Match 6: San Jose Preview

Posted by Mike on April 23, 2009 · Filed Under Pre-Match, San Jose Earthquakes 

SanJoseEarthquakesTwoStars.pngSounders FC returns to the XBox Pitch on Saturday (May 25th) evening for their match against the San Jose Earthquakes.

Seattle will be welcoming their 4th guest to Qwest Field- all four have been sell-out matches. The upcoming matches against the LA Galaxy on May 10th and May 30th against Columbus have been declared sell-outs as well.

The Earthquakes head north to the Emerald City with a 1-2-2 (5pts) record with a win over the Houston Dynamo, losses against New England & Kansas City, and draws against Chicago and LA.

The San Jose attack is emboldened by Arturo Alvarez and Ryan Johnson. Both have two goals the team’s total of seven.

In goal, ‘keeper Joe Cannon has played every minute for the ‘Quakes. In 2009, his 11th year, Cannon has let 9 shots find the back of the net.

Back in net for Sounders FC (3-2-0, 9pts) is Kasey Keller who is returning to action from his red-card in the 30th minute of the Kansas City match and subsequent one-game suspension. He has started the season with 299 consecutive minutes of shutout. The record is 375 minutes claimed by Ronald Waterreus for New York in 2007. Keller noted that he is “extremely anxious to get back on the field”.

The USL Sounders and the the Earthquakes met twice in US Open Cup matches with San Jose winning in 2002 and Seattle winning in 2003.

Offensively for Sounders FC, they need to find the back of the net. After scoring 7 goals in the first 3 matches, Seattle hasn’t scored in the last 225 minutes.

Starting Midfielder Osvaldo Alonso has been slowed this week due to a hamstring bruise, but should be good to go for Saturday’s action.

Sigi Schmid on San Jose…

Obviously San Jose is a good team. And they’re a team that last year was an expansion team, this is their second year. But when you look at them there is a nucleus of players now that have played together: (Nick) Garcia, and (Ryan) Cochrane and Joe Cannon, and (Ramiro) Corrales in the middle of the midfield, Ryan Johnson had a good year with them last year. So they have a nucleus of players. But we want to be a good team at home. Right now we’re 2-1 at home. We want to get as many points at home as possible, and we want to get back on to the winning ways.

Kickoff is set for 730p

Media: The match will be aired live on KING 5 and News Talk 97.3 KIRO FM. Kevin Calabro will be absent this weekend as he will be covering an NBA Playoff game- Glen Davis will call the action with analysis from Greg Vanney. Calling the game in Spanish on Univision Seattle will be Jaime Mendez with analysis from Hugo Alcaraz-Cueller, and on 1210 AM Ke Buena will be Rene Aleman, Noe Menendez and Victor Hernandez.

Tickets: The match is officially sold out. However, tickets can be found on the secondary market from Season Ticket Holders on TicketMaster or on StubHub.

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