Martinez Hat-Trick, San Jose route D.C. United at home on a day of celebration

On April 6th, 1996, both the San Jose Earthquakes and D.C. United played the inaugural game to kick-off the start of Major League Soccer down at the Earthquakes, or the Clash as was the original moniker for the team representing The Bay Area was known back then at their first home, Spartan Stadium.

The festivities prior to the game Sunday afternoon at the Earthquakes new home PayPal Park, had several faces that took part in MLS inaugural game including such legends for each club, such as Eric Wynalda, who scored the first goal ever in MLS and former D.C. United captain and club legend Marco Antonio Etcheverry among others.

That night San Jose would come out victors with a 1-0 scoreline, both teams met again in San Jose 29 years to the date the first ever in a modern setting showing how far the league has come.

Just like that day 29 years ago, the Earthquakes would be victorious against United once again, but this time by a much more comfortable scoreline, as they soundly defeated D.C. by a final score of 6-1.

Derek Dodson left back for D.C. United. Photo Credit: D.C. United

“This was a wonderful moment for both clubs, the league and where the league has evolved to,” D.C. United head coach Troy Lesesne said, “but I would have liked to have celebrated it with a much better performance than we turned in.”

The Game

San Jose opened up the scoring in the 8th minute off a Cristian Espinoza corner kick. The ball found Cristian "Chicho" Arango inside the box. Chicho was able to head the ball towards goal. D.C. star forward Chrisitan Benteke leaped to head the ball clear, however his attempt of a clearance bounced off his head and into the back of the net. The goal was credited to Arango. From their it became the Josef Martínez show.

In the 14th minute Martínez won an aerial ball in the midfield, heading the ball to Niko Tsakiris. Tsakiris headed the ball into open space to a waiting Martínez, who dragged D.C. center back Lucas Bartlett off the mark of the Venezuelan international. Bartlett desperately tracked back to no avail, as Martínez got to the ball and slotted the ball into the near corner of the goal defended by Joon Hong Kim to double the Earthquakes lead.

Three minutes later Mati Peltola tripped Beau Leroux inside the box awarding San Jose a penalty. Espinoza converted the penalty kick to triple San Jose's lead before the 20-minute mark.

"It was a bad period for the three goals," said Lesesne "We started in the way we wanted too. I think that the goals we concede are off turnovers and it's a big transition moment and then we unfortunately were punished, but we can't let it snowball into multiple goals." He concluded "We have to continue to fight. This just isn't good enough; this is something that we have to really address very quickly in order to continue to fight and push as hard as we can to get ourselves in a better position. Absolutely nothing that resembles outside of maybe the First ten minutes, what I feel like we've been building over the last year and a couple months."

D.C. would get a goal back before halftime. After a short series of passes, Gabriel Pirani laid the ball off to Derek Dodson, who sent a cross to a waiting Benteke inside the box. The Belgian striker got his head to the ball, as his header kissed the crossbar before crossing the line to get his fifth goal of the season.

D.C. had a chance to cut down further on San Jose's lead at the start of the second half after Pirani laid off a short pass to Benteke, who's one-time shot was saved by Daniel, Benteke would recover the rebound after the shot, but the Brazilian goalkeeper for the Earthquakes was able to deny Benteke once again forcing a corner kick.

In the 81st minute, a calamitous defensive error by United in their own end, Amahl Pellegrino took advantage of the error and slotted the ball through to Martínez, who put the ball into the back of the bet to pick up his second goal of the match.

In the 88th minute Pellegrino would enter the score sheet himself, after a Mark-Anthony Kaye long ball found Jamar Ricketts inside the box. Ricketts heads the ball across the mouth of goal to Pellegrino who simply put the ball into the net. Martínez would get his hat-trick in the 90th minute by chipping the ball past Kim, after receiving a long pass from Espinoza.

Prior to the start of the season D.C. put an emphasis on building a solid defense, after allowing 70 goals last season, third most in the league. D.C. has now given up 12 goals in the last three games and 17 goals total in the first seven matches of the season. Lesesne addressed the defensive woes and said the following:

"We are looking at some different changes because obviously what we've done in the first seven matches has not resulted in better defensive form," he said "This is something that we're, we're really going to evaluate hard because I think that we have the personnel to do a lot better than what we're doing right now."

With this result D.C. remains in 12th place of the Eastern Conference with 6 points, while San Jose sits 8th place of the Western Conference with 10 points.

D.C. returns home to Audi Field to take on another tough opponent in FC Cincinatti. The game will take place next Saturday April 12th, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 pm.