Revolution at San Jose Earthquakes, 5.21.11

Earthquakes’ striker Steven Lenhart is surmounted by what looks like a wig from a Greatest American Hero Halloween costume, circa 1982. His hair is an anachronism, a throwback to an era when a significant number of American males affected a bleached-blond man-perm. In our current day and age, Lenhart’s hairstyle is more radical, and certainly more rare, than Shalrie Joseph’s dreadlocks or Rajko Lekic’s among-the-thugs shaved head. Your first inclination might be to laugh off Lenhart, as if he emerged from a Chevy van sporting white shoes, a gold medallion, and a silk shirt open at the throat. That would be a mistake. Lenhart is a strong presence in the air and plays physical soccer that’s just this side of dirty.

Though he won’t receive formal credit on the score sheet, Lenhart was instrumental in producing the game’s first goal. It came in the 71^st minute off a perfect cross from Chris Wondolowski. Wondolowski ran down the right sideline and cut the ball back to his left foot, evading A.J. Soares, who I’m sorry to say made a lame attempt to block the cross. As the ball sailed into the center, Lenhart drew the attention of two Revolution defenders at the six. That freed a trailing Ellis McLoughlin, who headed in his first MLS goal.

Wondolowski and Lenhart give San Jose an enviable duo up front. Wondolowski looked particularly impressive against the Revolution. Revs defenders forced him to his left all night long and he was still able to make them pay on that cross to McLoughlin. He almost made them pay again in the 79^th minute with a quick left-footed strike that skidded just wide of the post. I was happy to see Wondolowski was named to the U.S. national team’s Gold Cup roster yesterday. Based on this year and last, he clearly deserves the chance. The announcement is a mixed blessing for San Jose, who will miss Wondolowski over the course of the tournament. But as the silk-shirted, gold-medallion-wearing Kurtis Blow once put it: these are the breaks.

The Revs have no counterpart to Wondolowski, who incidentally last year managed to lead MLS in scoring and avoid falling below the poverty line while collecting his $48,000 annual salary. But back to the Revolution, whose new $275,000-a-year striker Lekic has only one goal and zero assists in 531 minutes of play. He never threatened against San Jose. He did, however, get under the skin of numerous Earthquake players. Veteran Bobby Convey, who played left back and scored the game winner off a great free kick, received a yellow for unsporting behavior after shoving Lekic in the back. (Convey lost his composure when Lekic ran him into the sideline advertising boards.)

With the way Lekic talks and plays, often grabbing opposing players around the shoulder and neck area while challenging for the ball, he will likely draw many more cards this year. Unfortunately, as we saw when he argued with Sainey Nyassi a couple of weeks ago against Colorado, Lekic may also be in danger of routinely antagonizing his own teammates. He and Benny Feilhaber exchanged words in the 74^th minute of this game after Lekic was called offside following a Feilhaber through ball. Feilhaber had a point. He had held the ball as long as he could, waiting for Lekic to step onside, but Lekic never did. It was a wasted chance for the Revolution on a night in which they produced few of them.

This—failing to produce chances, let alone goals—of course represents a growing trend. The Revs have now failed to score in the run of play in four straight regular-season games. (Chris Tierney got the Revolution’s only goal off a free kick just outside the box in the 86^th minute.) This is not the kind of soccer that’s going to generate excitement for the team. I wasn’t surprised to read in Soccer America Daily today that so far this year the Revs have an average home attendance of only 10,892. That’s well below the current 2011 league average of 17,378. Only Columbus and San Jose have lower attendance numbers than New England.