SAN JOSE, Calif. — It’s no secret that the San Jose Earthquakes’ played “out of their skin” in their 4-1, statement victory over one of the league’s best, Sporting Kansas City.
Such complete and convincing performance quickly garnered the attention and approval of those within the team and, certainly, from those on the outside looking in. Despite all the good that came out their victory and the bad that came from the Seattle Sounders’ first loss of the season, Matias Almeyda is prioritizing patience and gradual improvement.
“If we sit back and compare ourselves to other teams, we would be making a big mistake,” he said. “We have only won two games. We have lost more games than we have won. Last year the team only won four matches, so we know we have to work hard in every match against whatever team or player that comes our way. We respect all of our rivals, but we have to work hard and double down.”
Somewhere in between the plethora of positives from San Jose’s second victory and their detailed preparation ahead of two upcoming games in four days time, lies a valuable, evergreen trait: confidence. It’s growing within Avaya Stadium’s walls. “It definitely builds it (confidence) a little and it shows us what we can do,” fullback Nick Lima said about the team’s renewed feeling after such a result. “But we have a lot of work and we have to plan, we have to make decisions and we have to go out and rehearse them.”
With only a day and a half of uninterrupted recuperation and a challenging, logistically tight schedule ahead, Almeyda hopes to only make changes if his players aren’t “fully fit.” For Seattle, who crumbled against LAFC, it’s expected that they’ll be missing two integral players in Raul Ruidiaz and Will Bruin, despite gaining back veteran center back Chad Marshall.
Could it be that the Quakes are set to ride off their momentum and pounce on Seattle’s current deficiencies?
“Honestly, no,” Lima said on San Jose using the Sounder’s recent hiccups to their advantage. “I think it’s less about them.”
“We went out and beat a good KC team,” he added. “Everyone says different things about whatever the reasons we won, but we believe that just us being us playing our game, we can go beat a Seattle with or without whomever.”
With much-needed and affirming victories out of the way, the Black-and-Blue are shedding loads of pressure that has accumulated over the past year. A road win is the next box to tick off, but as ‘El Pelado’ and his players have been saying all season: It’s progress on the field and executing their distinctive style efficiently that matters most.
“I think it’s consistent progress more than that (consistent positive results),” said Lima, who Almeyda praised midweek for having his “best” performance of the season against Kansas City. “That means that we go on the road and we learn things. We come back and we learn as well. Not every game in soccer is going to go your way, but it doesn’t mean we’re taking a step back.”
“We have to keep going back to the drawing board and keep believing in ourselves,” he added. “That’s going to be the biggest thing, I think. We have what it takes to win, and we just have to learn the system more and have a little faith.”
Two games in such a short time span is tricky enough, but traveling to Seattle to face a perennial threat in the Sounders that’s surely wanting to rebound from their first loss of the season is going to be another trial of many more to come. That’s why sites like SBD have Seattle as such a heavy favorite, but wasn’t SKC a favorite to win last week, too?
“We have to continue to build. It’s one step, a step in the right direction,” Lima added. “Now we know somethings that worked, somethings that didn’t work so well.”
