Great insight - thanks! That's good that he's used to playing behind two forwards, since that part of the Quakes formation seems pretty well set while Wondo is still around (since Wondo plays best as a second forward next to someone else). That would be very exciting if the Quakes could get him.
http://diez.hn/Inicio/Ediciones/2012/12/27/Noticias/Muma-Di-una-lista-de-ocho-jugadores#.UNyh88UQZ2A El Muma said he gave the San Jose Earthquakes a list of 8 Honduran players. Two of the names listed are.. Alex Lopez y Johnny Leveron, but he still doesn't reveal the names.
Lopez is supposed to be really good but then again if he was that good he would probably be in MLS already if not Argentina, Brazil or Mexico.
He was close to joining Norwegian side, Rosenborg, but they didn't offer enough money.. I don't think they had enough in the first place.. and Wigan are already monitoring his progress, just waiting for him meet requirements like amount of caps, visa, etc.
This still cracks me up. I wonder though if Wondo played a part by letting on a trade wouldnt bother him, or even outright requesting a return to San Jose, knowing he was still 3 or 4 deep on their depth chart.
Not necessarily. He's young, and the Honduran league does not get the sort of media attention that MLS gets, much less, Mexico. It could be that OUR Quakes are the first team outside Honduras to get serious about him. GO QUAKES!!! - Mark
meniscus. torn labrum of the left hip. These are the type of injuries that can be prevented!! Know what I mean?
The trick is to keep your knees "up" as you fall down on your hands & chest; this will save your meniscus. To save your hips .. Keep your hips "back" & to twist at the waist to avoid the direct hit.
Or don't play on the uneven, poorly maintained, overused fields offered up to the South Bay Adult Rec leagues. Both my meniscus tears happened without falling down, just turning with my foot placed wrong.
Interestingly, I have it from "a source" that Bruce Morgan (boo-boo man) has been fired by the Quakes. I wonder if there's a connection with the spate of post-season surgeries?
Wow. I thought they were pretty high on him. And the spate of injuries I think is more related to our guys taking a lot of hits as the season wore on with next to no protection from the refs. So, if he's been sacked, I think there is some other factor at work. Besides, we've had tons of injuries before and he didn't get fired. Speaking of injuries, it seems that Beta played most of the second half of the season with a sports hernia. Which means that we either didn't have a backup for him, or would rather play an injured Beta than Jed? We need more defenders. We should have backups for every position, and backups that we are confident enough to play. Oh, and we need to work on fitness again this coming season. That was a huge component of our great season and no doubt a big factor in our late scoring record. We just flat wore other teams out, often. GO QUAKES!!!! - Mark
It seems like we had a lot more injuries over the last few seasons then the average team. So if the team is looking to improve on that count, that move would make sense.
It's difficult to tell from the outside if the number of injuries has to do with the way the team plays or bad luck or what. I'd say that the Quakes stayed remarkably fit until the end of the season. But either way, I wouldn't expect a significant increase or decrease in injuries due to this particular change in personnel.
I agree with this. I think we picked up a lot of injuries from getting fouled and the refs not doing anything to stop it. Which just encouraged other teams to foul us more. So I don't see this having a really positive impact that way. Now, if they fired him for something else, or because of some fundamental disagreement about player treatment and fitness, then that's a completely different matter. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
The issue may be more focus on treatment than prevention. Fitness should not be the doc's responsibility, but since I've seen a lot fewer complaints here about fitness, that doesn't seem to be an issue as much as it used to be.
Beat me to it... Firing the Doc because of too many injuries is like getting rid of cops because there is too much crime.
That's a great point. If we take the Beitashour example, the guy was playing with a pretty serious injury for a significant number of games. I don't know the particulars about players being cleared to participate in matches and training, but it could be that Morgan cleared Beitashour to play when maybe he shouldn't have, or allowed Beitashour to convince him that he could play when he shouldn't have played. For a front office, injury prevention and treatment are a key component of making sure the money spent on players was wisely invested and it makes sense that if you aren't comfortable with your treatment doctor's assessments that you'd look for a guy you can be confident in. Of course, without being on the inside, it all turns into wild speculation pretty quickly.
Last off season, I exchanged e-mail with El Presidente Kaval about team fitness (among other issues). He assured me that fitness would be a focus of pre-season training, and it was. We had far fewer injuries in '12 than in '11 when we did not work hard enough on fitness. I'm going to bet that fitness is a feature of this pre-season as well. (And this exchange is one of many reason that I think Frank at least started last season on a short leash.) But I'm not sure what this has to do with Morgan? I think it must be something other than the injuries. Or perhaps as hc897 says, Bruce cleared someone to play who shouldn't have been so cleared? This might have come to light during the off-season surgeries, so that might be what drove this decision, or it might be some philosophical difference, or something complete different. GO QUAKES!!! - Mark