SAN JOSE

The Earthquakes have played only one game in 2017. But it was exactly the game they needed to play.

This was last Saturday night in their season opener. They ran hard. They played aggressive soccer. They won on their home turf against a good Montreal team, 1-0. And for a couple of hours, they managed to make people forget last season’s 8-13-14 record.

And now?

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San Jose Earthquakes lose but get goal from young star Whatever’s next, it had better be tremendous and entertaining. In more than one language.

That’s where the Earthquakes’ new general manager, Jesse Fioranelli, needs to really step up. He showed me the other day that he may have the tools.

Fioranelli was hired in the offseason to replace John Doyle, who was dumped after the Quakes failed to reach the Major League Soccer playoffs for four straight seasons — even though more than half the teams qualify That’s unacceptable math.

When he joined the Quakes, Fioranelli’s background attracted immediate attention. His previous job was as a personnel man with AS Roma of the Italian League. Before that, he worked in Turkey. Before that, he flitted all over Europe as a player agent. While growing up, he also lived in America for a time. It’s as if the Earthquakes hired James Bond or Jason Bourne to run the team.

Fioranelli’s biography cites that he knows five languages. I decided to test him on it. When we sat down to talk, I pulled out my iPhone and asked him to explain on video, in all of his languages, why the Earthquakes would be worth watching this season. Fioranelli laughed and agreed to do it — but only in four languages, not five. He was concerned that his French, which he can read and write well enough, wasn’t in the type of speaking shape to put on video.

I accepted his terms. Frankly, most general managers I’ve met–in any sport–are lucky if they speak two languages. I’ve known a few who barely speak one. But But upon request, Fioranelli did indeed roll out his best sales pitch for the Earthquakes in English, Spanish, Italian and German. No hesitation. He talked about having the team fight for the fans and going into the season with excitement and heads held high. I was impressed.

“When you dream at night,” I asked Fioranelli, “which language do you dream in, when you dream about soccer?”

“It’s funny” he said. “I actually do math in German, writing in English and often when I’m having logical thought, I think in Italian.”

Earthquake fans should be rooting for lots of Italian thoughts over the next few seasons. As much as this team needs coach Dominic Kinnear and his players to fight for fans, it needs some logical personnel thinking after too many years of what seemed to be well-meaning but patchwork, fill-in, hey-let’s-try-this, what-the-heck moves under Doyle.

And say this much for Fioranelli: He has been here for just a few months. But he has quickly grasped the Earthquakes’ place in the Bay Area universe. This is more important than you think if he is going to have the team’s fans on his side. They like to think of themselves and their team as perennial underdogs, often losing the battle for attention with all the other Northern California teams and pro sports.

Fioranelli has a master plan to engage in that battle. It starts by ignoring the public-relations-attention-getting part. It focuses equally on what he calls the “first team” as well as on the youth soccer academy that the Earthquakes have started. He believes (rightfully) that there is talent in Northern California that is often overlooked or not served well by the current pay-to-play club youth soccer system. Fioranelli wants to get the area’s best young players into the team’s own development pipeline. But that will take time. More immediately, the “first team” must also produce more than frustration.

“I realize that San Jose people have always seen their futbol club as a club that you had to fight for,” Fioranelli said. “It’s had its difficulties for the last 20 or 30 years of it’s existence. I understand it’s a blue-collar club. But it’s a club that has sound values in terms of teamwork, heritage and dedication. For me, I see San Jose as a club that aspires to send a very strong message in MLS.”

And that message would be what? Fioranelli wants opponents to walk into Avaya Stadium knowing it will a “fortress” and a tough place to win. Avaya is entering its third season. So far, the place has not been maximized by the Earthquakes. Before last Saturday’s victory, they’d won just 14 of their 31 home MLS games there.

So. Those are the two simple principles that Fioranelli wants to stress: Create a winning atmosphere at home in particular. And cultivate young talent in the team’s own backyard. The principles make sense. Everything else good should follow. He is concentrating on revamping the roster for the smaller battle and has done so. He believes that the larger battle, the struggle for MLS and USA soccer to gain more respect worldwide, will take care of itself.

But here’s the conundrum in America: Some of the country’s most rabid soccer fans look down their noses at MLS but will show up in huge numbers when international squads such as Manchester United and Barcelona FC play exhibition games here.

Fioranelli has an interesting take on that phenomenon.

“There are global brands in football that have roots that go way beyond the existence of MLS,” he siad. “And those roots are to be respected. My job is to maybe go the opposite way and to find the roots of San Jose.”

At the same time, Fioranelli has a strong opinion about where the ceiling is for MLS. He believes that improved rosters and technical staffs, “there is an opportunity for the MLS to be a very respected league within the next three to five years, to the extent that it competes with a Dutch League, for instance, on the importance level.”

The Dutch League, for the record, usually falls somewhere between No. 12 and No. 15 in the European club league rankings. That isn’t going to thrill many general American fans, who in their other domestic sports leagues are used to seeing the world’s best players. But at least Fioranelli is not raising unreasonable expectations.

“I think that you don’t have to convince people to like something, personally,” he said. “I lived four years in Baltimore. My mother is American. I respect the culture of baseball. And the importance of American football. But global futbol — soccer — has very important roots in society across the world and I think that is to be respected, as well . . . . Yes, it is a challenge that soccer is taking up here. On the other hand, it is very promising the way that futbol is evolving in the United States . . . I don’t think there is any shame in saying that we are working to create a fantastic league here. It’s still going to take some work. But we are definitely in the process.”

The next process marker will be a Saturday game at Avaya against Vancouver. It will be another chance for the Earthquakes to show that as always, “winning” is the most important word in any language.