MLS: Quakes fire GM John Doyle, San Jose original
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Aug 30, 2016
Technical director Chris Leitch was named interim general manager.
Doyle parlayed a career at the University of San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks into a spot on the 1990 World Cup and was a San Jose MLS original.
Doyle, who grew up with Quakes head coach Dominic Kinnear in the Bay Area, played six seasons for the Clash and was an assistant coach to Kinnear before the club moved to Houston in 2006.
In only two of the new Quakes' seven seasons have they reached the MLS playoffs. Their best season was in 2012 when they were Supporters' Shield winners but lost to the LA Galaxy in the conference semifinals.
In Kinnear's second season since his return from Houston, the Quakes started out with a 5-3-2 record after 10 games but have won just two of 15 games since then and sit in seventh place with nine games to play.
They have the worst offense in MLS -- 26 goals in 25 games -- and the mid-season acquisitions of Darwin Ceren and Henok Goitom haven't helped.
San Jose's record of signing Designated Players without any previous MLS experience has not been great.
Its highest-paid player -- according MLS Players' Union figures -- is Swiss forward Innocent at $1.3 million, but he played only five games before being injured in 2015 and has played just 115 minutes in six appearances in 2016.
Argentine Matias Garcia Perez had just three goals and nine assists in three seasons before being traded to Orlando City from Ceren this summer.
Brazilian Geovanni, the Quakes' first DP, played 12 games on loan in 2010 and did not return the next season.
Doyle worked for many years in Bay Area youth soccer with Mustang Soccer.
"I would like to express my sincere thanks to John for his nine years of service with the team as general manager," Earthquakes president Dave Kaval said in a statement. "He was an outstanding leader who helped relaunch the Earthquakes in 2007. We will be forever grateful for his contributions to the San Jose Earthquakes."
Kaval said the Quakes need "a fresh approach to our soccer operations. We believe that we have the players and coaching staff that can make a run at the playoffs and we are fully behind their efforts."
Innocent was a disaster, and Goitom doesn't look to be much better. Ameriqua is disruptive, but that's about all. The Quakes also need defenders. Bernardez and Wynn won't last forever, nor will Stewart; and neither Cato nor Francis measure up to what they need. The long and short of it is that player acquisition has been the Quakes's short suit. If that was Doyle's job, I am not surprised that, as nice a guy as he is, he needed to be replaced.