Sorry the blog has been silent for a few days. Spent most of the weekend working making sure things were kosher when the boss came back from vacation. However, I did manage to take in some MLS action over the weekend.
One of the matches I caught was San Jose vs. Philadelphia. I actually thought there would be a couple goal in this one. The Quakes were facing into the sun through much of the first half, forcing John Busch to wear a baseball cap in goal. I thought maybe the Union could take advantage, but they were without Carlos Ruiz, who has been such a dynamo for them in recent matches. However they did have some chances in the early going. In the 3rd minute, Kyle Nakazawa had a free kick from about 30 yards, but his strike went wide and didn't really test Busch's ability to deal with the sun.
That seemed to wake San Jose up a little bit though. They really upped the energy in the next few minutes. They were playing without "Sideshow Lenhart," whose antics in recent matches has earned him a suspension for yellow card accumulation. Simon Dawkins came in, and both he and Ryan Johnson made Mondragon a little uncomfortable in the first half.
The Union finishes the half with a flurry of chances, most of them from Danny Mwanga. He forced Busch into one great save, and had a ball cleared off the goal line as well, those missed chances kept the match 0-0 at the break.
The second half got off to a wild start as both teams had chances early. For Philly, Justin Mapp lined up a shot in the 18 only to find it blocked. San Jose attempted to strike shortly after, only to have Ryan Johnson draw a shot on the post.
Philly had one more great chance after that, late in the match, as again Nakazawa found himself over a free kick, only to bounce it off the woodwork. The other interesting instance in the match was Quakes' coach Frank Yallop being sent off after givign the officials an earful over a second half yellows card.
All in all it was one of the more entertaining scoreless draws you'll see. Both sides played with plenty of passion and fire. Le Toux picked up the pace in the absence of Carlos Ruiz for the Union, and looked pretty good doing it, but even he couldn't find the back of the net in this one.
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