San Jose Earthquakes Academy is on its way!

Other than Cade Cowell, who else have the Quakes sold for good money? Diego Luna, Tanner Beason, Verhoeven? My memory is short, so I can’t remember what other kids we made money on…

 

Cade Cowell
Emi Ochoa
Verhoeven
Cruz (loan with option to buy)
Chance Cowell
Nick Lima

Lima was in the Quakes academy at one point I think but became a college player, and then a Homegrown. So a bit of an outlier.

 

Jesse Fioranelli may have in fact said that we want to be a “selling” team.

He though came from Europe where there is a huge market for selling and loaning youth team and/or younger players to other teams in different leagues or even across the same circuit so they can gain experience.

Other than Cowell, Verhoeven and Ochoa though, that is not very common on the Quakes.

I don't know if it is prevalent for other MLS teams to sell or loan their academy players either but if there is a profit in it and if they do sell them, more power to them.

I don't think many academy players have been sold from the Quakes since 2010.

The main question I keep coming back to though is, what is the sole purpose or the academy?

In theory, it is supposed to or should develop younger players and get them ready for their parent, main club.

I've still yet seen any evidence of this though in the last 15 years.

 

Covid-19 really screwed the MLS Academies IMO. I never returned as a STH after Covid-19 since I had a hunch that the academy projects would be paused or cut back.

 

Maybe but I still didn't see much progress with the academy from 2010 to 2020.

 

Marcelo Avalos is probably another sale if we don’t keep him around. He’s a GK currently playing for the Mexican U17’s. And we’ve got KK Spivey who is one of the top few players in his age group. One of the most highly regarded academy players we’ve ever had, if not the top.

 

Yawn. Biased sports parent upset their special future messi wasn't given the respect he deserved!

The quakes academy seems pretty middle of the pack for MLS. Kids can look at facts, not this dad's emotions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homegrown_Player_Rule_(MLS)

 

The Quakes academy is actually one of the best in MLS, because it essentially* has all of Northern California to draw from, not every team's homegrown territory is equal, the Quakes benefit from the population and demographics of theirs. That doesn't mean some of the people involved are not incompetent or making bad decisions. We've created entire starting lineups of all the prospects the Quakes have botched over the last few years.

This is from April 2025, first month of 2026 and Cruz Medina may not have to be penciled in for much longer lol

*there's a radius but we know they've had homegrowns from outside that

 

It's actually a miracle that academy kids still sign homegrown deals with the Quakes given their level of incompetence...



https://old.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/1qd9tsm/san_jose_forgot_to_trigger_espinoza_option/



MLS_Analyst 12 minutes ago

Leitch was notoriously the worst communicator among front-office types in MLS history. I've had agents call me begging me to tweet shit about how he's ruining transfer deals b/c he literally wouldn't answer the phone (this is why Cowell went to Chivas instead of Europe), and had CSOs tell me they tried to make trades with the Quakes but just couldn't reach the guy.

Most teams don't screw this up b/c they hire people who actually read contracts and talk to players/agents/front office personnel. The Quakes decided to go in a different direction with that.

 

I personally think the Academy peaked in the 2019- early 2020 season. I saw Bruno Costa everywhere looking at youth players and he recruited a very strong group in multiple age groups. Too bad he was dumb enough to get himself fired.

That U-17 team was in the final 8 for the DA Cup (cancelled by COVID), it was Qualified for the top tier in Adidas’ Cup (cancelled) and was in first place in their division for MLS Next Playoffs (cancelled).

What has Luchi Gonzalez done that comes close to what Costa did?

 

I don't think Luchi Gonzalez has done anything yet.

Management though must have confidence in him as a youth team administrator otherwise they wouldn't have re-hired him only 6 months after firing him as head coach.

That isn’t a common occurrence for any sports organization.

In other sports, the Warriors re-hired Don Nelson after 11 years, the Raiders brought back Art Shell 12 years after firing him and the Colts brought back Ted Marchibroda 13 years later.

The only coach I can think of in MLS who was fired and brought is Frank Klopas in Chicago but that is all I can remember off the top of my head.

 

Luchi has been AWOL. Has anyone seen him at any Quakes II games? Maybe someone (Ted?) could interview him to see what he’s doing.

 

I think I saw Luchi in Los Gatos last summer but not sure if he still there.

 

Get himself fired?