The Official 2026 San Jose Earthquakes preseason games thread [R]

Good. Makes sense for us to scrimmage against MLS competition and not goof around in Santa Barbara and play the Santa Barbara City College Vaqueros or something.

 

Great road trip for those who haven’t been.

 

Oh, are we assuming they'll be playing teams above the line?

 

I don't think ti matters that much. You never know who's gonna be "over the line" in preseason, and teams are just trying stuff out. Last year I think we played NYRB, Portland, and Chicago, but not sure. Something like that. Two of three of those wound up over the line last year, and NYRB did not but was in MLS Cup the previous year I think. The point is - at least we're not playing Fresno Baptist, or whatever, like we have in previous years.

 

With StL playing, I wonder how many opposing players they will injure before first kick?

 

We ditched a bunch of players and haven’t replaced any of them. We need to sign some impressive new guys right now so that we can at least have preseason to integrate them into the team.

Honestly, it looks like we don’t care how badly we suck.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Let’s hope!

Tomorrow is 5Jan26. So a little earlier than last year, but we really need to get a move on. We have a lot of spots to fill, and then we need to integrate everyone into a cohesive unit.

I’m not optimistic.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

One thing to note is that Bruce was hired in mid-November of last year, so he was just coming up to speed and trying to figure what he wanted to do with the club last year, and you might expect signing to come a little later. This year he's had a whole year to evaluate and we announced our roster moves almost 6 weeks ago. So you'd expect some more movement by now. Again, I think it's either 1) we have a spate of signings in Jan and early Feb or 2) we're in some kind of limbo state waiting for new ownership.

 

Yeah, maybe.

And maybe Bruce has lost it. He resigned Costa and Skahan and he thinks that Viera is good. And he benched Beau late in the season. All of which (excepting perhaps Skahan) are bad decisions. Makes me think that Bruce has lost it. The second half of the season we sucked, from 25Jun25 until the end we won only four games. That’s shit.

So yes, we need to hope for new owners, and that the new owners are good.

It’s long odds.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Quakes are in the "do we upgrade the bathroom before selling the house" mode. Yeah, mow the lawn and vacuum the floors, but is it worth getting a new roof and will the new owners like the new cabinets or rip them out on day one? A nicer place gives you more bidders, but does that give you a return on your money?

 

Speaking from experience, the new owners are gonna rip it apart and redo it anyway so your best go lean on the makeover.

 

It's not that hard to put lipstick on a pig... it appears we aren't even trying to find lipstick though

 

To be fair, lipstick stock is low after the holidays.

 

I knew someone 20 years ago who did big upgrades to their house in Mountain View. The winning big went a couple 100k over asking and proceeded to level the place and build their own mansion onsite. Maybe those upgrades made that winning bid higher than it would have been, but there's no way to say if they were better off just burning it to the ground and selling the land. It'd have saved the new owners a little money even.

First you have to find lipstick and then figure out which end of the pig to apply it to.