolutely no excuses for the poor play.

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