For more than 90 minutes on Saturday night, Sean Johnson was a wall the San jose Earthquakes simply couldn't get past. The Chicago Fire goalkeeper was enjoying a dream game and looked like he was on his way to another shutout win.
An inordinate amount of stoppage time, and San Jose's penchant for late goals spoiled the night for Johnson and the Fire. A long Shea Salinas pass in the eighth minute of stoppage time found Chris Wondolowski, who chested a pass into the path of Steven Lenhart, who blasted home an equalizer to give the Earthquakes a 1-1 draw at Buck Shaw Stadium.
The Fire opened the scoring in the 37th minute when Chris Rolfe hit a perfect toe-poke shot over former Fire teammate Jon Busch from 20 yards out to make the score 1-0.
San Jose had plenty of chances to equalize, but could not beat Johnson, who made a plethora of outstanding saves, finishing with ten saves on the night.
The Earthquakes looked like they would run out of time, but a stoppage time red card issued to Alan Gordon extended play beyond the initial five minutes of stoppage time, giving the Earthquakes just enough to find another late-game goal and avoid defeat at home.
Here are the match highlights:
What did you think of the match? Impressed with Johnson's performance? Think the referee ruined the match by allowing so much stoppage time?
Share your thoughts below.
Since when are players allowed to wear wigs on the field??
Only three minutes added on to the original time. Chicago player was down at least that long.
Chicago player was down for that time. The arguing went on while fire player was getting treatment.
yeah that Oduro shot would have been a GOTW candidate
This game was sort of lame. Excellent play by both keepers, and free flowing offense gave way to lazy fouls by the home team, a coach tantrum, and then so much stoppage time it felt rigged. Hats off to SJ for winning so many games late but I have to think this one should have been a Fire win. The team playing fair doesn’t always get the points I guess
Busch had a good game too. Oduro hit off the crossbar, and both he and Pause had breakaways that could have gone in too if not for good saves from Busch. We could have had 2-3 more goals too don’t forget.
You know, I know that this is has been said before, but this game really brings the point home. Namely, in the United States, our best and most gifted are simply drawn first to other sports: basketball, football, baseball, even hockey. But someday — dare I dream? — our young sports commentators will aspire to announcing and doing color commentary for Major League Soccer games.
We are not there yet. (GOD were those guys terrible.)
I don’t hate the Quakes. Wondo is having an amazing year, and your position in the table speaks for itself.
However, it is just beyond silly that you receive a red card and benefit from it by getting 8 minutes tacked on to poach a goal.
I’m an RSL fan and can relate to losing at Buck Shaw during excessive stoppage time. And, while I hope the Quakes find themselves in a bit of a slump sometime soon, hats off, those guys are fighters.
This guy is just terrible
that’s a fast ambulance, just saying…lol
any other goalie and we would have had ateast 3 goals. great game to bad the ref had to steal the spot lite. happy to see lenny back.
Quakes still # 1
Cue the Quakes haters…
I have seen players require an ambulance to leave the pitch and less stoppage time put on, just saying.
I get that Ives, but I agree that it seems a little wrong to give SJ back the time that they wasted arguing with the ref about the card.
If SJ got the red card, why was there more stoppage time? That doesn’t make sense.
(SBI-If the ref issues a card, they stop play, and therefore add time. This isn’t the NFL, where a defensive penalty at the end leads to a run-off of time.)