Earthquakes' big week shows just how far they've come in MLS

May is always a difficult, congested month in Major League Soccer. The week of May 12 served up the first doubleheader of the 2025 season, and few faced a harder one-two punch than San Jose: it kicked things off on Wednesday, May 14, against Inter Miami, then turned around, flew across the country and faced off against the New England Revolution three days later on Saturday, May 17.

The difficulty of facing Miami is obvious, but New England presented a quieter and far more emotional challenge for San Jose. Coach Bruce Arena has history there: he won a Supporters’ Shield (and set an all-time MLS points record) with New England in 2021, but left the club in unsettling fashion in 2023 after allegations that he made "insensitive remarks" to a club employee.

"I made a couple of mistakes there. I accept the responsibility, and I’m going to move forward," Arena said. "I’m disappointed in the way it ended. But I’ve learned from that."

Details of Arena’s alleged infringement never emerged, and the club’s staff and players remain loyal to him to this day. Assistant coaches Shalrie Joseph, Steve Ralston and Dave Sarachan followed him from New England to San Jose, and the quartet recruited seven former New England players to join them in California. 

Many of those players have proved crucial in Arena’s San Jose turnaround, and quite a few turned up in a big way against Miami to kick off the doubleheader. Defender Dave Romney was tasked with keeping Lionel Messi quiet and proved he was up for the job; midfielder Ian Harkes scored an improbable goal.

But with the exhausting Miami game not far in the rearview mirror, Arena knew he couldn’t throw those players into an emotional New England return. He rested nearly his entire starting lineup for Game 2 and put his faith in a handful of developing prospects. It wasn’t a vintage performance from San Jose, but it was a decisive one: the team held full-strength New England, captained by former MLS MVP Carles Gil, to a 0-0 draw.

Two games, two solid opponents in Miami and New England, two hard-fought draws. The San Jose of 2024 would’ve floundered through these matches, but this season it cruised through without a hitch. 

"Our team got to play against two pretty good number tens in Messi and Gil," Arena chuckled after the match, "so it was a nice challenging week for our team."

It’s hard to overstate just how poor San Jose was in 2024 and just how much it would’ve struggled with a charged week of fixtures like this one. But there it was, going toe to toe with some of MLS’s best and proving itself equal. You can see the confidence growing in San Jose’s players every time they step on the field.

You can see it in the fans, too. When they drowned out Messi’s supporters in that Miami game, they weren’t just taking back control of their stadium. They were taking back control of San Jose’s (and Arena’s) narrative after seasons of indignity. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but this stellar week of work proves that San Jose is building something special.

San Jose will return to MLS action on Saturday, May 24, against the Houston Dynamo.