SAN JOSE, Calif. – After increasing their unbeaten run at Avaya Stadium to six matches in Friday’s 1-1 draw against FC Dallas, the San Jose Earthquakes seem to have solved the better part of the equation for toughness and resilience at home.
Now, with a three-game road trip looming, the Quakes get another opportunity to make that success travel.
San Jose will face New England1698560441" tabindex="0">on Wednesday (7:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE) before heading to Houston for a Saturday match at BBVA Compass Stadium (4 pm ET; UniMás, Facebook.com in the US; MLS LIVE in Canada). The Quakes will then return home to San Jose for training before making a first-ever trip to Minnesota United FC on April 29.
Meanwhile, a cloud of dreary road stats will follow them, including this damning mark: In their last 21 regular season away matches, the Quakes have just one victory – a 2-1 triumph at Vancouver last 1698560444" tabindex="0">Aug. 12.
“We need as many points as we can get,” Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski told reporters after Friday’s draw against Dallas. “There’s no statement games or anything like that. … We’re not thinking of it as a statement game. We’re thinking of it as our commitment to each game.”
Since the start of the 2013 season, San Jose have earned just 0.70 points per match on the road, ranking 20th out of 23 MLS teams to participate over that timeframe. That includes a pair of 2-1 defeats in their first two away matches this season, to Sporting Kansas City and New York City FC.
The league average since 2013 for road points is 0.94 per game. And the four MLS Cup winners since then rank among the top eight in that category during that span: SKC (second, 1.21), Portland (fourth, 1.11), Seattle (sixth, 1.08) and LA (eighth, 1.03).
So if the Quakes want to get back into the playoffs – territory they haven’t seen since 2013 – there isn’t a better place to start then in another time zone.
“If you go through a three-game stretch, you have to make the most of them,” Wondolowski said. “These three on the road are going to be very tough places, but we feel confident every time we step out there.”
The Quakes can draw some momentum from the experience of coming off back-to-back late-game escape acts, but they know that equalizing at the death isn’t necessarily a repeatable recipe, the club’s “Goonies” history notwithstanding.
“It’s good to get that point [against Dallas], but hopefully we’re going to rectify some mistakes,” Wondolowski said. “We need to capitalize on our chances, especially early in the game. We need to have that killer instinct from the first minute, not necessarily wait until stuff happens before we really go to town.”
Perhaps an early goal on Wednesday at Gillette Stadium will unlock some of the confidence that the Quakes have in their roster.
“I think the attitude in this locker room is, we should be getting three points every game,” rookie defender Nick Lima said. “We know we can be getting three points, if we play the way we can. So going on the road, our goal is to get six points [in New England and Houston].”
