New facility brings little luck
San Jose facing a must-win situation as playoffs await
Earthquakes
SAN JOSE — The Earthquakes entered the season hoping to rack up points and goals when christening new Avaya Stadium.
Instead, San Jose faces a dire situation in its regularseason home finale Friday night against Sporting Kansas City.
The seventh-place Quakes (12-12-8, 44 points) need a victory to remain in Major League Soccer playoff contention for one more week. San Jose fell to seventh in the six-team Western Conference playoff race with two games remaining after the Portland Timbers won Wednesday night.
The predicament partially can be blamed on mustering only 23 points of a possible 42 at the muchballyhooed, 18,000-seat stadium that made its debut in March. Worse, the Quakes (6-3-5 at Avaya) have won only once in the past five home games.
“I really don’t know what the secret is,” said midfielder Shea Salinas, who was with Philadelphia in 2010 when the Union opened PPL Park with a 6-7-3 mark.
Neither does Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear, who enjoyed a much better experience when he and the Houston Dynamo didn’t lose in their first 19 games at BBVA Compass Stadium three years ago.
Two other recently opened soccer stadiums also catapulted teams to the top of the league.
Sporting Kansas City lost only five times in its first 34 matches after opening a stadium in June 2011. Sporting (13-9-9, 48 points) has lost just once at home this season — to the Earthquakes.
New York enjoyed similar results as Kansas City when opening Red Bull Arena in 2010.
But San Jose has been unable to parlay the sellout crowds and new facility into a pronounced home-pitch advantage.
“It’s easier said than done,” Kinnear said, add- ing it’s important to win at home to gain points and energize the fan base.
“You want your fans to go home happy,” he said. “It’s not entirely an obligation, but there should be a thought that the people are paying money to watch you play.”
By Kinnear’s estimation, Quakes fans have left Avaya in good spirits all but three times this year.
But even one more home victory might have given the Earthquakes some help to end a two-year playoff drought. Now they almost certainly must defeat fourthplace Sporting and first-place FC Dallas in the season finale on the road next weekend to make it happen.
San Jose will have lineup changes Friday night when it is without central defender Victor Bernardez and midfielder Marc Pelosi. Both are ineligible because they have reached the league limit of six yellow cards.
But the Quakes have Fatai Alashe back from the U.S. under-23 team that finished third in a regional Olympic qualifying tournament. Alashe could replace Bernardez on the backline.
Kinnear has other options, such as using former Stanford star JJ Koval or moving Marvell Wynne over from fullback to fill Bernardez’s role.
Whoever fills in will need tocontinue the strong defensive performance at Avaya. San Jose has allowed only nine goals in 14 games.
“We just haven’t scored as many goals at home as we would like,” Salinas said of the 12 goals.
After seven seasons at 10,500-seat Buck Shaw at Santa Clara University it has taken the Quakes time to adjust to their new digs.
Salinas said the team had an advantage because of Buck Shaw’s grass field was slippery for opponents.
“The grass here is great grass for everyone, so there is not a home-turf advantage,” he said.
Perhaps the Earthquakes have learned a lesson about the grass not always being greener.
The Earthquakes are
n offering 1,000 more season tickets for the 2016 campaign at Avaya Stadium after selling out their original allotment of 12,000. Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Tuesday. They can be purchased at the Earthquakes’ office by calling 408-5567700.