SAN JOSE, Calif. -- After a frustrating 0-0 draw Friday against New York City FC, you could almost hear Yogi Berra in the San Jose Earthquakes’ locker room:
“It’s getting late early.”
That is to say, with 28 points from 22 matches and just 12 games remaining, the Quakes can’t afford to let slip many more chances at victory such as Friday’s encounter. San Jose racked up 19 shots and nine corner kicks but came up empty-handed for their third consecutive tie.
“We’re getting way too late in the year for silver linings,” Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski said. “We need to execute better in the offensive third. I thought our defense played an outstanding game. I thought our midfield did unbelievable. We did execute our game plan really well. It was on myself and not finishing.”
As coach Dominic Kinnear put it: “Not happy with this point, no. We should have came out with a win. I think we know that. We had some good looks. To come out with no goals was a bit surprising tonight.”
Wondolowski came closest to breaking through, most notably with a thunderous 53rd-minute header that zoomed just wide of the near post and a shot 16 minutes later -- generated by a deflected Shea Salinas delivery -- that crashed off the post.
“The chances in the second half were a little more clear-cut,” Kinnear said. “They’re disappointed in the locker room right now. Ties are good, but we’ve got to be better than good right now. We’ve got to get some wins. And to win games, we need to start scoring some goals. . . . There were some opportunities there we probably should have done a little better on.”
The problem is that there aren’t a plethora of easy options at Kinnear’s disposal to increase output. San Jose set a season-high with their nine corner kicks and the 19 shots represented their second-largest total of the year.
“In the end, you’d like to reward your good play with something spectacular,” Kinnear said. “I think the fans were on edge, also, waiting for that goal to come.”
They will have to wait until next Friday, when the Quakes travel to Vancouver for a chance to possibly leapfrog the Whitecaps in the Western Conference standings, pending the result of Vancouver's game on Saturday against Colorado (9 pm ET on TSN, MLS LIVE in USA). At the least, San Jose will want to avoid the kind of outcome that Friday turned out to be.
“You start to feel the [playoff] pressure in game one,” Wondolowski said. “All these points add up. It’s 34 games, and you can’t wait until the last one before you start honing in. If it was the first game [of the season] and we had those chances, I’d be disappointed with the result, just as much [as] right now.”
