Of all the challenging moments the struggling San Jose Earthquakes have faced this season, it's hard to imagine a single sequence that will test this side's mettle more than the final minutes of Saturday night's 4-3 heartbreaking loss to LAFC.
Leading late after Chris Wondolowski's brace, the Earthquakes conceded in the 90th minute to Adama Diomonde and then in the 97th to Joao Moutinho to fall to a fourth straight defeat.
Afterward, a San Jose side that already sits 13 points beneath the playoff line was left searching to explain how it happened.
"Maybe complacency, maybe just not that drive, I don’t know. It’s on us," said Wondolowski, who came off in the 72nd minute. "It’s on myself, being the captain of this locker room. Not getting our team prepared comes on myself."
First-year coach Mikael Stahre had a more positive postgame evaluation of his squad, though he admitted the difficulty of rebounding from such a loss.
"This is the hardest defeat so far ... " he admitted. "There’s one minute left of the 90 minutes and we have a 3-2 up, and then two minutes later we are losing again. So for me it’s absolutely crazy. But I’m really proud of the players’ commitment and energy, and they really followed the game plan, especially in the second half."
And attacker Danny Hoesen insists the Quakes will keep grinding. They have no other choice.
"At this moment, we can not be confident enough," Hoesen said. "Because we have a tough season and we have to keep going. I don’t think any one of us thought we could relax and just walk away with the three points. As you see, they (LAFC) kept going, so you give a lot of credit to them as well."
San Jose will at least have a chance to put the defeat quickly in the rear view with a Wednesday home match against the New England Revolution (10:30 pm ET | TV & streaming info).
