The San Jose Earthquakes host the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday night in a meeting of teams that suffered Week 1 losses after taking early leads.
The Whitecaps (0-1-0, 0 points) lost 2-1 at home to Real Salt Lake despite thoroughly dominating the first half.
Vancouver took a deserved lead when Javain Brown headed in Julian Gressel’s free kick in the 24th minute, but the Whitecaps missed several clear chances to double the lead.
Instead, the momentum turned and RSL struck twice in the 70th and 72nd minutes to sneak out with a victory.
“I think that if we play this way, we’re going to win a lot of games. But we need to be better in the box,” said Vancouver coach Vanni Sartini this week. “So the most important thing against San Jose … is to keep playing the way that we played, because I’m sure that the goal will come.”
Sartini has some options to switch things up in attack to try and bring more efficiency. Specifically, attacking midfielder Pedro Vite and striker Sergio Cordova could find their way into the starting lineup after substitute appearances last week. The former is entering his second full season in the league as a 20-year-old. The latter was signed a few weeks ago to compete with Brian White for minutes at center forward.
Meanwhile, the Earthquakes (0-1-0, 0 points) have their clear starter at striker in Jeremy Ebobisse, who scored early on in their 2-1 defeat at Atlanta United.
In his first extended run as an established starting center forward, Ebobisse now has 13 goals in his last 26 appearances.
For most of last Saturday, it appeared that would be enough to secure an upset victory. Instead, the home side pulled off a dramatic, stoppage-time comeback through two brilliant strikes by Argentine World Cup winner Thiago Almada.
“I think we conceded a lot of shots but they weren’t always high-quality shots, so I think we take a little pride in that,” Ebobisse said. “To hold them to zero goals for 93 minutes is something that we can build off of.”
–Field Level Media
