It could have been worse (than signing Hernán - who was fine IMO and is doing really well with Argentinos). We could have signed Vela.
Why not actually say the name of the player so people know who you're talking about? Apparently it's midfielder Zian Flemming San Jose targets Championship midfielder The San Jose Earthquakes have targeted Millwall attacking midfielder Zian Flemming with their open DP spot but are yet to make an offer, sources briefed on the situation say. Flemming, 25, has seven goals and five assists in 44 Championship appearances for the club this season. Millwall has won three games in a row to lift themselves out of the relegation battle with two games left to play. The Quakes have had several targets for this open DP spot, most notably Carlos Vela, but haven’t gotten a deal over the line yet. On the field, San Jose has struggled mightily, with eight losses in their first nine matches, putting them bottom of the league.
Thank You, Chris Leitch 🖤💙🗞️ | #Quakes74, General Manager Chris Leitch Mutually Agree to Part Ways— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) November 15, 2025
Bruce's choice is Bruce. He's keeping Ian as head scout for now, but that might not last. I have next to no faith in Bruce, so I expect our team to worse in the coming season. Go Quakesfans!!
I once sent my boss a nasty-gram so that I'd get put on the layoff list. I got a great severance package, I got to ditch my boss and some other jerks, and got hired by someone else a month later for a fat raise and way more respect. CL might be tired of SJ, or he might have just gotten sacked. Go Quakesfans!!
Clearly it's the latter, we'll know it's the former if Leitch gets another GM job in MLS within the next few months... chances of that are 0.000001%
I wouldn't assume that there's no mutuality in it. CL had already been demoted to Bruce's coffee boy. Not sure he wanted to stay in that role. Also, outside possibility that if we just "missed" Espinoza's option deadline, and it wasn't on purpose because we wanted to restructure his contract, maybe CL is taking the fall.
Bruce Arena I think in LA and New England was usually his own GM so I’m sure Leitch will have been overstaying his welcome sooner or later.
He waa effectively his own GM here. “Sporting Director” / GM usually go together, That person makes roster decisions and hires the coach. Bruce had roster decisions and was the coach. That left CL with just the grunt work - the “paper work” and administrative stuff required to get things done. That and making the coffee.
Officially “mutual agreement” that he’s leaving. That’s probably euphemism for sacked but I wouldn’t be surprised if CL wanted out also.
That is the way it works in most leagues around the world. A coach says, I want this or that player and the club president goes out and buys him. I believe the job of GM is will be obsolete eventually.
No I mean MLS teams won't need to hire GM's anymore. We've had , Doyle, Fioranelli and Leitch and none really moved the bar since 2008.
These are just labels. You need A) a guy to make the roster calls, and B) you need a guy to do the grunt work to make that happen. That can be the same guy or different guys. We had Bruce as A and Leitch as B last year. I don’t think Bruce can or would want to do A and B *and* coach the team at 73yo. So we’ll probably get a new B, and it will probably be a FoB, maybe Curt Onalfo.
It seems like Chris didn’t do much this season, and that Bruce gave him the whole time to find another job. I hope he lands somewhere soon and in a good place. Doesn’t he have like 5 kids?
I doubt Bruce did any of the grunt work to bring players in and other GM stuff. He was just telling CL what changes he wanted to make to the roster and CL had to make it happen. I'm sure there was a lot to do.
True, but it seems to me we didn’t bring in many players this season. And since so many were FOB, that would have reduced the workload somewhat. I’m just guessing that CL had more time to job search this year than any past year he’s been in the Quakes office.
There is a heck of a lot to do to run the technical side of a team beyond just made the roster decisions, which is not all that time-consuming and is probably the only thing that CL ceded to Bruce.