Top Stories

Earthquakes push five past Fire in impressive victory

Shea Salinas

Photo by Casey Valentine/ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

Not since 2012 had the San Jose Earthquakes offense been so deadly, putting up five goals on Wednesday in an impressive victory over the Chicago Fire.

The Earthquakes were on the sweet end of a 5-1 rout against the Fire at Buck Shaw Stadium on Wednesday night, with five different players finding the back of the net for San Jose.

Shea Salinas, Atiba Harris, Chris Wondolowski, Yannick Djalo and Cordell Cato all netted against a Fire team that was poor defensively. Salinas opened the scoring with a splendid strike just before the end of the first half, and it opened the floodgates in the closing 45 minutes.

The Fire scored a consolation goal through Grant Ward in the 75th minute to make the score 3-1, but never really seemed capable of rallying and went on to concede twice more.

Here are the match highlights:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws1Pp5js8sU]

—–

What do you think of the Earthquakes’ 5-1 win over the Fire? How impressed were you by San Jose’s performance? Surprised by Chicago’s poor defensive outing?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. These last few games have been terrible and tonight’s game tops it off. The defense is bad. Hurtato needs a lot of work, Palmer played ok, soumare was bad and they need to get rid of sagares. They also need to drop Quincy, anagolo, and I hate to say it Larentowicz but he needs to go as well. They need to blow this team up and get back to a European focus again.
    I’ve never seen a team play through the middle or over the top as professionals more than this team does. Magee must be going crazy. I know I am.
    Sorry. Had to vent.

    Reply
    • Soumare is so bad, if I were the coach, I’d look for some way to terminate his contract. The defenders can’t pass and the mid gets too crowded because Shipp and Alex pinch in all the time, so it’s a hit-and-hope strategy you might see in a youth game. There’s absolutely no width to the game because the outside mids (Shipp & Alex) aren’t outside mids. They’re central mids and always drift in.

      I think it’s time to try some fresh blood in the back. Can’t get any worse.

      Reply
  2. The Hauptman era in Chicago has been an absolute disaster. He has alienated the fans and consistently put weak teams on the field. Chicago should be a flagship team for the league, it’s the third largest city in the US with many residents who follow soccer closely. Instead the park is half empty. MLS needs to step in and right the ship. Hauptman needs to sell and be replaced by an owner who can rebuild the relationship with the community and do a better job of putting a winning team together. A move out of Bridgeview and somewhere closer to the el lines near downtown would be a good start. Sad this had to happen. The Blanco era doesn’t seem that long ago and things were very different for the Fire then.

    Reply
    • While I agree with all of your points except that the stadium is not half empty. 17,000 fans in a 20,000 seat stadium is not half empty, it is far from the sellouts that the Fire would have if they were right on an L line in a 30k stadium, but it is far from “half empty”. It’s impressive how well they draw considering how hard it is to get out there and how miserable the traffic is exiting the stadium since everything must be done by automobile.

      Reply
  3. Surprisingly fun game to watch. Djalo really opened the passing lanes to move that ball around. Hopefully this will be the end of the long ball crap

    Reply
    • I hope we offer to pay him good money and not try to keep him on the cheap like Dawkins. Impact attackers are not easy to come by.

      Reply

Leave a Comment