By Ben Leonard
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photo by USA Today: The San Jose Earthquakes Chris Wondolowski scores the first ever Earthquakes goal brace against an La Liga opponent at Avaya Stadium on Wednesday night
SAN JOSE, Calif — It’s not how you start that matters. It’s how you finish that does, they say. The San Jose Earthquakes were living proof of that unproven adage Wednesday night, scoring two unanswered goals to upset La Liga’s Real Sociedad 2-1 in a friendly.

Star forward Chris Wondolowski scored both goals for San Jose, including the go-ahead goal on a beautiful bender to beat goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli in the 79th minute.

But before Wondolowski sent Avaya Stadium into a frenzy, things were a little different. The Earthquakes more closely resembled a chicken running around with its head off than a shattering force of nature for the first twenty minutes, as midfielder Shea Salinas described.

Having not done any scouting or watching any film, the Earthquakes were listless, succumbing to Sociedad’s press, hardly every possessing the ball. “I thought for the first twenty minutes that they might have had twelve guys on the field,” Salinas elaborated.

Sociedad quickly made them pay, scoring a left-footed goal in the tenth minute, forcing them to stare down a 1-0 deficit. It seemed hopeless — Sociedad was just too well-conditioned and quick for the MLS’ Earthquakes to keep up with. The Earthquakes would get tired out and blown out, they said.

“Sometimes, the speed of the game and the speed of the opponent can catch you by surprise,” San Jose head coach Dominic Kinnear said Wednesday.”And I think it did — it forced us into making mistakes [early on]. But as the game went on, we got used to it. The goal didn’t shake us, and I think that was a good thing.”

After those first painful twenty minutes, something clicked. The Earthquakes figured out how to defend these new players and started communicating better, and everything fell into place. Even in a “low key” friendly as Kinnear called it, the Earthquakes kept battling. With Kinnear only coaching to call players out for lack of effort, it was on the Earthquakes to find it within themselves. And boy did they ever.

After several missed chances, San Jose finally broke through on Wondolowski’s first goal of the night. In the forty-second minute, Salinas drove to the corner of the net and dished it out to Wondolowski at the edge of the goal area, who drove it into the back of the net for his eighth goal of the season.

Later, in the second half, Wondoloski added the decisive goal on a scorching bender that just nestled in the bottom right corner of the net. Wondolowski now needs just sixteen goals to pass Jaime Moreno for third on the all-time MLS goals list.

“Once we got caught up to the speed of the game, because they were playing pretty good and made it difficult for us, we got better,” Kinnear said. “We were making some silly mistakes, but our possession was better, our ball movement was better, and then we started to create some chances and open the game up a little bit. All in all, I was really happy with the result — it gives you a good feeling when you walk off the field.”

The only negative came when midfielder Matheus Silva took a big blow to the head, and had to leave the game in the first half. He felt dizzy after the collision with a Sociedad player, and his fate was left in the doctor’s hands. The team physician barred him from playing in the second half for precautionary reasons, and his status for Sunday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Galaxy is uncertain.