Albert Rusnak’s goal in the 80th minute Saturday night lifted the visiting Seattle Sounders into a 1-1 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes.
The late marker allowed Seattle (1-2-3, 6 points) to salvage a point from a match that they controlled territorially most of the night. It earned a 26-10 advantage in shots and a 10-3 margin in shots on frame while owning possession for 59.6 percent of the match.
But it hadn’t gotten rewarded for its possession obsession until Rusnak got the ball on the right side of the 18-yard box. After dribbling past lunging forward Cristian Arango, Rusnak unleashed a blistering right-footed strike into the lower left corner past goalie Daniel.
Daniel made nine saves for San Jose (2-3-1, 7 points), which is winless in its last four matches, although it at least didn’t eat a fourth straight loss. The Earthquakes vowed to tighten things up after a 4-1 loss in their last match in Charlotte and mostly did so, although they didn’t resemble an attacking side for much of the night.
However, they did own a lead for 48 minutes after capitalizing on a bad clearing attempt and some luck in the 32nd minute. Beau Leroux intercepted a sloppy pass near the top of the 18-yard box and tried a shot. It clipped a defender’s shoe and the redirection was enough to get under the crossbar and over the head of goalie Stefan Frei.
While San Jose was attempting to play a better defensive game, the Sounders were shooting to come up with more clinical finishes like the one they got from Rusnak. They were coming off a 0-0 draw with Houston in which they owned a 14-6 advantage in shots and had 59 percent possession time but couldn’t finalize.
Rusnak, Danny Musovski and Nouhou each ended the game with four shots for Seattle, two on goal. Leroux was the only Earthquake player to get a shot on frame.
The Sounders generated 12 corners to San Jose’s four.
–Field Level Media
