Photo by Matthew Emmons/USA Today Sports
By ADAM TROXTELL
David Bingham made just one significant mistake during the San Jose Earthquakes’ season opener against FC Dallas, and he paid for it.
After 90 minutes of sharp goalkeeping, Bingham didn’t get a good enough punch on a long ball after rushing out off his line. The deflection fell to Moises Hernandez, who sent the ball back on goal, where Blas Perez headed the ball in for a 1-0 win.
Head coach Dominic Kinnear, in his second stint with San Jose, had plenty of reasons to be happy with his team’s effort up until that last moment.
An organized defense with Bingham as the base stifled FCD for much of the game. The goalkeeper made three solid stops, one from a point-blank Perez strike, and new signing Paulo Renato cleared another shot off the line.
FCD created plenty of chances, eventually putting five shots on goal in a game that was back-and-forth until the final 15 minutes. Even then, the chances had to be earned.
New signing Michael Barrios made an instant impact after coming on with 15 minutes to go. His cross fell right to the feet of Tesho Akindele about four yards from goal, but Bingham was quick to smother the ball. That was only the latest instance of intelligent play from the goalkeeper.
The sides traded chances in the first half, though there was a brief period when FCD besieged the Earthquakes goal. Bingham pulled off two saves in quick succession, the first from a low Victor Ulloa drive that the goalkeeper stretched to his left to palm away.
A few minutes later, FCD tried some trickery on a 20-yard free kick to find Perez on the left a few yards from goal. Bingham closed down the angle for the stop, but later he needed some help. Perez was found again at the left of the box, and his low shot skipped past the keeper before Renato arrived to clear it off the line.
San Jose’s only shots on target came in the first half, with the best chance falling to Chris Wondolowski. The striker intercepted a poor pass from Matt Hedges out of the FCD defense before firing a shot toward the left post that brought a save out of Chris Seitz.
Wondolowski had a better chance just minutes into the second half, when he brought a cross under control just inside the area before sending his shot over the bar. It seems par for the course after a 2014 season when finishing escaped the Earthquakes at times.
Designated player Innocent Emeghara was brought in to try and fix that, but he only got a few minutes with Wondolowski up top after starting this game on the bench. He hardly saw action, but by then FCD was in control and on their way to an unexpected winner.
Tight game in the first half. FCD was the better of the 2 teams for the majority of the game though.
A couple of take aways:
Hollinshead (not sure what his name is) seems like like hustler. His pace was unexpected.
Mauro Diaz has to do better on his set pieces. Poor Delivery.
Castillo was Burning Fernandez ALL GAME long. I think Castillo ends up with more than 10 goals this year.
Blas is clutch.
Wondo does not play well against FCD. Only 1 goal all time against them. I dont what it is about when he plays them.
Start of the quakes season — same as the end of last. I’ll give Bingham the benefit of the doubt that he can mature into a decent Keeper. He has the reaction speed. But decision-making was poor — he has to learn he can’t fight his way through a crowd and expect good results, even at 6 ft 3 in. And booming the ball down the field every time is not a good strategy, particularly when we don’t have a target forward playing.
The MLS highlight format seems to be different compared to recent prior years and I don’t like it as much. I can’t pinpoint what the differences are but they seem to include fewer camera angles and slow motion of critical plays as well as just more taken out of the highlights; less impactful (e.g. individual and team moments of brilliance) and key moments of the game are shown. The highlights also seem to start and end more abruptly. I hope they reintroduce these six components back into the highlights.
It’s as if the highlights were put together in a rushed manner by someone who did not watch the game from beginning to end.
Agreed…not nearly as good as they were. I felt like they were perfect, why mess with it ?
They don’t end either. I just feel like my computer screen froze and they I realize that is it.
Nice late win, had one foot out of the stadium but was holding for the last minute luck to show up – it did. Nice early 3 points but we’ve got to be better than this to have a good season. Teams across the league have added tons of talent, we’ve added uhm idk, some random people no one knows of on a paper thin budget.