Back to the Pitch!

It’s been a long, long time but we FINALLY got to make it out to a San Jose Earthquakes game again!

I am not at all interested in team sports, EXCEPT for soccer.  I haven’t watched an NBA game since Jordan was the dominant force in the sport, and the last NFL game I went to, Joe Namath was still QB for the 49ers…  As for “America’s Passtime”, baseball?  The first and ONLY major league game I attended was back in the 1970’s with the Oakland A’s.  Generally speaking I find team sports to be a great cure for insomnia, but little else.

But soccer?  That is a whole different story!  I love the game, the pace, the non-stop action on the pitch.  Luckily for me, both the Mrs. and our daughter love the game too, so we’ve been to many, many MLS games. 

Today our Quakes took on the New York Red Bulls at their home field in San Jose for the season opener.  The tickets were a Christmas gift from our daughter (Thanks again Kiddo!), so we’ve been sitting on the tickets for awhile and the anticipation was high, to put it mildly.

It’s our first time back to the stadium since before the Plague, and the excitement was palpable! 

I’ll be honest, I don’t exactly “follow” the league…  We don’t have broadcast/cable TV at home, so we don’t actually watch games that we aren’t physically attending.   I’m not even sure who is on the latest roster – sports, even soccer, has been the last thing on my mind over the last 2 years.   I love the Quakes ‘cuz they’re my “home team”, and have been going to their matches since the “old days” when they played their games at San Jose State University in the red uniforms back in 1975/76!  But I don’t care about statistics, rivalries or any of that stuff, I just genuinely LOVE the game.  In fact, one of the key drivers in my quest for a place to relocate is a town within a couple hours of a MLS team’s home field.  Don’t really care who.  Well, except for Real Salt Lake, I loathe that team as they have a habit of playing dirty, in my experience. 

The crowd was a little thin at first, but things filled out once the teams took the field.

The Quakes won the toss and got the first kick off and it was GAME ON!  The teams were pretty evenly matched and there was a good back and forth throughout the first half,  but much to our dismay New York managed to put ine in the net at the 45th minute, right before the whistle.   Bummer.

In the second half,  the Quakes  tied things up in the 69th minute, but it didn’t last long.  New York popped in another just a few short minutes later.  To ad insult to injury, they grabbed at 3rd goal in extra time. 

Sadly, a victory for our home team wasn’t in the cards tonight.

But all things considered,  we had a really fun time.  It was great to get to out to a game again after such a long absence.   Besides, we’ve got a long season ahead of us and some impressive players on the field,  I think its gonna be a good year!

Thanks for reading!