Sound familiar? Galaxy blow two-goal lead to Earthquakes in 4-3 loss

San Jose Earthquakes 4 Galaxy 3

This wasn’t a come from behind loss on the scale of that now almost mythical 5-4 aggregate playoff defeat back in 2003 to this same San Jose franchise, but it wasn’t far off.

If the defining characteristic of last year’s Galaxy team was their ability to somehow win games, this year’s version is somehow finding ways to lose them.

Another oft-used word came to mind last night, too: sloppy. As in sloppy defending and general losses of focus and concentration all around.

Here’s the San Jose perspective from our sister paper The San Jose Mercury News.

Quotable:

“We did a poor job of defending set pieces and overall it just wasn’t good,” said Galaxy coach Bruce Arena. “Our goalkeeping was sub-par. … We have no one to blame, but ourselves. We should not lose a game when we’re up two.”

Similarly, his counterpart could scarcely believe his team’s good fortune before a bumper crowd:

“For us to be down 3-1 to the defending champions and come back and win was quite amazing,” ‘Quakes coach Frank Yallop said. “It was a great atmosphere here tonight and made it difficult for both teams to communicate. (It was a) wonderful, wonderful experience for not only the players, but the club as I think it goes to show that we can sell tickets to a very good event.”

It could have been worse. Former Galaxy striker Alan Gordon, who is all about scoring late goals, could have gotten in on the act.

But Chris Wondolowski’s goal was a worthy winner.

Watch (if you can):

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