The San Jose Earthquakes and youth seemed to rarely ever be in the same sentence. Dave Kaval, John Doyle, Mark Watson, and Frank Yallop seemed to always have squads filled with veteran players. Not that a squad loaded with veterans is a bad idea, but a squad chalked full of players on the downward trend of their career trajectories isn’t the greatest idea for long term success. Rafael Baca was probably the most promising youngster in the team through 2011-2013. After that, he was sold to Cruz Azul and replaced with the aging Khari Stephenson and J.B. Pierazzi. The squad didn’t get any younger, nor did it build on the success of the 2012 Supporters Shield Winning Campaign. While the Earthquakes’ seemed to hit rock bottom in 2014, the last two seasons have signaled a shift in the mentality of the organization.
Earthquakes Youth Movement Moving Ahead
In 2014, the Earthquakes signed Tommy Thompson as the club’s first ever homegrown player. While under the watch of Mark Watson, Tommy Thompson failed to gain regular, significant playing time. Mark Watson was rightly fired after the dismal 2014 campaign and Dominic Kinnear, the man who doesn’t have the greatest track record with youth, was brought in. A leopard can’t change his spots, which basically means we can confirm that Kinnear is in fact NOT a leopard. He changed his spots pretty quickly. With Chris Lietch being brought in as the technical director of the club, the Earthquakes began to shift their focus to building up youth and creating a young core to carry forward the franchise. They drafted Fatai Alashe with their first round pick, and he made an immediate impact in the center of the field. Two signings don’t really signal a shift in mentality though do they? Enter Marc Pelosi.
Marc Pelosi was signed by Liverpool at age 18. He spent four years playing with the under-21 squad at the club. After a compound fracture in his right leg, Pelosi missed more than a year of soccer with Liverpool. Just as he began to make appearances again, they chose not to re-sign him. He signed with the Earthquakes a month after being released from Liverpool and went on to make a major impact through the end of the 2015 season. Pelosi, only 21 years old, joins the young spine of this team, with Fatai Alashe (22), Tommy Thompson (20), and Matheus Silva (19). The 2016 Super Draft landed a left back, Kip Colvey (22), and goalkeeper, Andrew Tarbell (22). Not only have the Earthquakes been slowly building the youth movement in the senior squad, they have made major strides at the academy level as well.
Earthquakes’ Academy Success
Local Success
The Earthquakes’ Youth Academy never really existed prior to the last five or six years, and if it did, it wasn’t a major player in the Northern California youth soccer scene . For the most part, the best players around Northern California played for De Anza or Santa Clara Sporting. Slowly, though, their academies have broken through the ranks of NorCal Youth Soccer. The Earthquakes’ boys team won the Northern California State Cup at the U-13 level in 2016 and made the finals in multiple other age groups. Levels of success that the club academy has begun to achieve had not been foreseen when the Earthquakes created their youth academies.
A Bigger Stage
The Earthquakes’ youth academies have now taken part in the Dallas Cup and the Generation Adidas Cup this season, marking their foray into the scene as a top notch academy. In only a few years of having club academy teams, they have made many major strides in developing their youth, and getting them experience at the highest levels.
National Team Duty
San Jose Earthquakes Academy players, past and present, have made appearances at the U-17 (Jean-Julien Foe Nuphaus), U-18 (Arda Bulut, Andrew Paoli), and U-20 (J.T. Marcinkowski, Amir Bashti). Burlingame Dragons, a U-23 USL-PDL affiliate of the Earthquakes has also pulled in Bashti and Marcinkowski to play for them in the 2016 season.
The Dragons are going to look to defend their 2015 USL-PDL title and have assembled an incredible squad. They not only brought in a few US Youth Internationals but members of the Panama U-20 team and the Denmark U-20 team as well. Most of the Dragons’ squad plays in college around the Bay Area or have major Bay Area connections. Speaking of college, the Quake’s academy has two standout players playing in college that could be up for Homegrown deals in the next offseason.
Quakes in College
Bashti and Marcinkowski are former Earthquakes academy players who are tearing it up at the college level. Bashti, as a true freshman, came off the bench in 20 of his 21 appearances. He had four goals and two assists , including two game winners in Stanford’s National Championship run in 2015. Marcinkowski was the starting goalkeeper for Georgetown University as a true freshman in 2015, and posted an incredible 0.69 GA average over his 21 games. He kept nine clean sheets and made 63 saves, enough to earn him All Big East First Team, and Big East Freshman of the Year honors. Josh Morton is another former Quakes’ academy player who had a stellar year at UC Berkley (Cal). With plenty of success and a few future HG players, the Earthquakes have begun a youth movement with little to no infrastructure so far. Recently the Earthquakes have hatched a big plan to further grow their academy and take it to new heights.
Building For The Future
Part of the Earthquakes’ plan to build for the future was their soccer specific stadium. It was meant to be a place for the fans to fall in love with the game of soccer and, ultimately, their local team. The passion and support have been there for years, but the team hasn’t. The Earthquakes finally repaid the fans for their faithfulness by giving them a permanent home. Avaya stadium has become a fortress for San Jose, especially in 2016, where the Earthquakes have only dropped two points thus far. Another key component to making the Earthquake’s a permanent stay in the south bay is creating a presence amongst the thousands of local youth soccer players. Originally proposed in the Earthquake’s stadium plans, was $10 million dollars in public funding to create four youth fields on the Coleman Avenue complex that is now home to Avaya Stadium. Four months ago, the San Jose City Council scrapped those plans in pursuit of a different project.
Guadalupe River Parkway Complex
Surrounding that decision by the San Jose City Council, a proposal made by the San Jose Earthquakes and Hunter Properties, according to The Mercury News.
The City of San Jose would use $12 million to put toward a four-field complex at Guadalupe Gardens. In addition to the public funds, the San Jose Earthquakes would contribute an estimated $27 million dollars to fund three extra fields and an indoor training facility, specifically for their academy. The fields would be lighted and a decent amount of seating will be put in surrounding one of the fields. This announcement came as a major shock to many considering the same ownership group is having trouble putting out money for their Oakland A’s. There was one major obstacle, though, the plans for this complex were directly in the approach and take-off path of San Jose International Airport. Any development at the Guadalupe Gardens site would have to include approval from the FAA.
After gaining the approval of the FAA for the sight, the San Jose City Manager, Norberto Duñas, announced in a statement on April 22nd that The City of San Jose had elected to not award the soccer fields to the contractor who intended to build behind Avaya Stadium. In turn, they chose to move forward with the complex at Guadalupe River Parkway and take a serious look into the Quakes development alongside them. The Earthquakes announced a couple days later, through President Dave Kaval’s twitter account, they were still moving forward with the plan.
San Jose: City drops Coleman Avenue soccer park, moves forward with bigger complex https://t.co/qsnQ0oGV3T
— Dave Kaval (@QuakesPrez) April 25, 2016
Not only does the senior team have a permanent presence in San Jose, they’ve begun to facilitate their own youth movement. The Earthquake’s new commitment to youth will create an aftershock that will be felt in the Bay Area soccer community for years to come.
Main Photo: Thearon W. Henderson, Getty Images
