Beginning with the final game of the MLS is Back tournament against Minnesota United, the Earthquakes have given up four or more goals in all competitions five times and haven’t scored more than one goal in their last seven games. Photo credit: MLSsoccer.com.
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“The pandemic made us play this type of season. It’s been shown when we’re able to work, the team works. So to judge in these moments seems mediocre to me.” — Matías Almeyda
The San Jose Earthquakes had just finished their most difficult road trip of the pandemic affected schedule by getting dismantled 5-0 by the Colorado Rapids, and head coach Matías Almeyda sat defiantly in front of the press conference camera. He had skipped out on addressing the media following the previous game, a 6-1 blowout loss to the Portland Timbers just four days earlier, but on this night he was ready to face the music.
But Almeyda didn’t apologize for the second straight demoralizing defeat. He didn’t take direct responsibility or call out any of his players. Instead, as he has throughout the Quakes eight-game winless streak following a promising showing at the MLS is Back tournament in July, the Argentine fell back on a litany of now familiar excuses.
“It was very difficult,” Almeyda said. “Physically, we aren’t there because we can’t train. It’s impossible to correct mistakes and work toward the future. I try to be very real and objective in my life. There’s ten games left and they’re going to be as difficult as these games.”
The manner in which the team lost to Colorado, one that now leaves San Jose with the worst record in all of MLS, demanded more explanation. The team’s eternal captain, Chris Wondolowski, who’s seen more than his fair share of low moments with the Earthquakes, was much more frank in his assessment of the performance and the mindset of the players. Alarm bells should be ringing throughout the halls of Earthquakes Stadium.
“Right now, we’re mentally weak,” Wondolowski said. “Once something goes wrong, we’re expecting more things to go wrong. We’re almost like a puppy that is waiting for the newspaper to hit across the nose when we do something bad, and when you do that, you see the newspaper and you start to shudder. That’s not a good thing, but to be honest, that’s where we are right now.”
Almeyda agreed with the captain, recognizing that a lot of effort on his part to reverse the team’s losing mentality from so many failed campaigns was getting thrown out the window these last few weeks. The Earthquakes have been outscored 25 to 5 in the month of September, and their 38 goals allowed in 13 games in 2020 would translate to a staggering 99 goals conceded over a typical 34-game season. The coach was certainly feeling some of the weight of the situation.
“We’re all well aware of the present, but my life has been when in this way, I never get too far down,” Almeyda said. “I’m used to fighting, and now I am on my knees. But I know that at a certain time I will get up.”
The former Concacaf coach of the year and trophy winner at his previous assignments in Mexico and Argentina might have that leverage in San Jose, to dictate his own actions and make his own decisions, but his players don’t necessarily have that luxury. Against the Timbers last Saturday and the Rapids on Wednesday, even back to similar defeats earlier in the month, their faces showed a demoralized squad.
“It hurts,” said long-time Quakes midfielder Tommy Thompson the day before the team’s latest setback in Colorado. “It hurts to get beaten like that, whether it’s LAFC in LA, Seattle in Seattle, and now Portland at home. Any time something like that happens, as a professional, it really hurts you.”
Almeyda, for his part, did make some minor adjustments to his typical high-energy man-to-man marking scheme entering the game in Colorado. Players didn’t engage the Rapids as high up the field as they might otherwise do, and the game was close for the first 45 minutes. Perhaps the coach had finally recognized some degree of change in his tactical approach needed to happen.
But then the floodgates opened in the second half, with Thompson one of many players victimized by a relentless Rapids side the capitalized on a tired Quakes squad. It’s hard enough to travel the morning of a game, as current MLS policy requires, play at altitude against an active opponent, and hope to stand toe-to-toe with them for a full 90 minutes. San Jose shipped four goals after intermission and never regained their footing.
Any amount of encouragement that could be taken by the first half performance was quickly forgotten by the final whistle, and the clock once again began ticking toward the next game in an uncompromising schedule, a Sunday evening affair against LAFC in Los Angeles. The Quakes perpetual cycle of hell now readied for another revolution.
“We’re not going to change in three days and have a magic wand that we touch the players. For me, they gave a bunch in their time, but we’re really struggling with the times. … I can assure you because I played, it’s impossible to recover every three days and play for points and 90 minutes.”
The calls for Almeyda to completely scrap his style of play, one he has defended every time it is questioned, grow louder with every lopsided loss. He stated after the record home defeat to the Timbers and the 5-0 drubbing in Colorado that he simply does not have the depth of roster to make his system work under the current challenging scheduling and training situation. But he deflects suggestions that he go the more practical strategic route, and plan around the hand he’s been dealt.
The players, for their part, have also been public in their support for Almeyda and his system of play. Wondolowski, just moments after sharing his scared puppy analogy, turned snarling dog trapped in a corner and barked out a refusal to capitulate to the increasing chorus of critics.
“No, we need an identity,” Wondolowski stated. “We’ve had our identity and we need to stay the course. We have to continue to do the things to be who we are and to be successful. We know what it takes. Just because it’s not working right now, you can’t throw in the towel. You can’t just change everything, scratch a year-and-a-half of that we’ve been doing.”
Wondolowski’s determined answer, moments after admitting the mental wear-and-tear of the current season is crushing the team’s spirit, was not hypocrisy; rather, it represented the words you want your captain to give in the face of adversity. In fact, it’s safe to say that these Quakes, Wondolowski included, are both beat down by the results and determined to make amends. So what can be done to bridge the maddening gulf between defiant intent and dismal defeats?
A plan to deal with a challenging schedule and a desire to keep to an identity
The Earthquakes have 10 games left in their compressed 2020 regular season, and a near miracle would need to happen for the coach and players to make the MLS Cup playoffs following their current course. Sure, San Jose sits only six points behind Real Salt Lake, eighth in the Western Conference and current residents of the last postseason spot available, but to surpass them, and the three other foes in between, simply seems unrealistic.
Some will be quick to point out that the Quakes are not mathematically eliminated from postseason consideration — even the last place team in the conference could hypothetically go on a crushing season-ending run and defy the odds — but that shouldn’t stop Almedya, along with general manager Jesse Fioranelli, from approaching the next month and a half in a more productive manner: set the club’s sights on bouncing back in 2021.
Following the MLS is Back tournament, one that saw the Earthquakes advance to the quarterfinal and look like the foot-forward team Almeyda wishes for, the circumstances that helped in that endeavor — longer training sessions, better facilities, great team togetherness — don’t exist in San Jose, and as long as the pandemic continues, won’t. Almeyda knows that, but he really wants to see his project advance. Wondolowski, speaking for the players, does as well.
Since facing the LA Galaxy on August 29, in their return from Orlando, the Quakes have not had more than four days off between games. Many times that interval has been two days, which Almeyda rightfully says is too little time to fully recover and prepare for the next game. The coach has addressed the compact schedule by relying on more players on his roster, but injuries are mounting and the losses are cutting deep.
Almeyda has also said that he sees the games since the return to home markets as an opportunity to evaluate players for the rest of this season and beyond. The schedule, however, has caught up on everyone, and even the coach said it saddens him to have to play some of his younger players in such trying times. Everyone on the roster is a professional, but it can be psychologically damaging to get thumped by a relentless opponent every fourth day of the season.
The next 10 games provide a slightly less congested schedule, and Almeyda and the Earthquakes, if they can relinquish their goal of making the playoffs this year, can accomplish something that will have longer lasting ramifications. It will take some sacrifices, especially for a group that likes to use the “La Familia” moniker as a badge of its unity. Almeyda needs to settle on the guys he wants as his core for 2021 and sequester them into a training schedule that defies the upcoming run of games.
Essentially, Almeyda and Fioranelli — he also knows who’s likely to be back next season — should fashion an “A” squad and a “B” squad and let each group focus on working together and building on-field cohesiveness. In other words, train the way Almeyda demands, practice again and again to develop the identity Wondolowski wants to see stick in San Jose, and look at the next 10 games as an overlaying split season.
This ambitious idea will be difficult to implement right away, so the game at LAFC on Sunday is a bit of a write-off. The payout comes from allowing the “A” team to train and play exclusively in six of the remaining games after the trip to LA and the “B” team to focus on the other three. The breakdown, listed below, will give the players in the “A” squad a typical 5 to 7 day break between games, ample time to recover, train, and improve on mistakes — all the standards Almeyda says have been lost this season and thus at the root of the Quakes’ struggles.
October 3 — LA Galaxy
October 7 — Vancouver Whitecaps
October 11 — at Portland Timbers
October 14 — at LA Galaxy
October 18 — Seattle Sounders
October 24 — at Vancouver Whitecaps (played in Portland)
October 28 — Real Salt Lake
November 1 — LAFC
November 8 — at Seattle Sounders
(“A” team games in bold)
Meanwhile, the “B” team will have fewer matches to focus on, and, sure, some players might feel aggrieved at the designation. However, the opportunity to shine, for younger players still in the Quakes plans and others already with an eye on their next destination, could revive some sagging mindsets. Some cross-pollination between the groups will likely be necessary, especially to ensure a full gameday roster each time out, but Almeyda should do all he can to minimize it and nurture a sense of responsibility in each group.
It would be an incredibly bold direction for the Earthquakes to take, and it could inspire the squad to make the sacrifices needed to allow the club to continue to develop its identity in Almeyda’s eyes. Of course, it might go horribly wrong, and the locker room fissures created could make those from a real earthquake look pale in comparison. It’s a high stakes gamble, one that would defy the conventions of typical American sport.
Still, what do the Quakes have to lose? 2020 is the year of the unconventional, the uncomfortable, the unprecedented, and many people have been forced to adapt in ways they couldn’t have imagined nine months ago. If nothing changes in Almeyda’s and the players’ approaches to this season these next six weeks, the story then will simply be what it is now. But, stir it up and take the unconventional route, and the Earthquakes just might restore some of their dignity and even win a few games along the way.
