On Saturday night the San Jose Earthquakes took on the Seattle Sounders FC at Century Link field (the field formerly known as Qwest). This game was the last regular season game ever for famed Sounder's Goal Keeper Kasey Keller. To celebrate his career, the Seattle fans showed up in droves, 64,140 of them to be exact, setting a Sounder's attendance record. The Sounders rewarded the loyal fans with an exciting come from behind victory. Additionally, on an emotional night dedicated to him, Kasey Keller made an amazing series of saves to prevent the Earthquakes from pulling to far ahead. However, the thing about this game that really struck me was how dirty the San Jose Earthquakes played.
Admittedly I have very small sample size, one game, but the Earthquakes appear to be a team full of bully's. They had four yellow cards issued to four different players in the game. They tackles hard and dirty the whole game. Several times they grabbed and held back Sounder preventing them from making a play. All the fans could see it an let the Referee's know what they were missing with their boos.
More striking than the yellow cards were the two fights San Jose players started with Seattle players. The first fight started when an Earthquake slide tackled Alvaro Fernandez. It was a hard tackle but appeared clean, but some of the players started jawing. Than things escalated when an Earthquake shoved Mike Fucito in the back. This really pissed off the Sounders and caused a whole group of players to group up and start pushing and shoving. After a couple of minutes, the Referee finally gained control and broke everything up.
The second fight was much more egregious. After a hard battle over the ball a San Jose player pushed Seattle star Osvaldo Alonso in the back causing him to tumble to the ground. This attack didn't sit well with Alonso, who is a bit of a fireplug himself, and he quickly stood up and charged the San Jose player. The Referee really struggled to break this one up as neither the San Jose player nor Alonso wanted to back down.
Basically, after watching all the fouls and the two fights, it became obvious to me that the San Jose Earthquakes are a bunch of jerks. I have never been a fan of dirty teams, be it the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philidelphia Flyers or anyone else. This dislike of dirty teams now extends into professional soccer. I will now be rooting hard against the San Jose Earthquakes anytime I see them.
Unfortunately, a lot of the MLS has been trending this way lately. It's much easier to erase an opponent's skill player through dirty play (see what happened to Steve Zakuani) than it is to use solid defense, especially with the minimal budget most MLS teams have.
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