San Jose Earthquakes v Real Salt Lake: Arena tempers expectations, aims to ´survive´ early season

San Jose Earthquakes head coach Bruce Arena has warned fans it will take time for his influence to show as they prepare for their MLS season opener against Real Salt Lake.

The Earthquakes endured a torrid 2024 season, finishing with the worst record across MLS as they accumulated just 21 points to prop up the Western Conference.

They also had the worst defensive record in the league, conceding 78 goals throughout, but Arena, who took over in September, warned that fans would still need some patience as they look to improve on last season.

“It’s been about four weeks now we’ve been together, and it’s a new way of doing things. It’s going to take some time, it won’t all be ready for the first game,” Arena said.

“The last two or three weeks we’ve gotten better, but it’s going to take some time. Our league doesn’t start to really get in action until August every year.

“We’ve got to survive the early going and be a team that’s more competitive than we were last year to hopefully put ourselves in a good position for the second half of the season.”

Just two more days until Opening Day!

Expect sunny skies and a warm 70 degrees at @paypalpark. pic.twitter.com/OyDOMQRtts

— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) February 20, 2025

Real Salt Lake, meanwhile, finished third in the West last season, though failed to make it past the first round, losing both games to Minnesota United on penalties.

RSL’s season has already begun, with the team travelling to Costa Rica for the Concacaf Champions Cup in midweek.

Having played out a goalless draw, head coach Pablo Mastroeni was disappointed not to come away with the advantage and is hoping they can have more luck in front of goal in their MLS opener.

“Hopefully, we can sharpen up our passing, our decision-making, and put together a complete game where we score a goal but defend like we did in our last match,” Mastroeni said.

“Our responsibility is to finish off our chances. We lacked composure in front of goal, but our guys did a good job [in the Champions Cup].”

PLAYERS TO WATCH

San Jose Earthquakes – Cristian Arango

Cristian Arango, now of San Jose, set a single-season Real Salt Lake club record with 29 goal contributions in 2024 (17 goals, 12 assists).

Twenty-seven of the 29 goal contributions came in his first 19 appearances of the season as he managed just two goal contributions in his last 11 regular-season games.

Real Salt Lake – Diego Luna

Along with Arango, Andres Gomez and Anderson Julio have also left Real Salt Lake since the end of last season – they were the club’s top three scored in MLS last term.

Luna was fourth-highest with eight goals, while he sat joint-top of the assists chart, registering 12, the same as the departed Arango.

Opening our @MLS season account with a battle against the Quakes

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) February 21, 2025

MATCH PREDICTION: REAL SALT LAKE WIN

San Jose will open their season against Real Salt Lake for the fifth time (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014), with all those matches being played at home. However, the Earthquakes are yet to beat RSL in a season opener (D1 L3).

Real Salt Lake earned a club-record 59 points in the 2024 regular season, breaking the record of 57 set in 2012. RSL lost just seven matches last season, having lost fewer times in a campaign only once (4 in 2010).

Meanwhile, San Jose set MLS single-season records for outright losses (25) and goals conceded (78) during the 2024 season. The Earthquakes won just six matches last regular season, but one of those wins came against Real Salt Lake (2-0 in August).

However, San Jose are winless in their last six season-opening matches (D1 L5), tied for the second-longest active streak in MLS (Chicago Fire – 15). The Earthquakes have lost their last four season openers, the second-longest active streak in MLS (NYCFC – five straight).

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

San Jose Earthquakes – 26%

Draw – 23.5%

Real Salt Lake – 50.5%