As it has been all this season, the renaissance of the San Jose Earthquakes has been going through Cristian Espinoza on the right hand side.
In the 65th minute of their regular season finale against Austin FC — tied 1-1 and needing a win to guarantee a playoff berth — the Argentianian beat his man inside the box and lofted a perfect cross to the feet of striker Jeremy Ebobisse, who hit the ball so well that the keeper, Brad Stuver, didn’t even have a chance to react.
At that moment, a goal was so clearly deserved yet not finished. The ball instead struck the corner of the post and the sellout crowd at PayPal Park groaned in agony. That sequence has been the story of the Quakes season — where their style of play (and place in the standings) has improved since head coach Luchi Gonzalez took over, but the cutting-edge moments needed to seize all three points were still lacking.
Luckily for them, other results on MLS Decision Day broke their way and the team will still get to play its first postseason game in three years. Portland, who was above them in the standings, flubbed their chance even more and lost at home to Houston, crashing out of the playoff picture.
But by failing to win at home against an already-eliminated Austin side, the Quakes now must travel to Sporting Kansas City — who leapfrogged them by winning their own game emphatically 3-1 — to play a single-elimination wildcard game on Wednesday.
The winner of that game will then get to go on and face first seed St. Louis City SC in a best-of-three series in MLS’s new expanded playoffs format.
“Being over the playoff line is great validation for this group,” said Gonzalez, who at the beginning of the year said that qualifying for the postseason was his primary goal. “But we’re actually quite disappointed that with 20-plus shots…to not score a winning goal.”
To that point, the fans headed for the exits after the final whistle didn’t quite feel like celebrating either, despite the video board flashing “PLAYOFFS CLINCHED,” illuminating the night sky. The Quakes finished their season by only winning one of their last 10 games and the latest result also made it four draws on the run. Normally, we’d like our heroes to mark their triumphant return by stamping their ticket, but instead, this team made it onto the train by the skin of their teeth.
“There’s no champagne in that locker room right now because we have more ambition,” Gonzalez said, adding that he picked a more attacking lineup featuring Matthew Hoppe and Niko Tsakiris in the midfield because he thought it represented San Jose’s best chance to get a result.
To give them credit, the Quakes were the protagonists for most of the night, taking the lead in the 16th minute behind a strike by none other than Espinoza, who was set up by the aforementioned Ebobisse, who forced a turnover that found his teammate with a clear run on goal.
San Jose continued to press a lethargic Austin team, who had nothing to play for, and even managed to pin them back against their own goal for most of the second half.
But as is the case during this run, it just took one moment asleep at the wheel to undo all of that good work. In the 33rd minute, former Quakes fullback Nick Lima put a soft cross into the box that wasn’t dealt with, and it found the head of youngster Owen Wolff, who nodded it past Daniel.
Austin FC, which heads into the offseason especially disappointed since they made it all the way to the conference finals last year, shares more than a few similarities with this San Jose team. (Note: they actually finished the year with the same amount of wins, but had less points because they lost more games.)
They too, have an MVP-caliber Argentinian attacker, Sebastián Driussi, to build their attack around. Meanwhile, their coach, Josh Wolff (whose son scored the tying goal) also comes from the same USMNT coaching tree that Gonzalez spent time with before he was hired by San Jose.
The fact that the Texas team’s fortunes swung so far from one year to the next, highlights the fine margins and parity of the league.
“You come in after what we accomplished last year thinking that you’ll just naturally take the next step and win the conference, but that’s not how it always works in this league,” Wolff told Soccer Bay Area, adding that his team outperformed its metrics last year and benefitted from good injury luck.
In July, Austin FC hired Rodolfo Borrell from Manchester City as its new sporting director, replacing Claudio Reyna, who had overseen roster construction since 2019 before an ugly dispute with national team coach Gregg Berhalter effectively forced him out of the job.
“We had two transfer windows where we didn’t get better,” Wolff said. “We were without a sporting director all summer which left things unaddressed until January. As a result, we started the year reacting to adversity rather than building on what went well last year.”
Even though they never coached together, Gonzalez said that he considers Wolff a close friend and the two often sound like each other when discussing the ebbs and flows of MLS.
“I know Josh quite well just having that commonality of working with Gregg Berhalter,” Gonzalez admitted. “We both want to build a similar model and culture at our teams.”
He added: “Josh was a mentor to me after I left FC Dallas and was trying to figure out my next step. His guys had a great season last year but have gone through some tough things this year. It’s a good lesson to not take anything for granted and try to make progress off the success.”
Maybe on those terms then, Saturday’s draw could be viewed as a positive step forward, rather than a limp to the finish. The Quakes are, after all, playing meaningful games deep into the fall again and fans’ expectations are high once more.
About the Author: Kevin V. Nguyen is a business and sports journalist. He has covered soccer for The Guardian, The Sacramento Bee, and The San Francisco Standard. Follow him on Twitter @KevinNguyen_89
