On Thursday morning, Anibal Godoy was in Panama awaiting his P1 Visa after signing for the San Jose Earthquakes. On Friday, Godoy woke up in Los Angeles and by 10pm the defensive midfielder had flown into San Jose, met his new teammates for the first time, and learned he would start in a 1-0 win over the Colorado Rapids tonight. He doesn’t know much English yet he said there was no problem communicating on the field, and at the end of the ordeal, Godoy added, “I feel like I’ve already played fifteen games with this group of players.”

“I was prepared mentally. They called me and asked if I was ready to start on my first day here and I said yes. I was rested and motivated by this great opportunity.”

The twenty-five-year old didn’t particularly stand out on the pitch (he said that he tried to keep his game simple while adapting to his new environment), but then again, not many players did in the one-goal match with few clear chances on the night. Dominic Kinnear’s Quakes won on the night, but struggled to convince that they have the quality to make a late playoff run. Indeed their bid for such a run will be further hampered by a left ankle injury to Jordan Stewart, which looked like an Achilles injury to Kinnear.

Yet the Quakes only came out for the win; specifically, their first in seven MLS games and nine matches in all competitions. To shed the weight of a losing streak, at home in front of a sellout crowd, will certainly inject the squad with some hope, belief, and potentially form. “It’s uplifting,” said Quakes forward and captain Chris Wondolowski.”It’s something that can kind of be a catalyst to spur us on through the rest of the year. Like I’ve said before, our belief hasn’t wavered. We believe that we can still be right in this playoff hunt. We know that it’s first going to take one win, and we got that. We have to build on that.”

The Quakes began on their heels, struggling to control the ball. Maynor Figueroa blasted wide from the thirty yards early on and Vicente Sanchez sent a long range free-kick arrowing over in the twelfth minute.

Shea Salinas, however, provided his welcome injection of pace and urgency down the left wing. In the twenty-first minute, Salinas drove past three defenders down the left before cutting a low cross back to Quincy Amarikwa, who forced Clint Irwin into quick reaction save with an eight yard effort at the second time of trying. Soon, the Quakes had dragged themselves back into a very tight game.

Down the right, Sanna Nyassi blew past Figueroa, but all too often Nyassi’s crosses whipped far over their targets. Kinnear’s men lacked threat down the middle, as Matias Perez Garcia played at half-pace and at times shook out a hamstring injury he has been carrying. Kinnear said after the match that Garcia was only 50-60% fit and “you could tell it was kind of hindering him a little bit. We tried to hopefully get him going a little bit at halftime, and it just wasn’t happening.” Unsurprisingly, the Argentine midfielder was substituted for Marc Pelosi, who had been warming up since the early stages of the game, shortly into the second half.

The intensity struggled to develop as neither side wanted to risk a loss to put men forward and in the entirety of the first half, Colorado had not a shot on target. Cliches only become cliches because they are so evidently true; so it’s fitting to say that the game needed a goal.

In the fifty-first minute, Nick Powers beat Bingham to a cross from the left, only to see his flicked header rebound back off the crossbar. But the Quakes, unfazed, went right down the other end and nabbed a goal as Amarikwa recovered a half-cleared free-kick on the left side of the box, clipped a cross back into the mixer and Clarence Goodson rose above his marker at the far post to head in off the post. The Quakes have scored a lot of scrappy goals from set pieces so far this season, but perhaps none have been better timed.

Renewed life sprang into the game and the Quakes pinned Colorado back into their own third. Yet Wondo couldn’t get himself involved in the attack and the momentum from their goal quickly petered out. The Quakes dropped deeper and deeper to defend their lead and the memory of Colorado’s late equalizer in a similar situation in the last meeting between the two sides began creeping into mind. However, with the assurance of having Goodson back from a hamstring issue, the Quakes defended their lead to hold onto the win. At the final whistle, Quakes mascot Q ironically held up a sign with the title “winning side.” Whatever the Quakes’ imperfections, that’s something you cannot debate on the night.