I’m proud of the Quakes overcoming 2 or 3 unawarded PKs, but it’s bad there’s 30 unnecessary minutes in their legs. Realistically though, I’m not sure having VAR would have fixed any of it. Several of them seem to sleep through MLS league games. The missed handball might have gotten a review. The first one, where Beau’s shirt was nearly pulled off by Crapeaux probably wouldn’t get a review. The inside or outside the box debacle probably wouldn’t either. I think that doesn’t get a review because a VAR would assume the AR has called the foul at the moment it starts despite Cristian’s attempt to play through it causing a trip as the play continues because the defender is beaten again when the holding over the shoulder fails. The lack of yellows for swarming the AR and CR was just overall ridiculous. I know 2 yellows were given, but there should have been 5-6 and Portland were rewarded for their bad behavior since they “talked” the refs out of the PK. Reward swarming and yelling and you’ll get more of it. The game itself was pretty meh since they seemed tired. Munie and Floriani are enjoyable to watch though despite some mistakes—lots of longterm potential. Both Roberts and Ricketts may make it in MLS too. I have hope it won’t remain that only Daniel can keep them in games defensively given that he’s so injury prone (in part because coaches like Caleb Porter still have jobs). I hope Hernàn is more coachable than he seems to be so far. I’m doubtful though on his long term potential with the Quakes. “We’ll” see, but the early sub makes me think he wasn’t following directions as to the game plan as opposed to him just having a bad game despite trying to do what was asked.
I think Chris Sullivan, who played for the Clash in 1997 , played on that team. The San Francisco Greek-American Athletic Club won it in 1985 and 1994. The Britannia Arms pub team, the San Jose Oaks were also U.S. Open Cup Champions in 1992. Come to think of it, the Bay Area , before the startup of MLS, played some great amateur soccer in those years with Open Cup Champions in 1992, 93 and 94. Laurie Calloway wanted a few of the Oaks players for the 1996 inaugural San Jose Clash team but I think they declined. They were making more money under the table playing amateur ball , keeping their real jobs as opposed to what MLS was offering , so they said no thank you.
Good piece on El Farolito. I thought they played Sac tough this year and were unlucky not to win. Still they were the last standing amateur team for the 2nd year in a row, for which they receive 50k. https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2024/04/el-farolito-is-the-spice-of-the-open-cup
Totally agree, the Bay Area had some really strong amateur teams back in the day. The captain of that Oaks team was my physics lab partner at State…his brother played for my Sunday team.
Yeah , there were some great players on those teams. I recall the flow of those amateur teams and leagues as opposed to the early years of MLS was slower but that’s because their players weren’t training daily as pros. I’m sure if some of those players and teams trained and played with and against other professionals , they will have easily been able to raise their levels and make the transition to the early MLS levels. Even now when I watched EF vs Sacramento , they held their own but they couldn’t hang on because they weren’t pros. It makes me wonder though what would happen to some of those amateur players if they were paid more or had a chance to get promoted.
The Oaks played in my neighborhood (before my arrival), and virtually nobody in the ‘hood has ever heard of them let alone knows their accomplishment.
It’s true the years from 1984-1994 were the days of amateur teams and leagues. Many former NASL, MISL ,college and future MLS players played in those leagues. The precursor to the USL was called the SISL or USISL and a lot of those players also played in those amateur leagues as well. I recall SJ Oaks team organizer Andy Hewitt ended up suing Dan Van Voorhis and the SF Bay Blackhawks for trying to block a Concacaf Cup game against Morelia , a Mexican La Liga MX team at Spartan Stadium. I was sitting right next to Laurie Calloway and Van Voorhis who were up in the booth and they were pissed that they weren’t playing the game and the Oaks were allowed. I’m not sure how much they were awarded but I think the Oaks sued for $500k. Chris Dangerfield told me they won enough to cover the team expensive but shortly after , Hewitt opened another Britannia Arms up in Aptos so I think he mostly used the money for the bar which stayed open for a number of years. I was at the game and the Oaks lost 4-1 in front of only maybe 4k fans. I believe with Simon Ireland scored the loan goal. Supposedly, during one of those years in an away match, the Oaks went to Mexico and held their own before losing in the last 15 minutes. Andy told me that Oaks all purpose man Frank Vanden Brand Horning started kicking all the Mexican forwards in the legs coming down the wings. The Mexican officials asked him why they gave up at the end and Andy said, “you guys are pros and we know we can’t beat you”. “We are going back to work tomorrow and you guys have a league game so we just wanted to have fun”. Simon Ireland was one of the players I believe who turned down a SJ Clash offer. I am sure he will have been able to easily play on that Clash team from 1996 to at least 2000.
“NEWS: Earthquakes to Host Austin FC in 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals on July 8” (SJEarthquakes.com - Tuesday, 5/27/25) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Interesting, I was just trying to lookup the date for the game by going to the quakes schedule -- as of 4:14 PM today, it's not in the posted schedule. Guess it will show up in a few minutes, or people won't be able to buy tickets...
It could be a very interesting game, as both are equal on points in the table, both on the edge looking in of the regular season. Going to guess, one or both, are looking for securing silverware in the Cup.
It's not until July 8th, so the teams may be in very different circumstances by then. Go Quakesfans!!
So do I. Played in 1994 and 1995 (with a Cupertino Team). LOL...at the time, I didn't anything about it. Grass roots. Not always about the money. MLS owes a lot to the players and support structure from the 70-90s.
Now that I'm following a third division team, I have seen first-hand how important the USOC is to fans of lower-level teams and their supporters.
I think I recall that Cupertino team. We would play pickup games and would watch you guys train. Some players were really good.
Oof, we just got a big dose of bad luck. Austin’s game against LAFC cancelled due to rain storms in TX. That means they’ll play their A Team against our B Team. We can still win it but it just got a lot harder.
I don't know they're sitting on 26 points, just outside of the play-in game on goal differential with a home game vs. New England on Sunday, it wouldn't surprise me to see them play for the win against New England.
Austin plays New England next Saturday. I'd be really surprised if they rested starters in a quarterfinal USOC game when they probably want to keep their starters in form before a 4-day rest. They were supposed to play LAFC at home tonight but the game was cancelled and will be played on some other day. If the starters don't play on Tuesday it's a 2-week layoff for them. I'd be more worried about rustiness than I would be about rest. An early midweek game (Tues) is one more day of rest than the normal Wed game, and many teams will play starters both Wed midweek and weekend.. Also, Austin FC, like us, is desperate for a championship and they know that MLS Cup is probably out of reach. I don't see how they wouldn't want to go all out. Edit: Bruce says Austin is "coming in fresh". So I think he expects them to play their A Team, and that he's gonna decide what we're gonna do by Monday. I think if Austin had played it would have been mostly B Team. But now I think he might push it. “We're going to play to win. Austin’s game [vs. LAFC] was canceled tonight, so they are coming here fresh. We have a team that has to recover pretty quick, so we have to decide by Monday what kind of adjustments we're going to make for our team. But it's an important game.”