Nick Rimando is not pleased. At all. (AP Photo)
Real Salt Lake went to San Jose last night looking for redemption and a little revenge. What they actually found was a whole new nightmare. The Earthquakes drubbed the Claret and Cobalt 5-0 to take a firm hold on first place in the west. It's especially difficult because some folks had thought RSL had turned the corner after back to back clean sheets against Seattle and Portland. San Jose showed otherwise.
San Jose has a gentleman named Chris Wondolowski. For some reason, RSL seems to think that they don't need to mark him. Despite the fact that he had already stung RSL badly in their first two meetings of the season, he was left unmarked on a set piece in the 18th minute. Bad things ensued for RSL. Wondo got loose from Chris Wingert at the back post and headed in a ball from Justin Morrow to make it 1-0 to the Quakes.
That seemed to wake RSL up a little bit. By a little bit, possibly they opened one of their collective eyes. They held possession a little bit better for the rest of the first half, but were unable to threaten Jon Busch in goal. For the most part, he sat there with his newspaper as the half ended 1-0.
Things went from not very good to full blown epic disaster for RSL in the second half. With the score still 1-0 in the 57th minute, the RSL players exploded after what they perceived as yet another cheap shot tackle on Javier Morales, and a scrum ensued. At one point, San Jose players pushed Kyle Beckerman into the referee. The referee pushed Kyle off and then showed him the red card. RSL was now down a goal and a man.
After that the flood gates opened for San Jose. Alan Gordon made it 2-0 to the Quakes in the 63rd minute, and the rout was on. Wondo showed up again in the 72nd minute, torching RSL's back line and tapping home a goal near post to make it 3-0. In the 79th minute Simon Dawkins made it 4-0, and Wondolowski made it 5-0 just one minute later. The defense allowed a simple through ball in and hung Nick Rimando out to dry against the league's leading scorer. Wondo polished off his hat-track to finally end the misery.
What to say? Allow me to editorialize for a minute. It would be really easy to blame the referee. The red card was not the best call, in my opinion, and I saw plenty of unbiased opinion to that same effect last night. However, the scrums have to stop. The poor discipline has to stop. As much as RSL fans and players want blood for the constant fouling of Javier Morales, this game isn't structured like that. This isn't the NHL where your enforcer gets a spell in the penalty box after beating on a guy for taking a cheap shot on your star player. RSL can't seem to get past that lately. We were lucky not to have ejections against Portland.
Like it or not, the referee didn't let in the 5 goals. RSL held a draw into stoppage time during the first match in San Jose this year, despite having two guys sent off. The back line was all still on the pitch. Watson-Siriboe got a bit of a baptism by fire as Jamison Olave appeared to be more interested in things other than defending. It's too easy to buy into the "We got screwed" attitude, and it's all down hill from there. In the final analysis, you can't do anything about the referee's choices, right or wrong. You can control your own play on the pitch though, as Coach Kreis has mentioned a couple of times this year.
Credit to San Jose though, they took all nine points from RSL this year. Bad refs or not, they deserve the credit for it. They put the ball in the back of the net more times, and are clearly the team to beat in the Western Conference right now.
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