The San Jose Earthquakes face a tough challenge this week when they travel to the Home Depot Center in Carson Ca to take on the defending MLS Cup champions, the Los Angeles Galaxy. Normally, this would not be the idea time to be facing the defending cup champions and league rivals given the fact that the Quakes are coming off three straight weeks of let down performances. In addition, the Quakes leading scorer, and the league's leading scorer, Chris Wondolowski will not be available to play in the match as he has been called up for duty with the US Men's National Team.
However, the Galaxy are having a lot of early season difficulties, and have found themselves at the bottom of the Western Conference standings and 13 points behind the second place Quakes (the lead seems even bigger when you consider that the Galaxy only have 11 points so far this season). Plus, the Quakes will be missing two of their top three scorers to National team duties as well in Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane.
While the Galaxy are not playing well to start the season, they still have to be considered a team that will threaten to win the Western Conference this season. If the Quakes want to make the remainder of the season as good as it has started, getting a win against the conference rival Galaxy will go a long way towards that goal.
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