The San Jose Earthquakes secured their long-awaited spot in the MLS playoffs Saturday night, even though the game ended in a 1-1 draw against Austin FC.

The sold-out crowd at PayPal Park erupted into celebrations when it was confirmed that the Earthquakes were playoff-bound for the first time since 2020 and only the third time in the last 11 seasons, as the Mercury News reported.

A first-half goal by the Quakes' winger Cristian Espinoza, and seven saves from goalie Brad Stuver helped earn the 1-1 draw, per the Associated Press.

First-year head coach Luchi Gonzalez reportedly transformed the team in his inaugural season reshaping it from a team that conceded the most goals in the Western Conference to one that allowed the fourth-fewest goals. According to MLS, Gonzalez is a former FC Dallas head coach and US men’s national team assistant coach.

Still, the Earthquakes finished their season with four consecutive ties and ended with just enough points (44) to come into the playoffs as the final seed, per Mercury News.

A win on Saturday would have guaranteed the Earthquakes the opportunity to host the play-in game against Kansas City’s soccer team, Sporting KC. However, now the draw means they will go on the road to face a KC team that has won seven of their last nine games.

They’ll play in a Wednesday single-elimination Wild Card game at 6:30 p.m. PT, per MLS. Then the winner will advance to a Round One Best-of-3 series against No. 1-seed St. Louis CITY SC.

With their rebuilt defense performing admirably and standout key players like Cristian Espinoza and Jackson Yueill, the Earthquakes are setting their sights on a strong postseason performance. As Coach Gonzalez told the Mercury News, "This is a league where there are always upsets in the playoffs, there are away teams beating home teams. Do we want to be one of those teams? Why not San Jose?”

Feature image of former San Jose Earthquakes player Victor Bernardez firing the siren during the game between Austin FC and San Jose Earthquakes at PayPal Park on October 21, 2023 in San Jose, California. Photo by Maciek Gudrymowicz/ISI Photos/Getty Images.

Hey there soccer fans, exciting news: Arsenal FC is coming to sunny California to play in the MLS All-Star Game. The much-loved team will challenge the best of Major League Soccer at San Jose's Avaya Stadium — home of the San Jose Earthquakes — on July 28 of this year.

“We are pleased to welcome Arsenal, one of the most successful clubs in the world, to compete against the best of MLS,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber noted in a statement. “Our AT&T MLS All-Star Week has become a celebration for the North American soccer community, highlighted by two teams showcasing many of the world’s top players."

Prior to a 2014 game in New Jersey, Arsenal FC hadn't played in the US in 25 years.

Tickets for this game will likely go quickly, and the folks at MLS have set up a lottery system to give fans the chance to purchase. However, if you're an Earthquakes season ticket holder, you're in luck: You get pre-sale dibs on tickets to the big game.

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A realtor called Chris Iverson was commenting on the "death of the newspaper industry" over at the 3 Oceans real estate blog.

You may think "who the hell is this guy" to comment on the state of ink media. We'll tell you: He's one of the guys that pays (or perhaps used to pay, based on the entry) for ads in the classified sections of newspapers. From his entry:

I ran ads in the Palo Alto Weekly and the Open Homes sections of the San Mateo County Times (local paper) and San Francisco Chronicle. And the results? Out of 52 groups over two weekends, a total of zero came because they saw an ad in a newspaper.

This built on similar recent experiences he'd had.

Anecdotal? Of course. But it's an excellent, concrete example of how online products (in this case, MLS sites) eat into newspapers' traditional revenue streams.

Let's start in Santa Clara where Matier & Ross remind us that there's been three attempts to move a team that way-- the Giants, the A's, and MLS's San Jose Earthquakes (hey, did you realize they just won the MLS for Houston? Well, they did)-- have all, at various times, tried the move only to fail miserably. That's what we call a trend in the marketing biz.

The main problem with the 49ers move is that Santa Clara isn't going to hand over the land that easily in that they don't want to make things easier by giving out all sorts of handouts for the team. They also really don't have the land that the Niners want to build housing developments. See, the team wants to develop housing and shopping and all that stuff to partly pay for the costs of building the stadium, but there's no place for them to do it. The area by Great America where the stadium would go has no room and Yahoo! just swiped the only really open space. That's what happens when you pull a move to Santa Clara basically out of your ass. Says their press flak:

Hey, do you remember way back to two weeks ago when the latest member of the -ist family came on board and SFist Eve said we couldn't think of a reason to hate on them yet? Well, now we have one -- the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team has announced that they're decamping to Houston.

MLS was reportedly unhappy with the persistent low attendance numbers at Spartan Stadium, and after San Jose was unable to reach an agreement to build them a new stadium downtown, and despite a rally of their faithful fans, the team decided to flee. Houston will make an official announcement tomorrow at 10 a.m. central time.

We know, we know, it's our fault for tempting the Houston gods! We're sorry, Bay Area soccer fans! Funnily enough, the same week SFist Eve called down the vengeance of Houston on our fair -ist region, SFist and Truthmaker Chris also posted about strange trends in migrating team names. Perhaps taking a note from this, San Jose has at least managed to keep ownership of the "Earthquakes" name. Because .... the Houston Earthquakes? Is there a fault in Texas that no one's told us about? San Jose says they'll bring soccer back as soon as they can find a new sponsor.