LAFC hits the road for its second away game of the season Saturday, taking on the San Jose Earthquakes in the Bay. With a 3-1-0 record and a spot on top of the Western Conference, LAFC has been flying high to start its sophomore season.
“We’re going in the right direction now and it’s very exciting what this year’s gonna have for us,” Mark-Anthony Kaye said.
San Jose has fallen quickly to the bottom ranking in the conference, going 0-3 to open the year. But with a new coach and a new direction on the pitch for San Jose, LAFC head coach Bob Bradley emphasized throughout this week that his team can’t take this game for granted.
LAFC expects the Earthquakes’ style will be completely different. On the heels of a losing season that saw the team immediately fall to the bottom spot in the Western Conference and stay there for the rest of the year, San Jose brought in Matías Almeyda, the former head coach of the Argentinian national team, to turn things around.
“They’re a hard team to play against,” Bradley said. “Almeyda has come in with a system that he’s trying to build. Obviously that means that at the beginning, it takes a little time, but they have good players and I think everybody who has played against them so far this year knows that it’s a challenging game.”
Under Almeyda, San Jose is looking to change its style and culture of play, and while the results have not been obvious by the scoresheet yet this season, the LAFC squad feels that these changes will be clear on the pitch.
“They’re a complete different team,” Kaye said. “The game will be very different. I think it will be physical. At the end of the day, we take every game the same way. It’s about us and how we can play our best football.”
Who: LAFC vs. San Jose
Where: Avaya Stadium
When: 12:30 p.m. PT
Watch: Univision
Listen: ESPN 710 AM and 980 AM ‘La Mera Mera’