Santa Clara, CA (SportsNetwork.com) - The Columbus Crew will aim to get back on the winning track on Sunday when the club travels to Buck Shaw Stadium to battle the San Jose Earthquakes.
After opening the season with three straight wins, Columbus finally tasted defeat last weekend, suffering a 2-0 loss to Toronto FC at Crew Stadium.
Toronto FC opened the scoring in the 11th minute. Mark Bloom found a streaking Michael Bradley down the right side of the Columbus defense, and he took goalkeeper Steve Clark by surprise on a shot from a tight angle near the end line, putting it through the Clark's legs and into the far side netting.
TFC then put the game out of reach in the 85th minute when substitute forward Issey Nakajima-Farran found space on the counter attack and clipped home a Justin Morrow cross from the center of the box.
"There's a lot to learn from this game, but having said that, this is this group's first loss. Since how long have we've been together? There will be more losses but this is our first loss," said Columbus head coach Gregg Berhalter. "This is a good test for us as a group to how we respond, how we get back and how the hunger is back there again. I'm looking forward to the response."
San Jose, meanwhile, is still searching for its first win of the 2014 season after seeing their 17-match home unbeaten streak come to an end with a 2-1 loss to the New England Revolution back on March 29.
The Revolution were handed the lead on 35 minutes with their first goal of the season when San Jose defender Victor Bernardez knocked the ball into the Quakes' net while trying to make a last-ditch clearance.
But the Earthquakes pulled even in the 69th minute, when Chris Wondolowski collected a deflected cross from Cordell Cato and cut a tightly angled shot across the face of goal from four yards, tucking it neatly inside the far post.
New England claimed the winner late on when Lee Nguyen raced onto a long pass down the left wing from Scott Caldwell, then cut inside defender Clarence Goodson before beating San Jose goalkeeper Jon Busch from 14 yards out for the game-winner.
"We had all the momentum at the end, and I think this team is built to push for the win," Quakes head coach Mark Watson said. "It was very disappointing to see the goal go in and lose the game."
"We were really flirting with disaster," said Goodson. "There were four or five plays that we were numbers down in the last 10 minutes. Sometimes you get fortunate and you don't give up goals. We've scored a lot of late goals, and finally we gave one up late, and that's kind of the way we play. Its kind of all-or-nothing, and we got punished for that."
In the clubs' only meeting of the season last year, the teams played to a 1-1 draw. Columbus hasn't beaten San Jose at Buck Shaw Stadium since 2008.
[SportsNetwork.com]
