SJ Earthquakes stun LAFC on pair of late goals

Yueill scored in the third minute of the second-half stoppage time in LA

Jackson Yueill scored the game-winning goal Sunday night for the San Jose Earthquakes in a 2-1 win over LAFC. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

2020.09.27 – Jackson Yueill scored in the third minute of the second-half of stoppage time, and the San Jose Earthquakes recovered from a pair of miserable defeats to pull off an improbable 2-1 victory on the road late Sunday night over Los Angeles FC at Banc of California Stadium.

Christian Espinoza set up Yueill’s goal, his first of the season, weaving through defenders to the left of the goal for a perfect center to Yueill in the 93rd minute for a tap-in and scored.

“You would’ve thought we won the World Cup when we scored that last goal,” Shea Salinas said. “We have to play with passion and we did that tonight.”

San Jose (3-6-5, 14 points), who ended an eight-match winless streak, were scoreless until the 80th minute when Salinas forced the action on his goal, dribbling into the left side of the LAFC penalty area and firing a right-footed shot in front of two defenders. He buried a shot to the right corner of the net beating LAFC goalkeeper Pablo Sisniega for the equalizer. It’s his second score of the season.

For the Quakes it’s their first win outside of the MLS is Back tournament in July and the first one over LAFC since the second Los Angeles club came into the MLS as an expansion team back in 2018.

A tie for the struggling San Jose Quakes was unlikely enough, but the Earthquakes finished off a dramatic comeback.

“I think in the past couple games we were losing confidence in bad moments and let the game slip away from us,” said Yueill. “Our one focus was just believe in our teammates and believe in ourselves. I think you saw that from the first whistle that we wanted to play out of the back.”

2020.09.27 – (SJ Earthquakes vs. Los Angeles FC) MLS Highlights!

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2020.09.27 – (SJ Earthquakes vs. Los Angeles FC) MLS Highlights!

They were just the third and fourth goals in five games for San Jose, which was coming off a 5-0 defeat to the Colorado Rapids on Wednesday. That was preceded by a 6-1 defeat Sept. 19 to the Portland Timbers.

Earthquakes’ Coach Almeyda substituted Chris Wondolowski and Marcos López in the 63rd minute for Salinas and Vako. The needed fresh legs for San Jose change the momentum of the match as it began to shift the Earthquakes way.

Salinas hopes this game gets the feeling back the team had from its two wins in Florida.

“I think it’s a game where we can gain confidence in ourselves,” Salinas said. “All week we talked about having confidence, being able to play out of the back, and having confidence in who we are. We are the same team that everybody was talking about in Florida. We just have to believe in ourselves.”

Using a high pressing defense, the Earthquakes were much improved Sunday and finally scored after forcing the action in the second half.

Homegrown goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski, credited with two saves, made his second start of the season and seventh of his MLS career, earning his first win. He now has a career MLS record of 1-4-2 as a starter.

LAFC controlled the play for the entire first half winning the possession battle 60% – 40% and created numerous scoring chances in the first 30 minutes. The best chance came when Diego Rossi chipped a ball over Tanner Beason for a point blank shot that Marcinowski made as one of his two saves on the evening.

The hard work paid off for LAFC minutes before halftime. Bradley Wright-Phillips made a touch pass over to Mark-Anthony Kaye who blasted the ball past a diving Marcinkowski for his third goal of the season.

Kaye scored his third goal of the season at the 45th minute for LAFC (5-6-3, 18 points) but they could not make the lone score hold up.

“We let ourselves down,” said LAFC head coach Bob Bradley. “It’s a bad loss.”

The loss prevented LAFC from rising to third place in the Western Conference.

LAFC was playing its eighth consecutive game without MLS MVP Carlos Vela, who came away with a knee injury in an Aug. 22 loss to the crosstown rival Los Angeles Galaxy. They are 3-5-0 over that stretch.

Despite entering as the MLS leader in goals scored with 31, LAFC struggled for offensive consistency.

The Earthquakes earned their first ever point against LAFC. They entered 0-6-0 across all competitions and had been outscored 23-5 in those games.