San Jose Earthquakes - Sporting Kansas City (Saturday, 2/21) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

With next to no roster replenishment or enhancement, are we going to dig a hole so deep in the first several games of the season that we know we can't climb out of by mid season? I remember it happened a few years back. Was that with Luchi?

 

We got off to a good start in Luchi’s first season. But we sucked out of the gate in his second. Matías had some stinky seasons with us too.

We got off to a good start last year with Bruce too. Then we suffered an epic collapse in the second half of the season. Some of that may have been a decline in production from Wilson and Rodrigues. Also, Munie had a late season injury.

But, also last year, the Sporks sucked like a Dyson! We’d better slag them. I want a three or four to nil victory in this one!!

Go Quakes!!

 

The prototypical "dig yourself into a hole that you can't get out of" season was 2019. We started with 4 straight losses and 14 goals for them to 2 for us. Completely embarrassing. Then there was the TT "we're gonna straighten this thing out" talk and we went out and beat Portland 3-0. Then we had a very strong midseason but petered out in the end and didn't quite make the playoffs. The 4 straight losses at the beginning killed us in the end.

 

We could get scorched early.

Timo is still not here, and won't arrive until right around the season opener, so he probably won't be available the first game or two, or maybe only for sub minutes.

The only trialists are MAK and JoGo. Really? If we sign JoGo, we'll still have five (5) open roster spots! I could see keeping one, at most two roster spots open, but five?! And we're short of international spots, but we just sold two?! What the hell are we doing? (I think that we get one of the international spots back in June.)

Is the team for sale? And the new owners want open roster spots so they can sign new players? The transfer window is open until late March? And then there's the summer transfer window. Is that what the new owners are counting on?

And this is fanciful thinking on my part. There may well not be any new owners at the bargaining table. I'm just making stuff up over here. What the hell?!

We're screwed.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Actually yes, if the Quakes wouldn’t have lost their 1st 4 games they wouldn’t have had to beat Portland on Decision Day to make the playoffs. Losing the first 4 games is probably the biggest start of season hole dig the Quakes have had.

 

There was really no working out of the hole in 2024 and 2018 for that matter. It was just hole digging the entire season. In 2019, big hole at the seater, we made a great effort to get out but in the end we couldn’t quite overcome it. I’m not taking about worst seasons, I’m taking about seasons where a bad start gets you in end after a reasonable effort to work your way back.

 

In the '22 season, we dropped the first seven games. It was hopeless after that. The last year of Matías. That really sucked. Then Luchi for '23 and '24, and that sucked too. Then il Bruce for '25, nice start, crap finish. Now il Bruce for '26, and addition by subtraction. I'm expecting a dismal, awful, losing season. We aren't even close to a full roster. This is going to be shit.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Actually we had 3 ties and 4 losses in the 1st 7 games, which is still horrible but not quite as bad as losing the 1st 7. We were a little better in 2022 - some decent form under Covelo whereas 2024 we pretty much sucked all season, had less wins than 2022, and set an MLS record for goals conceded I believe.

 

I can't believe that we are going into the home season opener in 5 days with the current roster.