From day one of the preseason, the San Jose Earthquakes thought they were putting together a championship squad. Then the regular season began and they played like a team with a cloud hanging its collective head. Winning just once in their first five games, including a stoppage-time loss and a stoppage-time tie, the Quakes looked anything but a championship contender.
"In the first five games," said goalkeeper Pat Onstad, "it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong." It wasn't really a team that was playing badly, just a team that wasn't getting results. "You make your own luck," continued Onstad. "When you work hard and you're dedicated to the cause, like we are right now, a lot of good bounces go your way."
And the bounces keep on coming: seven wins, a loss and a tie in the last nine games, and a spot atop the Western Conference standings, with 11 games to play in the regular season. It's a spot in the standings that each and every one of the players expected from day one.
"We wouldn't be here if we didn't think that (we would be championship team)," said midfielder Brad Davis, one of 15 newcomers on the team's 29-man roster of players in 2005. "We have been, throughout the year, a team that is going to battle to the final whistle."
"I think we've grown as the season has gone on," said defender and captain Wade Barrett. "I think anybody that has watched us over the course of the season can see that, and that we've gotten better and better as the season has gone on."
Through 21 games, with a 10-4-7 record, the Quakes have already exceeded their 2004 win total of nine.
"I certainly don't think we've hit our peak yet," Barrett said.
Whether or not the Earthquakes have peaked is yet to be seen. What is certain is that these guys love playing on this team, and they are playing the style of soccer promoted by Dominic Kinnear and John Doyle, and before them, Frank Yallop. It is, says Mark Chung, like being at a theme park.
"It's like Disney World," said Chung, who came to the Quakes from Colorado in late May. "I enjoy the rides and I'm enjoying my time here."
And Chung says this is the kind of soccer that is fun to watch and fun to play.
"The movement off the ball is great, the passing is great. We work for each other, offensively and defensively. And that's what you get, a team that is able to penetrate other defenses."
It's a team that has soared to the top of the standings in the West, and a team that feels like it isn't even close to peaking, yet.
"It seems like every game we've gotten a little bit better at something," Barrett said. "Hopefully we'll continue that through the playoffs."
"This team has a lot of depth and creativity and it's only going to get better," said Chung, who has seen a few good teams in his 10 years in Major League Soccer. He has seen two San Jose championship teams from the other side of the fence.
Fewer than a half dozen players on this squad were here in 2001 and 2003 for the two title runs. For the most part, this is a different kind of team than those two teams, but crafted the same way: with quality players (many of them American), with depth, with chemistry, with hard work, with consistency and with confidence.
"I don't see us letting up," said Barrett.
Davis watched the team from afar for about a month, while with the U.S. national team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and the team didn't miss many beats without him.
"It was great," Davis said. "To be away, I couldn't ask for anything for the team. (All the wins) build character in the guys and build confidence within the team. As you can see we're on a roll right now and we want to continue this."
John Shrader has been the voice of the Earthquakes since 1996 and has worked in television and radio in the Bay Area for the past 20 years. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
