The Earthquakes’ road to hell begins Friday night at Real Salt Lake with time-honored traditions suggesting failure is imminent.

San Jose’s most treacherous week of the season continues Tuesday at Houston and concludes May 8 in Colorado. The Quakes might find themselves way down the Western Conference standings by the time the next home game comes around May 16.

The prospects of three away games in eight days caused coach Dominic Kinnear to shudder. “Just off the top of my head, I don’t think that has happened,” said Kinnear, in his 12th season coaching in MLS.

The Quakes (3-4-0) might need a minor miracle to avoid becoming road kill. San Jose’s two worst performances this season were losses at New England and at New York, underscoring why Major League Soccer is the most difficult American professional sports enterprise to succeed away from home.

In the 2011 book, “Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games Are Won,” authors Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim found MLS home teams won 69.1 percent of the time between 2002 and 2009.

Yet, definitive answers to explain the results are in short supply.

“We all ask ourselves the same question,” Quakes defender Ty Harden said. “All the things we come up with obviously haven’t worked.”

The Earthquakes’ home and road records almost are direct opposites: 133-71-64 in the Bay Area, 78-140-52 away.

But only seven MLS teams have better road records than San Jose, excluding this year’s two expansion teams.

Now in its seventh season, Seattle Sounders FC is the only club with a winning away record: 38-35-28.

In a 2008 paper in the Open Sports Sciences Journal, Richard W. Pollard listed crowd effects, travel effects, familiarity, referee bias, territoriality, specific tactics, rule factors and psychological factors as reasons most often cited for home mastery.

Players and coaches have accepted these theories as gospel.

“Things are not going to come as easy,” San Jose defender Clarence Goodson said of road games. “You’re not going to be able to get on top of teams because the crowd isn’t behind you.”

Added fullback Jordan Stewart, a veteran of 15 years in English pro leagues: “Decisions don’t go your way and the crowd starts getting on the players giving” the home team “more of a boost.”

A handful of Quakes blamed travel as the chief culprit, but their coach dismissed cross-country flights as a legitimate concern. Pollard, a retired professor of statistics at Cal Poly, would appreciate Kinnear’s response.

Pollard concludes that road struggles are soccer’s self-fulling prophecy. After studying the phenomenon for three decades, he found the effects of home crowds and travel are difficult to quantify. For example, when MLS launched in 1996, few players had strong ties to the cities and fans where they played. Yet, the new league had a higher percentage of home success than tradition-rich European clubs. A similar scenario occurred in Australia.

“You’ve got home advantage as if it is a law of nature,” Pollard said.

Academics interested in this alchemy seem to agree that referee bias for the home team is real. They cite partisan crowds as a major contributor to subconsciously influencing referee decision making.

Altitude also can have a decided impact, but perhaps not in MLS. Still, Earthquakes assistant Steve Ralston used to dread playing in Colorado during a stellar 14-year career.

“It was in the back of the mind whether it was part of it or not,” he said. “You’re getting tired and you’re thinking it’s the altitude.”

Pollard’s research found that Bolivia and Ecuador enjoy a strong advantage because their national stadiums sit at 11,932 feet and 9,127 feet, respectively.

Altitude, however, has not elevated the Colorado Rapids to superior heights. Through 2014, they won .623 percent of their games at mile-high Commerce City — the same home percentage as the flatland Columbus Crew. Real Salt Lake has fared better at 4,500-foot Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah, winning .666 percent of its home games.

Although the Quakes play at MLS’ two highest-altitude stadiums during this trip, the Houston stop could be the toughest. The Dynamo is 30-10-16 since opening BBVA Compass Stadium in 2012.

Fact is, traditional powers Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle have won more no matter where they played, suggesting talent trumps all.

Yet, soccer continues to cling to age-old beliefs whose origins can be traced to 1888 with the world’s first league out of England. From the initial kick the home team had an advantage.

“It is like soccer was born with it,” Pollard said.

Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/elliottalmond.