“NEWS: Earthquakes Announce Partnership with Ford Motor Company” (SJEarthquakes.com - Tuesday, 3/19/24) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
What’s plaguing the 6 winless MLS teams & how to fix them | MLSSoccer.com Joseph Lowery over at MLSSoccer.com thinks the Quakes most obvious problem is Daniel. "What’s wrong: 2024 Daniel doesn’t look like 2023 Daniel The Brazilian goalkeeper was the most efficient shot-stopper in MLS last year...Through four games this year, the 29-year-old has been the worst shot-stopper in MLS...Daniel is far from the Quakes’ only problem, but he’s been the most obvious one.... The solution: Hope Daniel finds his form and sharpen in possession... We have years of data that points to Daniel being an excellent goalkeeper, so the prevailing wisdom is he’ll find his footing here before too long. Even still, potential improvement from Daniel doesn’t guarantee a Quakes’ turnaround. The ball is moving far too slowly in possession, out of either Luchi Gonzalez’s 4-2-3-1 or the straight 4-4-2 he used over the weekend. Without an elite central playmaker, San Jose have to raise their collective attacking game to find their wingers in good spots to create chances. We haven’t seen nearly enough of that in 2024. Adding a truly high-level third DP would help the attack the most. But will that happen? History says “no.”"
MLS Power Rankings: Suárez boosts Inter Miami, LAFC fall off - ESPN 29. San Jose Earthquakes Previous ranking: 29 "The Quakes played alright in Kansas City, but that isn't going to make anyone feel better after losing 2-1 for their fourth loss in as many matches this season. Luchi Gonzalez may be the first MLS manager on the hot seat this season." Although probably not anytime soon.
Power Rankings: Which teams can catch the Columbus Crew? | MLSSoccer.com 29 San Jose Earthquakes The Wooden Spoon is calling. Through four games, the Quakes have no points and a negative-6 goal differential. They’re the only team with less than three points that isn’t in CCC or… uh… Seattle.
For those with a Soccer America subscription, Charles Boehm states the obvious that the Quakes are poor and unlikely to get reinforcements with an owner who is not likely to make significant investments in players. MLS Week 4: The Crew's well-oiled collective, Miami's balancing act, Atlanta's pivot, and plummeting San Jose - Soccer America I think his final sentence is really true. "The region’s population, wealth and soccer culture have long led the Earthquakes to be dubbed a sleeping giant in MLS. The slumber will deepen if the losses keep stacking up at their current pace."
He’s aware of our stated intention to sign a DP attacker right? We haven’t done it yet but it should be no secret that we’re in the market.
True, but will it be a big-ticket investment ala Galaxy or even Portland who just spent $4.3M on a player from Club America? The Quakes only have filled 2 of their 3 DP slots and 0 of their U22 slots. It does not appear from this that the Quakes are really committed to investing in the players they need. I don't blame Leitch or Luchi. This is on Fisher.
Wouldn’t surprise me if we spend 3-4M on our DP attacker. We’ll see. We spent 4.6M on Gruezo last year (transfer fee + salary). As for U22’s we can’t sign even a Marcos Lopez kind of prospect again? I don’t think it’s all about the money. We’re not making good use of the $ we do have to sign young prospects.
Agreed we can spend that kind of money, but we don't. IIRC, Gruezo was our record signing. The Galaxy, per reports, spent $10mil each on two players. We are not even in the ballpark. Fully agree that we are not making good use of the $ we do spend. We've proven it is possible to compete, and some other teams have succeeded (e.g. Philly) in competing with smaller than average payrolls. But results tend to revert to the average and on average our spending puts us in the middle to bottom of the league. Surprise, surprise, we tend to finish in the middle to bottom of the league.
If Philly and other teams can do it, we can do it. We just haven’t been smart enough yet. The coach can also make a difference as we’ve seen so far this year in Montreal and Toronto, and as we saw in Montreal ‘22 and Columbus ‘23 under Nancy. LAG’s best player is Puig, and he came on a free transfer. With amortized transfer fee + salary we pay a similar amount to Gruezo that LAG pays to Puig . The money’s nice but at the end of the day you just have to be smart.
This might be the stupidest thing I've ever seen.. we're the number 3 team in the US (all sports) in fan loyalty because our average attendance is ~102% of stadium compacity (and only because of the Levis and Stanford games):
Lying with statistics. Not to mention that we lie about PPP attendance too but I suppose that “tickets distributed” hoax is pretty common in sports.
And yet what fans the Quakes do have are undeniably among the most loyal. “Thank you sir, may I have another.”
“NEWS: Earthquakes Announce Grow The Game: Next 50 Initiative” (SJEarthquakes.com - Thursday, 3/28/24) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Love to see the kiddos getting involved. My wife spent quite a few years as a sub in the Santa Clara USD and had a fair number of occasions where one of the Sharks or Quakes or Niners players or mascot would visit a class and everyone always had a great time. Interestingly, for all that bullshit about the South Bay being Giants territory, those dickheads NEVER came down there...
Power Rankings: New York Red Bulls, Toronto FC continue dream starts | MLSSoccer.com Quakes move up three spots into 26th... "The Quakes dug themselves out of the West cellar after going up early against Seattle and finishing them off late. The 3-2 win earned San Jose their first points of 2024." MLS Power Rankings: Both L.A. teams soar, Crew remain at top - ESPN Quakes move up two spots into 27th... "Progress! San Jose looked strong in their 3-2 win over the Sounders. Niko Tsakiris, who recently recovered from injury, was especially bright. The 18-year-old brought an extra layer of speed and on-ball quality to what's been a sluggish midfield."
Ah yes, the oh so objective rankings. We have more points than Seattle this year and just beat them 3-2, yet they are 5 spots ahead of us in the ESPN "power rankings". I still don't get what people saw in Niko's performance. He didn't touch the ball much (0 times in the first 10 minutes I think) and made maybe 2 progressive passes all 1st half. The rest was backpasses and give-aways. And he was a non-factor on defense. I don't think these people really watch the game. Maybe condensed game? But I think they just look at the result and then what's changed in the lineup and then make up a "correlation equals causation" story. Anything deeper than that takes too much time.
You're probably right. They see the W, look to see what changed, ahh Niko was back and there's some buzz around this young player, that must be it then.
Earthquakes Fan Stares Directly At Eclipse So They Have An Excuse To Not Watch The Rest Of The Season