Over the next month I will be putting out a series of previews for MLS (not The) this season. I know you are all wondering why should I care about MLS, however here are a couple facts to get you going.

• Since 2007 the league has gone from 13 to 24 teams (and counting)
• Last year MLS added a new team in LA owned by Will Ferrell, Magic Johnson, Nomar Garciaparra, and Mia Hamm!
• Soccer has the longest run time of the 4 major sports in 90 minutes, however because there’s no commercials the game only lasts 2 hours.
• Great players such as Josef Martinez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Carlos Vela, and many many more come to a tv near you every week!
• ESPN+ has made it very easy to find each game every week.

San Jose Earthquakes

Owner: Earthquakes Soccer, LLC

Coach: Matias Almeyda

Previous Season Record: 4-21-9 12th in West

U.S. Open Cup 2018: Fourth Round

Top Scorer: Danny Hoesen 12 Goals

Stadium: Avaya Stadium

2018 Recap

Live Look at Earthquakes fans trying to hide from last season.

Coming off a season where they finished 6th in the west and made the playoffs Earthquakes fans had a little hope going into the 2018 season. That all came crashing to a halt as the Quakes won a meager 4 games out of 34. Again 4 wins out of 34 games. The offense was bad, the midfield was bad, the defense was bad, and the goal tending was bad. Obviously they fired their coach, so this new coach Matias Almeyda had his work cut out of him going into the off season.

Off Season Transactions

*A couple things to highlight here:

• Dominic Oduro always brings speed and excitement to the wings.
• Marcos Lopez was brought in to fill a pressing need at Left Back.
• Cristian Espinoza should also help bring some explosiveness to the wings.

2019 Outlook

Soccer is weird, you can be terrible one year and amazing the next. The Quakes fans have to hope they can be better than they were last year, because how can you not be better? They have a legit breakout star in Danny Hoesen, who hopefully is taking lessons from MLS legend Chris Wonolowski. They also have some talent now with Judson and Marco Lopez where they can hopefully make incremental improvements and build something for the future.

Coach Almeyda has a lot of work to do but if he can get this team clicking they can of course make some noise in the West. I do think they will win a few more games this year in the 10-12 range but still miss the playoffs.