Wha’ happened?
An empty PayPal Park awaits a new season (photo: Josh)
Josh: It’s been quite a season for both us and the San Jose Earthquakes. Our season took us offline for both of our teams and writing frequency. The Quakes started a journey to restoration of faith and garner achievement, and left them just outside the postseason door.
Matt: I’m not sure I have the big picture on their season. After the first two strong games, it seemed like a whole lot of battling for not enough success, when everything was played out. But I don’t have any specifics or player perspective that would add much.
Josh: It truly has been quite a year for us and our teams. I can take this wrap-up episode solo, no worries. I don’t know that we need to recap every match since our last episode on… <squints> July 2. But maybe an overview with some highlights and some heavy sighs.
The final outcome, which I guess is our TL;DR of a sort, is: even with a 2-1 win over Austin on Decision Day, our San Jose Earthquakes miss the playoffs for another season. This year, they land in tenth place, which is respectable, if you ignore the first half of the season.
Western Conference standings at the end of the 2025 season (MLSsoccer.com)
The 2025 Black & Blue never broke the trend of keeping Goals (G) and Goals Against (GA) in parity. For goals scored, San Jose ended the season fourth in the West, and seventh in the League with 60: an amazing feat. Sadly, the full stats board includes 63 GA, third in the West, tied for fifth in the League. Teams with a negative goal differential ended up as high as sixth in the West, likely due to Miami’s West Coast tour, but San Jose never figured out how to tip the scales in their favor.
I did some math; even did a spreadsheet with a chart and trendlines: very scientific. What I found is that after the strong start, first four matches, then a little up and down, May was the start of a breakthrough. After Portland, the Goal Differential (GD) kept getting wider… until July. It slowly got smaller, and after LAFC in September, it dipped negative and never recovered.
As it turns out, mid-May was the return of Hernán López. And the first week of July was when the Quakes then loaned out Hernán López, quickly followed by Espinoza’s injury. So the Summer was already faced with some key challenges in the playmaker positions.
Then in the backline, while Matt & I celebrated Dave Romney all season long, there were additions, great performances, and of course, some key injuries.
New for 2025 Noel Buck joined the squad in the Summer, but then was ruled out in August.
Benji moved to the backfield this season, but missed the final six matches
Dejuan Jones was a huge addition from New England, but also was ruled out starting Sept 12.
Injuries hampered the front field in the middle of the season, back half toward the end. And the team was unable to backfill either one.
For a lot of MLS, the story of 2025 was “One W Makes All the Difference”. San Diego, and props to them, became the first expansion side to finish first in their conference in their first year. But points-tied, it’s that one win that bumped them over Colorado in the West. For The Almost Great 408, one win is why RSL is in the Play-in match against Portland instead of our squad. And had the Quakes faced Portland (1-0-1 this season), there is a real chance our team would be in the official Postseason.
To see what the in-house opinion is, the Quakes finished the season with their team awards:
Cristian Espinoza as Players’ Player of the Year
Cristian “Chicho” Arango as Offensive Player of the Year
Daniel Munie as Defensive Player of the Year
Beau Leroux as Young Player of the Year
Ian Harkes as the Media Good Guy
Ousseni Bouda for the Andrew Bedard Spirit of the Game Award/Humanitarian of the Year.
I co-sign all of these. Other than the fuzzy insight into Chicho’s not-so-distant past, these guys all seem like strong players with good attitudes that I’m glad to see honored. The awards also tell me that we’ll likely see them stay around for 2026.
So let’s look forward… <record scratch> …and already Josef Martinez is in the free agency pool. He definitely added some valuable scoring in the late season, but I’ve already written about how I don’t think San Jose was getting value on that investment. Maybe he’s going to head off into a final couple of seasons and retire with the Five Stripes. Best of luck to him.
In other personnel conversation, during the post-season presser, Coach Bruce talked about not necessarily leveraging the trade and draft season for the backfield, he seems confident in focusing on health & training to get those players back online and working together. Daniel Munie has already signed up for another couple seasons, which I do think is a great call. He’s so fast.
With Josef freeing up a DP spot in the front field, maybe PayPal Park fans will get some energy around the opponent’s 18-yard box to look forward to. Super-Sub Preston Judd has already signed to be back disrupting in 2026. Niko Tsakiris finished his season with his first MLS goal, and many non-goal contributions. And Coach Bruce says we can count on the 2027 return of López. So it does give us Quakes Faithful some hope of continued improvement.
Last, but certainly not least, and another validation for comments made here on QOBC - PayPal Park’s hybrid pitch is getting dug up, thrown out, and will be restored to a traditional athletic pitch. Bermuda grass, which the weather out here can support, and a natural base, will be under-cleat in 2026. Maybe that means fewer slippage incidents; maybe fewer injuries.
While we all watch to see if Messi gets bounced, how far San Diego’s historical debut season goes, and of course root for the Western Conference, hope you all have a great off-season full of recovery, on-sale merch, and restoration of the fire that makes being a San Jose fan so challenging. Will 2026 bring New England and our favorite Revs blogger to San Jose? We shall see!
Vamos San Jose!