San Jose Earthquakes

San Jose Earthquakes
	File:SanJoseEarthquakes 2008.png
Full name	San Jose Earthquakes
Nickname(s)	Quakes, The Boys in Blue,; Los Terremotos de San José
Founded	1995 (as San Jose Clash)
Ground	Buck Shaw Stadium; Santa Clara, California
Capacity	10,300
Owner	Earthquakes Soccer, LLC
Head Coach	Frank Yallop
League	Major League Soccer
2010	Western Conference: 6th; Overall: 8th; Playoffs: Semi-Finals
	Current season

The San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer team is located in the San Jose, California suburb of Santa Clara, and participates in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top level soccer league in the United States and Canada.

The team is one of the ten charter members of MLS which competed in the league's first season in 1996 (originally as San Jose Clash), and took part in the first game in MLS history, defeating D.C. United 1–0. Following the conclusion of the 2005 MLS season the franchise was officially put on hiatus and the players, head coach Dominic Kinnear and some of his coaching staff were moved to Houston, Texas where they became the Houston Dynamo. After a two-year absence, the Earthquakes resumed play for the 2008 season^[2]^[3]

The team has won two MLS Cup titles, in 2001 and 2003, and one MLS Supporters' Shield, in 2005.

They currently play home games at Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and are coached by former Canadian international and English Premier League player Frank Yallop.

History

Roots of the Earthquakes

For more information see San Jose Earthquakes (1974–1988) and San Francisco Bay Blackhawks.

The franchise's roots trace back to 1974, when the North American Soccer League (NASL) awarded an expansion franchise to San Jose, named the Earthquakes. The NASL folded after the 1984 season, and the Earthquakes played in the Western Soccer League (WSL) from 1985–88, under the ownership of Peter Bridgwater.

In 1988, Bridgwater sold the team. When the team folded later that year, the WSL awarded a franchise to Dan Van Voorhis, a local real estate lawyer. Van Voorhis named his new team the Blackhawks, after a real estate development of his. The San Francisco Bay Blackhawks entered the WSL for the 1989 season. In 1991, Van Voorhis hired a former Earthquakes player, Laurie Calloway, as coach. Calloway coached a team full of players who would later play for San Jose in MLS, including John Doyle, Troy Dayak, Paul Bravo, and Eric Wynalda. In a preview of what was to come later in MLS, bitter disagreements between Calloway and Wynalda led to Calloway kicking Wynalda off the team in 1992. Blackhawks owner Dan Van Voorhis later pulled his team out of the WSL's successor league, the American Professional Soccer League, after which it played as the San Jose Hawks in the USISL in 1993. The team folded at the end of the 1993 season.

Major League Soccer

The San Jose Earthquakes on the field at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 2008

In 1994, Van Voorhis successfully led a San Jose bidding group that was awarded one of Major League Soccer's inaugural teams. At that time, he handed over all existing Hawks player contracts, front-office resources and the rights to play in San Jose State University's Spartan Stadium to MLS in exchange for Type C stock in the league. He also became the franchise's investor/operator until outside concerns forced him to divest himself of these positions prior to the league's launch and accept a buyout from the league, leaving the franchise league-owned for several years. Meanwhile, a direct connection to the earlier Earthquakes came in the person of Peter Bridgwater, named as General Manager of the MLS team. Although Bridgwater still owned the rights to the Earthquakes name and logo, the team became known as the Clash at the urging of Nike, a major investor in MLS.

On December 7, 1995, Bridgwater hired Calloway as the team's first coach, providing a second direct connection with the NASL Earthquakes, as well as a connection with the Blackhawks. Ignoring the past history between Calloway and Wynalda with the Blackhawks, the team acquired Wynalda just over a month later, on January 23, 1996. The Clash's connections to the Blackhawks continued when the Clash made the first trade in MLS history, sending Rhett Harty to the MetroStars for Troy Dayak, both players having spent several years with the team. Despite the presence of Calloway and much of his former team, the Clash failed to achieve the dominance achieved by the Blackhawks.

Wynalda scored the first goal in MLS history. However, he and Calloway were soon at each other's throats. The tensions on the team eventually led to a locker room brawl between Wynalda and John Doyle. The skirmish reached epic and memorable proportions when Wynalda hired an airplane to tow a banner demanding Calloway's firing.^[4]

Although the Clash made the postseason in the inaugural 1996 MLS season, and Doyle earned recognition as the best MLS defender, the team floundered in 1997. By mid-season the team was sinking fast and Bridgwater fired Calloway and replaced him with Brian Quinn. The Clash finished 1997 at the bottom of the Western Conference standings with a 12–20 record. Things were no better in 1998, when the team finished 13–19 and well out of playoff contention. During the 1999 pre-season, the saga of player-coach antagonism continued when Richard Gough left the team after an argument with Quinn. By the end of 1999, Quinn was done and the team released him to hire Lothar Osiander.

Return of the Earthquakes name

The franchise's official name changed from Clash to Earthquakes on October 27, 1999. After missing four consecutive post-seasons with three different coaches, the Earthquakes hired head coach Frank Yallop days before the 2001 MLS SuperDraft. Yallop's personnel changes and deft coaching with the help of assistant coach Dominic Kinnear and goalkeeper coach Tim Hanley, along with the allocation of star forward Landon Donovan on loan from Bayer Leverkusen, quickly turned around the Earthquakes' on-field fortunes, spurring the biggest regular season turnaround in league history (from 29 points in 2000 to 45 points in 2001) and leading the team to a 2–1 MLS Cup 2001 overtime victory over the archrival Los Angeles Galaxy.

The Quakes followed with two consecutive runners-up finishes for the MLS Supporters' Shield and a 4–2 MLS Cup 2003 win over the Chicago Fire. Prior to reaching the 2003 final, the Earthquakes had rallied from four goals down to beat the Galaxy, 5–4 on aggregate, in a first-round playoff that many MLS watchers described as the greatest in league history. Following the season, Yallop returned to his native Canada to coach the Canadian men's national soccer team. Assistant coach Kinnear was then promoted to head coach, and former San Jose player John Doyle was named as his assistant.

Having won two MLS Cup titles in three years, the Earthquakes were poised for greater success both on and off the field. However, in January 2004, General Manager Johnny Moore, whose roots with the club dated back to his days as a player for the NASL Earthquakes, resigned after AEG and MLS considered allowing the team to be rebranded as San Jose America (with ownership to transfer to the owners of Mexico's Club America). Earthquake fans were similarly outraged at the proposed rebranding, coming just months after the MLS Cup. Former Los Angeles Galaxy defender Alexi Lalas was named as Moore's replacement. Under Lalas' management, the club planned a move to Houston. Meanwhile, when the Quakes' star player, Landon Donovan, played briefly in Germany, Lalas traded away his rights, enabling Lalas' former team, the Galaxy, to acquire him.

On the field, Kinnear led the team to two more playoff appearances, including a MLS Supporters' Shield win in 2005.

Move to Houston

The owner of the San Jose Earthquakes, Anschutz Entertainment Group, announced on December 15, 2005 that the team was moving to Houston for the 2006 season because of the failure of efforts to secure a soccer-specific stadium for the team in San Jose. The franchise was renamed to Houston 1836, then to Houston Dynamo. However, MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that the Earthquakes' name, colors, logo, wordmark, history and competitive records would not be transferred, similarly to the Cleveland Browns deal in the National Football League. The Houston Dynamo is technically considered an expansion team by MLS just as the Baltimore Ravens was by the NFL during that team's early years.

Return of the Earthquakes

Earthquakes captain Ramiro Corrales during the team's first season back in MLS

On May 24, 2006, an agreement was reached between Major League Soccer and the principal owners of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. Lewis Wolff and John Fisher have a three-year exclusive option to develop a soccer-specific stadium and bring an expansion franchise to the San Francisco Bay Area.^[5]

In September 2006, after nearly nine months of inactivity (displaying only Commissioner Garber's December 2005 letter of condolence to Earthquakes fans over the team's relocation), the team's website was revived to display updates on the progress of starting up the expansion San Jose Earthquakes franchise and to allow fans to sign up for the Earthquakes Soccer, LLC e-newsletter.

On July 18, 2007, Commissioner Don Garber announced that the San Jose Earthquakes would resume play starting in the 2008 season after Lew Wolff exercised his option to purchase the new expansion team. While functionally being the 14th franchise to join MLS, the team retained all records, logos, colors and titles of the 1996–2005 franchise and is a continuation of that franchise.

In October 2007 the Earthquakes announced they would be moving their offices from the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose to an office park across the street from their temporary home, Buck Shaw Stadium, and across the Caltrain tracks from the location of the former FMC site.^[6]

On November 6, 2007, the team announced that former Earthquakes coach Frank Yallop was returning to the team as head coach. According to ESPN.com, the Earthquakes compensated Yallop's previous employer, the Los Angeles Galaxy, with a third-round pick in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft.^[7]

On January 27, 2009, Amway Global signed a three-year deal with the Earthquakes to become the team's official jersey sponsor.^[8]

In 2008, England's Darren Huckerby, the MLS Newcomer of the Year and Ireland's Ronnie O'Brien, who made 28 appearances for the Earthquakes, helped anchor the offense, combining for 10 goals and 10 assists. Both played a key part of the team's nine game unbeaten streak that saw San Jose push towards a playoff berth. The Quakes missed out on the playoffs for a second consecutive season in 2009 but looked to build on a solid second half of the year, which saw them go 4-4-4 since the All-Star Break.

In 2010, the San Jose Earthquakes qualified for the playoffs as the West's #6 seed with 46 points. In the 2010 MLS playoffs, they were matched up with the #1 seeded New York Red Bulls. After losing the first game by a score of 1-0, the Earthquakes defeated the Red Bulls in the second game by a score of 3-1 to win the aggregate, 3-2, and upset New York. In the single-elimination semi-final match against the Colorado Rapids, at Colorado, the Quakes suffered a 1-0 defeat.^[9]

Colors and badge

Since their inception, the Earthquakes have played in a color scheme featuring blue and black as dominant colors, usually with white highlights. The original San Jose Clash logo featured a stylized scorpion in black and red with a white 'clash' wordmark.

Ever since their rebranding to the Earthquakes in 2000, the team badge has featured an inverted triangular shield containing a soccer ball, a stylized 'Earthquakes' wordmark, and a color palette of blue, black, white and silver. The three sides of the triangular shield represent the three largest communities of the Bay Area (San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland).

San Jose Clash logo (1995–99)

San Jose Clash logo (1995–99)
San Jose Earthquakes logo (2000–05)

San Jose Earthquakes logo (2000–05)
San Jose Earthquakes logo (2008– )

San Jose Earthquakes logo (2008– )

Stadium

Spartan Stadium; San Jose, California (1996–2005)
Negoesco Stadium; San Francisco, California (2001) 1 game in US Open Cup
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum; Oakland, California (2008–2009) (big game venue)^[10]
Buck Shaw Stadium; Santa Clara, California (2008–present)

The team currently plays its games at Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara. On January 13, 2007, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the city of San Jose, San Jose State University and the Earthquakes owners were in negotiations to build a soccer stadium just east of the Earthquakes' previous home, Spartan Stadium. The new facility, to have 22,000 permanent seats but be expandable to a capacity of 30,000 for single games, would be privately built by Lewis Wolff and John Fisher, the primary owners of the Earthquakes, with San Jose State providing the needed land. Additionally, the team and the university would build community soccer fields across Senter Road in Kelley Park using San Jose municipal bond money that had been approved years earlier for the purpose but never spent.^[11] The plan was for the new version of the San Jose Earthquakes to play in Spartan Stadium during the 2008 MLS season, then move into the new stadium in 2009. Plans for the stadium collapsed on April 19 of that year after the Earthquakes and SJSU could not come to an agreement on revenue sharing.

On May 8, the city of San Jose and Earthquakes Soccer, LLC confirmed that their new primary focus was on a site near San Jose International Airport on the site of the former FMC plant. The new site is owned by the city, which is exploring either leasing it to Earthquakes Soccer, LLC or selling it outright. The 75-acre (300,000 m²) site is adjacent to not only the airport but the planned BART extension to Santa Clara and the existing Santa Clara Caltrain station, and near both Interstate 880 and U.S. Route 101. On June 12, 2007, the San Jose City Council voted unanimously to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding to explore construction of a new stadium to bring MLS back to San Jose and adopted a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an Exclusive Right to Negotiate agreement with Wolff and his partners regarding the potential development of the former FMC site. The first payment on the new stadium land of $3 million dollars was made in the last week of June 2008. The new stadium is projected to open in 2011 or 2012.^[12]^[13]

The preliminary designs were released to the public on September 19, 2009. The new stadium is slated to be a three-sided European style stadium with 15,000 permanent seats and a grass berm at the open end.

On March 16, 2010, The San Jose city council voted 9-0 to rezone the Airport West property to allow for development of the new Earthquakes stadium.^[14]

Club culture

Rivalries

The team's main historic and geographic rival is the Los Angeles Galaxy. From 1996 to 2005, they competed each season in the California Clasico, which was put on hold following the 2005 MLS season. The California Clasico was resumed in 2008.
A growing rivalry is also forming with the Houston Dynamo. The Dynamo was created from the players and coach of the Earthquakes franchise who were moved from San Jose to Houston in 2005, after which the Dynamo won the next two MLS Cup finals. The rivalry was further stoked by comments made in the Houston media about the Earthquakes and their fans.
The Heritage Cup derby with the Seattle Sounders FC was begun in the 2009 MLS season. It is contested among present and future MLS teams that carry on the names of their NASL predecessors.^[15]^[16]

Official anthem

The San Jose Earthquakes Anthem is performed by Bay Area rapper E-40.

Jersey sponsors

Honda (1996–1999)
Yahoo! Sports (2000–2002)
Yahoo! en Español (2003–2004)
Amway Global (2009–2010)
Amway (2011–present)

Mascots

José Clash (1996–1999)
Rikter the CyberDog (2000–2002)
Q (2004–2005), (2008–present)

Affiliated clubs

Tottenham Hotspur

Broadcasting

Earthquakes games are televised locally on Comcast SportsNet California/Comcast SportsNet California HD and Comcast SportsNet Bay Area/Comcast SportsNet Bay Area HD, with Jim Kozimor providing the play-by-play, John Shrader providing the color analysis and Dan Dibley providing reports from the sideline.^[17]

A number of games are instead televised nationally on ESPN2/ESPN2HD/ESPN Deportes, Fox Soccer Channel/Fox Soccer Channel HD/Fox Deportes and TeleFutura/TeleFutura HD.

On radio, all Earthquakes games are broadcast in English on KDOW-AM (1220 AM) and all home games are broadcast in Spanish on the team's website.^[18] A weekly five-minute English-language Earthquakes news report airs on Fridays at 7 p.m. PT on KNBR 1050 AM throughout the season.^[19]

Players and staff

Current roster

As of March 16, 2011.^[20]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
1	GK	USA	David Bingham
2	DF	USA	Bobby Burling
3	DF	USA	Chris Leitch
4	MF	USA	Sam Cronin
5	MF	USA	Brad Ring
6	DF	USA	Ike Opara
7	MF	JAM	Khari Stephenson
8	FW	USA	Chris Wondolowski
9	FW	TRI	Scott Sealy
10	MF	ENG	Simon Dawkins (on loan from Tottenham Hotspur)
11	MF	USA	Bobby Convey
12	MF	USA	Ramiro Corrales (captain)
13	GK	USA	Andrew Weber
14	DF	USA	Brandon McDonald


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
15	DF	USA	Justin Morrow
17	MF	USA	Joey Gjertsen
18	GK	USA	Jon Busch
19	FW	JAM	Ryan Johnson
20	DF	USA	Tim Ward
21	DF	USA	Jason Hernandez (vice-captain)
22	MF	GAM	Omar Jasseh
23	MF	USA	Anthony Ampaipitakwong
24	FW	USA	Steven Lenhart
28	MF	BRA	André Luiz
33	MF	USA	Steven Beitashour
—	DF	USA	Victor Cortez*
—	FW	USA	Ellis McLouglin

Note: (*) indicates a player chosen in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft or the 2011 MLS Supplemental Draft, but who has not yet been formally offered a contract by the team, and may not ultimately be a part of the team's final roster.

Notable former players

This list of former players includes those who received international caps while playing for the team, made significant contributions to the team in terms of appearances or goals while playing for the team, or who made significant contributions to the sport either before they played for the team, or after they left. It is clearly not yet complete and all inclusive, and additions and refinements will continue to be made over time.

Junior Agogo (2001)
Jeff Agoos (2001–04)
Arturo Alvarez (2003–04), (2008–10)
Khodadad Azizi (2000)
Jeff Baicher (1996–99)
Wade Barrett (1998–02), (2005)
Scott Bower (1999–02)
Paul Bravo (1996)
Dario Brose (1999–01)
Danny Califf (2005)
Joe Cannon (1999-02), (2008–10)
Ronald Cerritos (1997–01), (2005)
Brian Ching (2003–05)
Jimmy Conrad (1999–02)
Abdul Thompson Conteh (2000)
Troy Dayak (1996–98), (2001–05)
Dwayne De Rosario (2001–05)

Landon Donovan (2001–04)
John Doyle (1996–00)
Todd Dunivant (2003–04)
Ronnie Ekelund (2001–04)
Michael Emenalo (1996–97)
Missael Espinoza (1996)
Geovanni (2010)
Richard Gough (1998)
Ariel Graziani (2002)
Iván Guerrero (2008)
Darren Huckerby (2008–09)
Ben Iroha (1996–97)
Kei Kamara (2008)
Dominic Kinnear (1997)
David Kramer (1997–99)
Manny Lagos (2001–03)
Eddie Lewis (1996–99)

Lawrence Lozzano (1997–98)
Brian Mullan (2003–05)
Travis Mulraine (1999–00)
Richard Mulrooney (1999–04)
Ronnie O'Brien (2008)
Curt Onalfo (1997)
Pat Onstad (2003–05)
Eddie Robinson (2001–05)
Jorge Rodas (1996)
Ian Russell (2000–05)
Mauricio Solis (1999–00)
Davide Somma (2008–09)
Christopher Sullivan (1997)
Craig Waibel (2003–05)
Mauricio Wright (1999–00)
Eric Wynalda (1996–99)

See also All-time San Jose Earthquakes roster

Team management

General Manager: John Doyle
Head Coach: Frank Yallop
Assistant Coach: Ian Russell
Assistant Coach: Mark Watson
Goalkeeper Coach: Jason Batty
Technical Advisor: Ronnie Ekelund
Athletic Trainer: Bruce Morgan
Equipment Manager: Jose Vega
Team Administrator: Joe Dincecco
Team Doctor: Dr. Michael Oberlander

Team captains

John Doyle (1996–00)
Jeff Agoos (2001–04)
Wade Barrett (2005)
Nick Garcia (2008)
Ramiro Corrales (2009-)