Photo courtesy of San Jose Earthquakes. Espinoza poses with his kids as he holds up his 51 assists jersey on July 12th 2023.
By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)
SAN JOSE- At home the Earthquakes were finally able to snap their five game winless streak over Seattle by a final of 2-0.
Previously Seattle had overcame a one-goal halftime deficit to the Whitecaps to earn a 3-2 victory. Before that match Seattle anytime they had been trailing at halftime had lost all four matches but broke that streak with their victory Saturday.
For the Earthquakes JT Marcinkowski got the start in goal with Daniel receiving a red card last match. While for Seattle they had Stefan Cleveland in net.
San Jose came out in a 3-4-3 formation while Seattle was in a 4-2-3-1.
Early on in the match Seattle controlled most of the possession as Marcinkowski was forced to make a save at only the 7th minute of the match.
Not long after the save on a good counter attack by the Earthquakes Jeremy Ebobisse drew a foul in the penalty area at the 18th minute.
Cristian Espinoza took the penalty and scored driving the ball to the bottom left corner giving San Jose an early 1-0 lead. The goal was Espinoza’s 11th of the season and previously with his goal on Saturday he had become just the 19th Argentinian player to have at least one ten goal season in MLS play.
After the goal the Earthquakes were given another good look on a handball by Seattle player Nouhou Tolo. Ebobisse took the free kick that was just outside of the penalty are but he missed very high over the goal.
At the end of the first half the Earthquakes had seven shots while Seattle registered five. The possession was in favor of Seattle at 60% to 40%.
To start the second half San Jose had some good looks and actually appeared to score just two minutes in but the goal was called off due to being offside.
At the 66th minute the ball was passed out of the box by Espinoza to Miguel Trauco who took the ball out of the air and fired it on goal zipping it past Seattle’s keeper scoring his third goal of the season and making it 2-0. On that goal Espinoza was awarded an assist giving him 51 assists and making him the new all time assist leader in Earthquake’s history.
After the goal Seattle made a couple of substitutions bringing in two midfielders and one attacker.
San Jose wouldn’t make a substitution until the 85th minute at they brought in Tommy Thompson for Jack Skahan. In extra time they also brought in Cameron Cilley who would make his MLS debut.
They were able to hold on to win 2-0 and snap their winless streak of five games bringing them up to fifth in the western conference with 32 points. With this win San Jose has also defeated Seattle for consecutive meetings the first time since 2015 that they have done that.
On top of Espinoza’s milestone Tommy Thompson also played in his 200th match of his career and as seen below the team posed for a photo for both of the milestones.
Photo courtesy of San Jose Earthquakes. The Earthquakes pose for a team photo on July 12th 2023.
“After the kickoff I heard I was the assist leader and it made me feel so happy,” Espinoza said after the game.
San Jose’s next match will be against Portland on the 22nd at 7 p.m at Providence Park.
