FRISCO, Texas—On Saturday night at Toyota Stadium, the San Jose Earthquakes' Quincy Amarikwa threaded pinpoint passes left and right. Chris Wondolowski, meanwhile, found the back of the net and made a mockery of FC Dallas' backline.
But even with the Quakes’ stars loading up the scoreboard, the stars didn’t align for them. Instead, they left with one point va 2-2 draw instead of what could have been three.
“The [Dallas] goals were kind of funny,” said Quakes head coach Dominic Kinnear. “I thought at a point there, on their second goal, they were applying a lot of pressure, but we just couldn’t get out.”
The Quakes never trailed in the game and seemingly enjoyed the upper hand, particularly in the first half. Aside from a quick strike by FCD in the opening 20 seconds, San Jose pressured the home team at a steady rate.
Much of that came from Amarikwa, who assisted on both San Jose goals on the evening. On the first goal, he sent a beautiful cross all the way across the box to a wide open Alberto Quintero, pinpointing the holes in the Dallas defense.
The second set-up by Amarikwa went to Wondolowski, who was streaking through the middle of the field and received a perfect ball to blast into the net.
“Quincy’s been having a good season for us, and his numbers show that,” Kinnear said. “He was a handful. He can go up, he can stretch the defense like he did on the first goal. We just want he and Chris to play close together because we feel it’s better for us. And when they did, good things happened.”
But a couple of mistakes littered in between the goals gift-wrapped a point to FC Dallas: The first FCD equalizer arose after Shaun Francis took down Ryan Hollingshead from behind in the box, leading to a Tesho Akindele penalty kick. (Kinnear said after the match he had no problem with the call.)
More embarrassingly, the second equalizer was an own goal. Dallas' Fabian Castillo sent a cross from the left side of the box, that then grazed off the head of Quakes defender Victor Bernardez.
Still, Kinnear and the Quakes were able to find optimism in the draw, knowing they squeaked out a road point against a team that is a Western Conference contender.
“We gave up the lead twice, but they’re a good team,” Kinnear said. “They created chances, we created some chances … Overall, I’m happy with the points. It’s a tough place to play and a good team. I thought we had some real good moments.”
