A grueling two weeks.

The Quakes are coming off a punishing schedule of four MLS games in two weeks with a friendly game against English Premier League team West Bromwich Albion coming up on Tuesday.  With a record of no wins, one loss and three ties it feels like a torrid time for the fans who want points and a playoff spot in the bag as early as possible. The Quakes have 22 points from 18 games - still in touch for a playoff spot, but with half the season played the fans are starting to get nervous.

All may not be lost - let’s review the Quakes' opposition during that time frame:

• LA Galaxy (39 points from 21 games): A 0-0 tie against the conference leaders that was mostly memorable for not getting any shots on goal that were challenging for a midget goalie in an oversized shirt – and he was a position player too.  Bruce Arena packed the LA defense tighter than Imodium – the failure to score left Quakes fans embarrassed, further compounded by the presence of Galaxative fans, who did not shirk their responsibility to rub salt in our wounds. 
• New York Red Bulls (28 points from 20 games). This was the ‘big’ game of the year in front of 41 thousand fans at Stanford stadium, most of whom were wearing Quakes gear.  The closely fought match, that finished 2-2, had a level of excitement not seen before at a Quakes 2.0 home game.  The as highlight of this game is that it proved to the organization that the fan base is there – more than enough fans to fill the proposed new stadium three times over. If you build it we will come, and it will be a tough ticket.
• Chivas USA (22 points from 19 games):  The only team salary lower than San Jose is Chivas, so yes, it’s ironic that we lost that one.  It was a truly forgettable midweek matchup that the Quakes lost 0-2 – Twitter feeds during the game used terms such as dull, mundane, tedium, lackluster, sleepwalk and ennui (my favorite, and a first for one  of my feeds I believe). 
• Philadelphia Union (28 points from 18 games):  The Union is hot on the heels of NYRB and they have two games in hand.  The Union team is challenging for the lead in their conference in only the second season in MLS; the club has great fans and one of the better stadiums in MLS (yes, more stadium envy).  The game was a scoreless tie, marred by another moronic referee who appeared to thrive on being the center of attention, rather than letting the play be the focus of the fans.   

So, if I asked myself at the beginning of this season: "would I be happy with ties against the top two teams in the Eastern Conference and the runaway leader of the West Conference?", then my answer would most likely have been "yes".  Also bear in mind, we have already played both matches against three of these teams - only the return Galaxy match remains on August 20th.

However, during this grueling part of the schedule we've picked up a number of injuries - Convey was absent for three of these games.  We've also been hampered by the suspensions of critical players during this demanding part of the schedule: Burling was missing for the Chivas game, and Lenhart for the Union game. A more positive reason we were shorthanded was Wondo's call up to the US men's national team.

Given the friendly nature of the West Brom game, I hope we can roll out some of the untested players and rest a few starters. Rafa Baca finally has the crucial immigration paperwork he needs to play; in the fifteen minutes he saw against the Union, the elevated crowd noise crowd noise he generated showed that the fans already anticipate much from him – fifteen minutes wasn’t much time to make an impact in his first outing.  The stalwarts of the reserve team: Morrow, Luzunaris, Ward, and Jasseh have yet to see any significant playing time in the first XI; the WBA game should be the perfect game to test their mettle.    

San Jose Dearthquakes

0-2 against Chivas.

Too depressed to blog - all I hear is crickets chirping...

Red, White and the Blue and Black - Quakes fans' Stanford experience.

I’ve always known that I’m not smart enough to get into Stanford.  I finally had tangible proof on Saturday when I failed to notice the difference between Campus Drive West and Campus Drive East, and ended up at the observatory.  I don’t have a clue how a helio-seismic magnetic imager works, but even with the high powered telescopic equipment up on the hill, I know that you can’t see the pitch from there, so I turned around and eventually found the stadium. 

More than 41,000 people had the same idea and turned up for the game at the home of the Stanford Cardinals: NYRB wore white, and the Quakes wore blue - all very appropriate for the Fourth of July weekend.  I’m sure that some fans had turned up for the fireworks, but most were wearing the blue and black of the Earthquakes.  The prospect of playing the stars of NYRB was a draw, but attending a game in a full sized stadium, with full-sized bathrooms, and fans on all sides of the pitch brought out even the most casual of Quakes fans for this game. 

Seated on the east side of the field, I found myself among fans I hadn’t met before, and as I introduced myself we discussed what features of this Stanford experience contributed most to the atmosphere.

• Enclosed stadium: Yes, there were four times as many fans as we get at Buck Shaw, but a stadium closed on all four sides reflects and magnifies the sound – there was definitely more than four times the atmosphere.  The Ultras made the most of the acoustics and their chants circulated around the field and they easily encouraged the other fans to join in with more than the usual gusto with the EARTH – QUAKES cheer. Before the game, the Ultras were also able to unfurl their huge tifo from the upper deck – an effect that could only be replicated at Buck Shaw by evading security and climbing to the top of the pine trees (which I am not advocating here, by the way!). 
• Tailgating: the eucalyptus groves on Stanford campus provide a shady, comfortable environment for pre-game food and drink.  It always feels a little contrived to set up a table in the Magellan parking lot, before navigating across El Camino Real to Buck Shaw for the game.  At Stanford, huge groups of fans were grilling, eating then getting indigestion and picking up minor knee injuries playing Frisbee. 
• Real seats: Did you know that it’s actually possible to put a seat in a stadium that is made from flexible plastic, and that seat can fold up to allow easy access to the seats in the middle of the row?  These seats also have what I shall call here ‘backs’ and these backs are contoured to your spine, and provide both support and protection from your neighbor’s knees.  Rapture.

Photo: Joe Nuxoll at Centerline Soccer.

From my seat I saw, heard and shouted with thousands of smiling fans – smiling even in spite of Edvin Jurisevic’s overzealous yellow card donation program to the Quakes cause.  The game ended in a 2-2 draw, and the fans exited en masse after the spectacular fireworks display - everyone was chatting, laughing. If they were unhappy with the result and officiating, it didn’t show. Some drove off straight away, but many others decided to linger a while and resumed their animated post -match discussions at the picnic table. 

My own conversation centered on why the Quakes don’t consider playing more, if not all, of their games at Stanford football stadium - the amount of blue and black I saw in the stadium showed me that the fan base is there.

For a full match report visit Centerline Soccer here.