Marked for Aaron Johnson
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market13 Jul 2043
The bid was some way short and San Jose Earthquakes did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad13 Jul 2043
Noah Sampaio falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match11 Jul 2043
A 1‑0 win over Vancouver Whitecaps, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad13 Jul 2043
The manager makes an example of Manuel D'Amico
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad13 Jul 2043
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad13 Jul 2043
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aaron Johnson and San Jose Earthquakes agree another 3 years.
Market13 Jul 2043
The Noel Buck story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Noel Buck signs something — a contract at San Jose Earthquakes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings13 Jul 2043
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings13 Jul 2043
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Mar 2043
A fracture rules Miles Howard out for 112 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason San Jose Earthquakes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Mar 2043
The bid was some way short and San Jose Earthquakes did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad16 Mar 2043
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad16 Mar 2043
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market16 Mar 2043
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at San Jose Earthquakes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings16 Mar 2043
Marked 7.57 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, San Jose Earthquakes had the best player on the pitch.
Match14 Mar 2043
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings16 Mar 2043
Successful dribbles: 10. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom6 Oct 2042
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at San Jose Earthquakes can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom6 Oct 2042
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad6 Oct 2042
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad6 Oct 2042
Gerardo Lainez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad6 Oct 2042
Noel Buck named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Noel Buck is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad18 Aug 2042
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” San Jose Earthquakes may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad18 Aug 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match16 Aug 2042
Seattle Sounders left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad18 Aug 2042
No hiding place for Leon Hien
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leon Hien, and the manager let it.
Player ratings18 Aug 2042
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Aug 2042
Words at San Jose Earthquakes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aaron Johnson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Jul 2042
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” San Jose Earthquakes may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad28 Jul 2042
Matt Sargent gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matt Sargent has just signed for San Jose Earthquakes, and for once the answer mattered.
Market28 Jul 2042
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. San Jose Earthquakes will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad28 Jul 2042
A muscle injury sidelines Brandon Dest for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. San Jose Earthquakes will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad28 Jul 2042
Aaron Johnson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market28 Jul 2042
Matt Sargent signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Jun 2042
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings2 Jun 2042
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings2 Jun 2042
7.97, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. San Jose Earthquakes had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad2 Jun 2042
Aaron Johnson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad2 Jun 2042
Cameron Sargent named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Cameron Sargent is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad2 Jun 2042
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Mar 2042
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 87 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match29 Mar 2042
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Portland Timbers will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings31 Mar 2042
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Mar 2042
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Mar 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match29 Mar 2042
A 2‑1 win over Portland Timbers, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces31 Mar 2042
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad31 Mar 2042
35 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad31 Mar 2042
“The easiest signature of my career.” Christian Pepi and San Jose Earthquakes agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom6 Jan 2042
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at San Jose Earthquakes can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad6 Jan 2042
Paul Turner breaks a bone — 54 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom6 Jan 2042
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad6 Jan 2042
Aaron Johnson: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Jose Earthquakes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad6 Jan 2042
Words at San Jose Earthquakes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gerardo Lainez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad6 Jan 2042
The manager's exit leaves Leon Hien exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Leon Hien is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces23 Sep 2041
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom23 Sep 2041
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at San Jose Earthquakes is running low.
Squad23 Sep 2041
Connor Zardes breaks a bone — 39 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad23 Sep 2041
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings23 Sep 2041
James Weah, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market23 Sep 2041
Aaron Johnson hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Jose Earthquakes can pretend not to have heard.
Squad23 Sep 2041
Reid Roberts in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Jose Earthquakes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces23 Sep 2041
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Sep 2041
Connor Zardes breaks a bone — 46 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match14 Sep 2041
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around San Jose Earthquakes are no longer polite ones.
Squad16 Sep 2041
Words at San Jose Earthquakes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reid Roberts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom16 Sep 2041
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad16 Sep 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Jose Earthquakes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market16 Sep 2041
Eduardo Marquez is 19, and San Jose Earthquakes have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad16 Sep 2041
“The easiest signature of my career.” Eduardo Marquez and San Jose Earthquakes agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match14 Sep 2041
A 1‑1 draw with FC Dallas leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings16 Sep 2041
Nobody could get near Noel Buck
Successful dribbles: 8. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.