San Jose’s showdown with Mexican powerhouse Chivas expected to draw record-breaking crowd

SANTA CLARA — One of Mexico’s storied football teams could play in front of over 50,000 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Saturday evening. 

And a familiar face in Cade Cowell will be leading the way for the visitors. 

Club Deportivo Guadalajara, commonly referred to as Chivas, will take on the San Jose Earthquakes in a Leagues Cup match. 

The Cup is an annual tournament between Major League Soccer teams such as San Jose and Liga MX squads from Mexico’s top league. 

Saturday’s matchup will be the first time the teams have played since Oct. 14, 2003 at San Jose State, the day Cowell was born and a night that saw current Quakes coach Ian Russell starting in midfield for San Jose.

“Packed stadium, very loud crowd, and very pro-Chivas,” Russell remembered while at Friday’s press conference. “We were definitely not the home team in that game, but we played off the crowd.”

Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami won last year’s Leagues Cup. The Earthquakes announced on Thursday that ticket sales for the match against Chivas has set a new record at 41,108, and that around 50,000 are expected to attend. 

The majority are expected to be rooting for Chivas, which reached the semifinal of Clausura 2024 before being eliminated by rival Club America. 

Through four matches in the second half of the season, the Mexico City-based giants are seventh in the 18-team table. 

“It will be a special game, and I can guess the atmosphere will be amazing,” San Jose attacker Cristian Espinoza said. “I think we are mentally prepared to face this kind of team.”

Pacing Chivas is none other than Cowell, who has scored three goals and added one assist in a quartet of games. 

The 20-year-old, a native of Ceres and product of Earthquakes academy, played in 104 matches for San Jose from 2020-24. 

Cowell then joined Chivas on a transfer in February, able to circumvent the club’s policy of only signing Mexican players by becoming a Mexican citizen through his mother. 

“We’ve been following Cade in the games that we have had the opportunity to watch,” Espinoza said. “We always miss those kinds of players, but we are here and we don’t live or think in the past. His present and future is with Chivas, which is a different club, and our focus is in San Jose now.” 

While things have gone well for Cowell and Chivas, the same cannot be said for the home team, which is far from the MLS champions San Jose was the last time the clubs faced off in 2003. 

Since firing coach Luchi Gonzalez in late June, the Quakes have shown few signs of improvement under interim coach Russell. 

San Jose has won just one of six matches and languish at the bottom of the league standings with a putrid 4-19-2 record and nine points clear of second-worst. 

On a team with little to cheer about, 29-year-old Argentine forward Espinoza has produced fine statistics despite roster instability. 

The former MLS all-star has 10 assists and three goals this season, helping grease the attack spearheaded by forwards Amahl Pellegrino and Jeremy Ebobisse, who have combined for nine goals. 

Espinoza’s compatriot Hernan Lopez has also been a solid contributor, scoring four goals and passing out two assists in 15 matches since joining the team midseason. 

The Quakes will need all of their attacking options to perform well if they are to make it out of the group stage of the Leagues Cup, which will see San Jose take on the MLS table-topping Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday. 

Russell described the brutal schedule as a “clean slate” for the team. San Jose’s MLS season is all but a lost cause, but that won’t stop its coach from believing San Jose can find success in the midseason tournament 

“The season hasn’t been going great for us, so these next two games, we want to get out of our group and advance,” Russell said. “This can help our season a lot and can put us on a good trajectory.”