As the San Jose Earthquakes met the LA Galaxy at Stanford Stadium for the California Clasico, the post-match “4th of July” fireworks were outshined by the fireworks that were on display on the pitch. For the third time in four years, the Quakes posted a comeback win over their only California rivals in MLS, rebounding from an early deficit to notch a 3-1 win. Playing an LA team who had won 5-1 and 5-0 earlier in the week, the Quakes sucked the momentum right out of LA’s lungs.

At the back, Clarence Goodson and Victor Bernardez marked Robbie Keane, who had been so impactful in LA’s wins earlier in the week (scoring once and making two assists), out of the game. Up front, LA were too narrow and lacked options.

“We were bad in the second half,” said Galaxy coach Bruce Arena per MLSSoccer.com. “What can you say? Whatever the reasons are, we got outplayed. Very poor performance on our part…we were crappy. You can come up with all your theories but we stunk in the second half. You can use all your theories that you want. You have no clue; we just couldn’t do anything simple and right. From giving away the ball that [led] to their first goal, from that point on, we were no good.”

The 50,000-seat Stanford Stadium was mostly full, with away supporters few and far between. Not a minute in, Wondolowski nearly gave the Quakes an early lead from a corner as the ball bounced invitingly across the box; however, Penedo was quick to block the angle. San Jose had trouble controlling the fast-paced game. “I thought the first half was really a fast paced choppy game — a lot of long balls, a lot of second balls being challenged,” said Kinnear.

Fatai Alashe was at times left stranded in the middle as Garcia and Wondolowski pushed high up the pitch to launch on the break. Shea Salinas and Sanna Nyassi were both stretched so wide that the Quakes’ often had a front line of five on the attack.

It worked in two ways; with more numbers in the midfield, the Galaxy had more control during the opening stages. Ishizaki curled a twenty-five yard free-kick over the wall and in on goal in ten minutes in, which Bingham did well to get behind. Never was the Galaxy’s numbers advantage more apparent than in the seventeenth minute, when a loose ball rebounded out into the middle, right outside the Quakes’ box. First-time from twenty-five yards out, Juninho ran onto it unchallenged and blasted a low effort into the bottom right corner of the net. David Bingham could only get a hand on it. “The ball popped out and [Juninho] struck it well. I tried to throw everything and my arm behind it but didn’t get enough on it,” Bingham explained.

Robbie Keane curled over from twenty-five yards and in the twenty-third minute sent a disappointing low effort straight at Bingham from fifteen yards out.

Yet the Quakes were potent on the break. Adam Jahn was isolated but occupied Leonardo and Omar Gonzalez up front. Twenty minutes in, Garcia lofted a beautiful diagonal ball over the Galaxy’s defense into the run of Salinas. Wide open in front of goal, Salinas attempted to round Penedo but the Panama international stuck a critical boot out to poke the ball away.

Five minutes later, Wondolowski began a break near the halfway line, filtering the ball wide right to Garcia. The midfielder took on his man and curled a cross back into the middle, where Wondo met the ball unmarked at the near post, cushioning an inside-of-the-boot volley into the top right corner.

The Quakes adapted, however, and Garcia tucked back into the middle to support Alashe. The Quakes wrested control of the match and Stewart blasted a long range effort over on the brink of the half. Meanwhile, the Galaxy’s best chance in the latter part of the first half came when Lleget volleyed a corner straight at Bingham.

As the sun went down, the game on the pitch heated up. Nyassi was booked for a late challenge on Zardes early on while Ishizaki and Bernardez both went into the book as well. The latter was so pumped up that he cleared an early ball into the upper deck when a simple touch would have sufficed. In a high intensity match, the affects of playing their third game in a week with only two changes to their starting lineup began to wear on the Galaxy.

Indeed, the Quakes largely controlled the second half on a sustained burst of energy. In the fiftieth minute, they completed the comeback as Goodson nicked ahead of his marker at the near post to head Garcia’s corner into the back of the net. Goodson leapt over the advertising boards and ran up to embrace the fans. “If I’m scoring, I’m doing something cool like that,” Quakes goalkeeper David Bingham joked. Wondo said: “The Big Skinny, he had leaps.”

Immediately, the home side’s intensity doubled. In the sixty-fifth minute, Stewart volleyed wide from the edge of the box following a corner. “I thought when the game opened up, we played better…and I think that second goal did open up the game a bit,” said Kinnear. “Obviously we started passing the ball better. So we were making better decisions. I thought in the first half we were a little bit rushed with things like that, and it just made for a bit of a back and forth affair.”

With the momentum on their backs, Kinnear put on Cordell Cato for Nyassi. “I thought Cordell [Cato] came in and played really well. I think his inclusion into the game really turned the tide for us, because he found himself in good spots, he rarely wasted a ball when he received it,” Kinnear said after the game.

Although the Galaxy fought their way back into the match, their attack was blunted by the Quakes’ sound defense. On the break, it was only a matter of time before the Quakes scored again and in the seventy-second minute, Cato himself on the end of Salinas’ layoff to tuck a low effort across goal into the bottom right corner.

LA manager Bruce Arena threw on Alan Gordon, who made his fourteenth substitute appearance of the season, as well as Jose Villarreal and AJ DeLaGarza in response, but the LA failed to improve up front. San Jose held out for a win. “We’re confident in our defensive shape and we defend with eleven guys,” said Bingham. Goodson added: “I think we were a bit nasty tonight; played with an attitude. We were making it difficult for them. You could see we got up to their defensive backs a little bit and they didn’t like that too much.”

The Quakes are playing LA again on Wednesday in the US Open Cup and Kinnear told Football Every Day he’d like a similar performance. When asked what he’d like his side to improve, he half-jokingly replied, “Nothing. I hope we win 3-1 next time, too.” It doesn’t get much better than this for Quakes fans.