Photo: San Jose Earthquakes
SAN JOSE, Calif. — With a 2-1 lead in the 79th minute, the San Jose Earthquakes appeared to be on track to win their first match in over a month against one of Major League Soccer’s best teams — FC Cincinnati.
But as shown this season, no lead is truly safe for last-place San Jose (3-12-2, 11 points), and heartbreaking losses have become all too common for head coach Luchi Gonzalez’s club.
One of Cincinnati’s (11-3-3, 36 points) second-half substitutes — 30-year-old forward Yuya Kubo — knew what he had to do to get his squad back in the game and eventually crush the Quakes’ hearts on Saturday night at PayPal Park.
In the waning moments of the match — and over a span of just nine minutes — Kubo notched a hat trick to give FC Cincinnati a 4-2 advantage. The team would hold on the rest of the way to hand San Jose its fifth home loss of the season.
“Collectively, we broke down mentally and tactically and physically, and that’s something that we’ve got to fix and we’ve got to improve,” said Gonzalez postgame. “You can’t do that against Cincinnati and get away with it.”
The first half was a scoreless stalemate with no stoppage time. However, the Quakes were still energetic, trying to capitalize on multiple opportunities led by midfielder Hernán López, who was constantly feeding his teammates. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fully take advantage of López’s chances, setting up a critical second half.
In the 53rd minute, Cincinnati midfielder Pavel Bucha broke the deadlock, scoring his first career MLS goal off a careless San Jose turnover near its 18-yard box.
However, the Earthquakes would respond in kind just four minutes later, as López would finally be statistically rewarded for his strong game. The 23-year-old retrieved defender Vítor Costa’s missed shot, tapping it into the net to record his third goal of the campaign.
In the 72nd minute, San Jose took the lead as Costa sent a long-range diagonal pass to a wide-open Cristian Espinoza, who used his left foot to give the Quakes a 2-1 lead. The goal was his third of the season and put San Jose in a winning position.
Not too long after, though, the Quakes completely fell apart. A brutal leg injury to FC Cincinnati defender Matt Miazga sparked head coach Pat Noonan to make a series of substitutions, allowing Kubo to see the pitch.
Kubo took advantage of San Jose goalkeeper William Yarbrough being out of position, the back line taking costly challenges and playmaking heroics from midfielder Luciano Acosta. The Japan native scored three goals, all assisted by Acosta, to propel Cincinnati to a come-from-behind victory. Kubo is now up to seven goals on the year.
“It’s not one player, they’re a good collective unit,” Gonzalez said. “They’re a good team, and we were toe-to-toe with them until the game got out of our hands.”
Conceding 43 goals so far, San Jose is on pace to give up the most goals in a season in MLS history, a record set by FC Cincinnati in 2019 when it allowed 75.
“We have players that are not at their potential yet in terms of their leadership and their mentality,” Gonzalez said. “All of our guys have opportunities to improve that area.”
The Quakes also allowed a hat trick last game against New York City FC (9-6-2, 29 points), as forward Alonso Martinez netted three goals within a 10-minute range.
The Earthquakes will next shift focus to the Portland Timbers (5-7-6, 21 points), a team that controversially defeated San Jose on May 15 by a final score of 4-2. Portland enters the matchup following back-to-back draws and slotted in at 10th in the Western Conference.
The Timbers will venture south to PayPal Park to face the Quakes at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Kasey Kazliner is an undergraduate sports broadcaster at USC. He covers a variety of sports, but particularly loves analyzing the Quakes’ prospect pipeline. He is The Town FC’s official beat writer and covers every match for the club. You can follow him on Twitter here.
