SAN JOSE — The San Jose Earthquakes took care of business on the final day of the regular season, but with their playoff fate out of their own hands, ultimately, it didn’t matter.
The Quakes broke through with a pair of late goals to pull out a 2-1 win over Austin FC on Saturday. The other results they would have needed to claim the Western Conference’s final playoff seed on Major League Soccer’s “Decision Day,” however, didn’t go their way.
“We blew too many games this year, wasted too many points, and put ourselves in a position that made it difficult,” said coach Bruce Arena, who finished his first season in San Jose with a record of 11-15-8 and an 11th-place finish in the conference.
Still, an improvement from last year’s last-place finish that led to the hiring of the longtime MLS and U.S. Men’s National Team coach in January.
“From 2024, we basically doubled wins. We had six last year, 11 this year. We had 21 points last year, 41 this year. We scored 60 goals, 41 last year. That’s progress,” Arena said. “We made progress. That’s all I can say. So that part’s good, but I can easily count a half-a-dozen games we could have walked off with more points.”
Having lost four of five matches entering the night, San Jose needed to win and depended on three other outcomes. FC Dallas beat Vancouver and Real Salt Lake tied St. Louis, locking the Quakes out of the postseason despite getting the needed draw from Colorado against LAFC. They needed one loss from FC Dallas or Real Salt Lake.
The Earthquakes players watched from the field as their fate was sealed with the final seven minutes of the RSL-St. Louis match airing on the video board.
Niko Tsakiris, whose first career goal gave San Jose the lead in the 77th minute, described his day as “bittersweet.”
“Obviously we fell short of what we wanted,” said the 20-year-old Saratoga-born midfielder. “But as an individual, happy to get my first goal.”
For much of the match at PayPal Park, it didn’t appear that scoreboard watching would be a worthwhile activity.
The Quakes dominated possession and owned advantages in most statistical categories. They outshot Austin 10-2 and held possession for more than 60% of the game. But they missed their first eight shots on goal — and first 24 total attempts — before Josef Martinez headed their first goal past Austin keeper Brad Stuver in the 75th minute.
Austin FC attempted only one shot on goal in the first half, but the right-footer from Owen Wolff gave Austin a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute.
Martinez’s 14th goal of the season tied the score at 1, and Tsakiris put them ahead 2-1 just 2 minutes later on a free kick reminiscent of the one he made in the U20 World Cup in Chile.
“On the sideline, I said, ‘Niko’s got to take this free kick,'” Arena said. “I saw the free kick he hit in the U20 tournament. Good for Niko, and hopefully he can be a guy competing to be a full-time player next year. So that’s encouraging.”
Whereas Tsakiris, a homegrown product, predated Arena’s arrival, Martinez, the team’s leading goal scorer, was one of 13 players brought in by the new coach to debut this season. The overhaul ignited the offensive attack, finishing fourth in MLS with 60 goals, but its defense left something to be desired.
Austin, Arena pointed out, scored 23 fewer goals this season but limited opponents to the fifth-lowest number in the league.
“We’re going home, and they’re in sixth place,” Arena said. “So figure that out.”
Part of the answer, Arena acknowledged, comes from coaching. When he arrived in January, he said, “in all honesty, we didn’t know our team. It took a large part of the year to sort some of that out.” The other piece is roster construction, which Arena indicated will continue this offseason.
Acknowledging the club’s payroll constraints and the up-in-the-air ownership situation following reports that John Fisher intends to sell the team, Arena said the Quakes need to surround players like Martinez and Christian Espinoza, one of the top scoring duos in the league, with more talent.
“We’re trying to build the organization into a winning organization,” Arena said. “We have a ways to go. We’ve improved facilities here. We have a new training field now, just completed. We have a new dining hall for the team. A team meeting room. So, we’re making progress. We’re trying to catch up with everyone in the league. …
“We’re not positioned to win the MLS Cup at the moment,” he continued. “But we can get better. You’ve got to improve the roster, to start.”
