Looking at the history of San Jose Earthquakes vs. Real Salt Lake

The San Jose Earthquakes will look to extend their stay at the MLS is Back Tournament following Monday’s elimination game against Real Salt Lake, in the Round of 16.

With perhaps the most important game between the teams to ever be played coming up, let’s take a look at the history between the teams.

Most notably, in MLS regular-season play, these teams are an even 11-11-11 all time against each other. This game won’t count in the regular-season standings, so that satisfying bit of trivia remains intact regardless of the outcome.

Last season they split the results, the Quakes winning 1-0 at home on July 6, Danny Hoesen’s stoppage-time goal the difference on the night, before RSL won Sept. 11 in Utah, Damir Kreilach’s second-half goal winning it for the other side.

They may both play in the Western Conference, but San Jose and RSL have never met in the MLS Cup Playoffs.

They do have limited experience against each other in other elimination games, however. In 2008, they met in a U.S. Open Cup qualifier (yes, in those days MLS teams sometimes had to play qualifiers before the real tournament) with RSL winning 4-0. Something similar happened in 2010, with RSL winning a shootout 5-3 to advance after a 3-3 draw.

So RSL hold a 2-0 advantage in knockout games, but the last of those came a decade ago and overall these teams are evenly matched in terms of head-to-head record otherwise. I know that the history doesn’t tend to matter in terms of individual games in the moment, but it’s worth knowing neither team holds a dominant record over the other, either. Will Matias Almeyda’s Quakes side or Freddy Juarez’s RSL team come out on top Monday in their Round of 16 clash? We’ll find out soon enough.

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