San Jose Earthquakes forward Cristian Espinoza | Stan Szeto-Imagn Images

MLS' Earthquakes struggling despite these league-leading stats

By Alyssa Clang | Last updated Apr 1, 2025 3:35 PM ET

Major Soccer League's San Jose Earthquakes are far better than last season's last-place version, but they are only 2-3-1. The reason for the Earthquakes' middling performance may be bad luck.

San Jose has put up several eye-popping statistics, but it isn't scoring enough (nine goals overall against nine against). In search of a winning combination, head coach Bruce Arena has experimented with his strikers and central defenders to no avail.

If the game were played on a spreadsheet, San Jose would be MLS' most in-form team; in reality, though, it finds itself adrift near the bottom of the Western Conference table.

Here is a deeper look:

San Jose leads the league in shots... and shots on target

No team in MLS has more scoring attempts than San Jose, which is averaging 17 shots and 6.67 shots on target per game. These are trophy-winning numbers.

When Inter Miami won the Supporters' Shield for best regular-season record last season, it averaged 12 shots per game (with 5.7 on target). When the L.A. Galaxy won the MLS Cup last season, they averaged 14.8 shots per game (with 6.2 on target).

San Jose is doing everything right to create chances, but the goals have not come in bunches yet. But when the Earthquakes score often — as they did in a 4-0 win over Real Salt Lake on opening night — they are pure magic.

Wingback Cristian Espinoza leads the league in key passes

Soccer stats company Opta defines a key pass as "the final pass from a player to their teammate who then attempts a shot on goal without scoring." In short, it's an assist without a goal, a setup without a payoff.

Teams that rack up lots of key passes tend to have productive midfields and unproductive strikers — they're doing the fundamental buildup work correctly but failing to close out a play.

Espinoza, who has played for San Jose since 2019, is the top key passer in the league by a large margin. He has 27 in 2025, an eyebrow-raising 4.5 per-game average. By contrast, Cincinnati's Lucho Acosta closed the 2024 season as MLS' key pass leader, averaging 3.2 per game.

Goalkeeper Daniel leads the league in saves and shots faced

San Jose has allowed a few regrettable goals in 2025, but don't blame keeper Daniel, who is playing remarkably well. He has faced more shots than any other goalkeeper — 39 against a league average of 28 — and leads the league in saves with 28. He has quietly become one of the top-performing goalkeepers in MLS.

It stings for San Jose to have numbers like these paired with poor results. The fundamentals are there; the final balls, on both ends of the field, simply aren't going in the team's favor.

Arena's experiments with striker and center back lineups should help, but they won't fix everything. San Jose needs a little fortune on its side, too — fortune that has eluded it since opening night.

San Jose returns to MLS play Sunday (April 6) against D.C. United.

Alyssa Clang

Alyssa is a Boston-born Californian with a passion for global sport. She can yell about misplaced soccer passes in five languages and rattle off the turns of Silverstone in her sleep. You can find her dormant Twitter account at @alyssaclang, but honestly, you’re probably better off finding her here

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