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SAN JOSE — Almost no one saw it coming.
How could they? Chris Wondolowski wasn’t a young virtuoso on the verge of transporting American fortunes in 2005 when joining Major League Soccer.
The Danville native wasn’t particularly fast, never had Leo Messi-like wizardry nor the strength to have been an imposing target forward.
Instead, the East Bay striker inched his way up the soccer ladder one net-rattling goal at a time to become Major League Soccer’s all-time leading scorer.
He reached the pinnacle Saturday in typical Wondo fashion with the 146th goal to pass Landon Donovan in one of the most historic and underappreciated moments in Bay Area sports history.
The striker made a rare start this season under coach Matias Almeyda on a rainy day at Avaya Stadium in front of an announced crowd of 15,232 fans.
He made the most of it with a personal record of four goals in a 4-1 victory. Another historical marker: Wondolowski tied Donovan on Saturday for the league record with his 41st game-winning goal.
“There was a time in his career you could never ever imagine it is possible,” Donovan said last year. “When you look at Wondo’s career and how he has done it is remarkable. He deserves it.”
Wondolowsk scored his first two goals of 2019 to tie and then pass Donovan in a game against the Chicago Fire. The record goal came in the 48th minute when goalkeeper David Ousted accidentally dropped the ball at the goal line.
Wondolowski reacted immediately to reach the ball before Ousted. The Quakes captain punched the ball into the net and then embraced teammates next to the net.
He also scored in the 21st minute on a pass from long-time teammate Shea Salinas, who served a perfect ball from the left side of the field.
Yet Wondolowski’s name probably won’t be included in the rich tapestry of Bay Area sports highlights that include the Giants Barry Bonds becoming baseball’s all-time home run king, the Oakland Athletics winning three consecutive World Series titles in the 1970s and Santa Clara swimmer Mark Spitz’s stunning seven gold medals at the Munich Games.
The region’s fans have enjoyed “The Catch” in 1981, “The Play” in ‘82. Then there are the Super Bowl, World Series and NBA championships from the 49ers, the Giants and the Warriors.
Wondolowski, 36, has performed alchemy in relative obscurity partially because of the low-rung status of soccer in the American sports marketplace.
It hasn’t helped that he has played for a down-in-the-dumps team with three playoff appearances in 11 years. By contrast, Donovan has a record six MLS Cup titles. He won two in San Jose in 2001 and ‘03 and four more with the Los Angeles Galaxy. Donovan also was an all-star a record 14 consecutive seasons and is the all-time leading goal scorer (57) and assist leader (58) for the U.S. national team.
Wondolowski? Let’s put it this way. He doesn’t get mobbed at the local Danville grocer with daughters Emersyn and Brynlee in tow.
Just the way the member of the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma prefers it.
Yet, his goal-scoring record has to rank among the most improbable achievements locally grown After all, Wondo, as fans and teammates call him, barely was recruited for soccer in 2001. UCLA wanted him as a middle-distance runner after he graduated from De La Salle High School.
But the 6-foot Wondolowski loved team sports. More precisely, he loved soccer having grown up as an Earthquakes fan. The athlete chose Division II Cal State Chico.
“I had one option to play soccer and I took it,” he said.
The small Sacramento Valley school is where Wondo gained confidence in helping lead the Wildcats to the 2003 NCAA Division II final. Still, MLS scouts did not rush to Northern California in ’05 in search of the league’s next great goalscorer.
Wondolowski attended an East Bay combine where Quakes coaches John Doyle and Dominic Kinnear evaluated potential talent before the draft. Wondo didn’t get invited to the second day of the tryout.
But father John Wondolowski, a former Cal soccer player, encouraged his son to show up anyway. The second-day audition led San Jose coaches to take the striker as the 89th overall pick.
Many considered it a triumph that such a lowly draft choice clung to a professional career as a bit player for the first five years. Wondo scored four goals in 39 appearances while joining the former Quakes when they became the Houston Dynamo in 2006.
Kinnear loved Wondolowski’s professionalism and team-first spirit. But the Houston coach traded the forward to San Jose in midseason 2009 because Wondolowski wanted to return home.
The trade was not considered significant for San Jose, which had re-entered the league in 2008 as an expansion team. Wondolowski started his second tenure with the Earthquakes as the team’s fourth choice as a forward while he and his wife lived with an aunt in Los Gatos.
Wondo never complained. He continued to be the consummate teammate. He was ready in the spring of 2010 when the Quakes’ three top strikers suffered injuries in a U.S. Open Cup game.
Then-coach Frank Yallop had no choice but to call on Wondolowski, who delivered with 18 goals that season as San Jose advanced to the Eastern Conference final.
Wondolowski’s cunning ability to shed defenders in the penalty area led to the unexpected scoring onslaught. It caught the attention of former U.S. national coach Jurgen Klinsmann who retired as one of Germany’s greatest players in history.
Klinsmann didn’t listen to the noise dismissing Wondo as too slow, too unrefined with the ball. The coach fell in love with the mother lode of goals — 77 in the 3 1/2 years before the 2014 World Cup. Klinsmann made the unpopular decision to take Wondolowski over Donovan to Brazil.
Then came the knockout stage that sealed Wondolowski’s legacy in the most unforgiving circles of American fandom. The Quakes’ sure-footed captain missed a short-range open shot in stoppage time that would have given the United States a monumental upset victory over Belgium to advance to the quarterfinals. The shot that Wondolowski says always will haunt him sailed over the net.
Converting a half volley that wasn’t as easy as critics describe it would have etched Wondo’s name in American soccer annals for perpetuity. Shanking it has had the opposite effect.
“It’s hard to distinguish a low point but that one is always going to be talked about,” Wondolowski said. “I’ve missed many chances — I’ve missed worst chances.”
He didn’t let the weight of the World Cup miss destroy him. Wondo simply kept scoring. Fourteen goals in the 2014 MLS season. Sixteen more in ‘15. The striker enters this year with a league-record of nine consecutive seasons of scoring at least 10 goals a campaign.
Not one of those 146 goals represents a treasured moment, though. Wondolowski listed league championships in Houston, Supporter’s Shields in San Jose in 2005 and 2012 and winning the Gold Cup as a U.S. national team forward as what he will remember most.
Such sentiment was encapsulated after the 2012 season when Wondolowski tied a then-single-season record with 27 goals but the Earthquakes stumbled in the playoffs while losing to rival Los Angeles.
Wondolowski attended the title game in Carson to receive the league most valuable player award. The MVP didn’t wear a smile in the parking lot that December day. He didn’t want individual commendation.
“I’d give anything to be playing today,” Wondolowski said.
Winning, not scoring, is all that ever mattered.
