I like your optimism. I really do. It's a little ray of sunshine in my otherwise bleak soccerfandom. Points at the beginning of the season count just as much as points at the end. We need to finish with 1.5 ppg or better. There comes a point where you're too far in the hole to get out. If I thought we had played well enough to win one or more of these games, I wouldn't be so stressed, but we've looked like crap every match so far. Same old issues, slow start*, bad let downs defensively, not enough possession, guys not making runs, too much dependence on Wondo, too much boot ball, not enough presence in central mid. You know the list. (*By slow start, I mean that we usually suck in the first half of each game, and can't find third or fourth gear until the second half.) So I'm worried, and as I pointed out above, our schedule gets tougher as the year wears on. Also, you're thinking that we'll get the central mid sorted out. I think we won't. Not until we bench either Sam or JBP or both. You should also be worried that we've played four guys at right back, and JJ was the best of them. We need for Gorlitz to get healthy in a hurry. And then! we'll have four starting defenders over 30! yeah!! That should worry the hell out of you. And another thing that concerns me . . . Is your keyboard missing the apostrophe key? Just wondering. go quakes!!! Fire JD and MW!! - Mark
Okay, my point is not getting across. There is no "must" anything game at this point in the season. We need to play better, and soon, but failing to do so is not a drop dead moment. Its not a cliff. Yes, the longer this takes the steeper it gets, but the Colorado game isnt the end of the world regardless of what happens. I hate apostrophes. No seriously, I know how and when to use them, but things like punctuation, grammar and proof reading are too much effort for me to spend on a message board. I try to get reasonably close to proper English, but at the end of the day, I don't put much work into it. As for our central midfield play, I guess the reason I'm not too worried is because I think we need to get it from "atrocious" to "passable". So regression to league average is always much easier, and with Khari, Cronin, JJ and JBP we should be able to find some combo that doesn't suck. As for age of our backline, it just doesn't worry me. Its a long term planning point more then a short term season issue as far as I'm concerned. As for my optimism, don't mistake the fact that I may be one of the least pessimistic people here with optimism. ;p It is really easy to get caught up in the moment when following sports, and lose site of the big picture. Good teams have bad stretches, bad teams have good stretches, but what makes a good or bad team isn't what happens at any one moment, its how they do over time. And 4 games just isn't long enough to show that one way or the other. I'm frustrated by the start of our season too, I am just trying to look at the big picture here.
Early in last year's season, the team looked pretty good, but wasn't getting maximum points, had lots of injuries and was following up a great season. This year, the team looks poor, is relatively healthy, and lost key players, replacing them with older, inferior or misplaced replacements. Plus, we're looking at missing three key players for at least four, probably five matches (or more, if the US or Honduras advance from group WC play). The time to start winning is now. I thought SJ needed 4 points minimum from NE and Columbus. They got 1. Of course, it's early and a long season, but I don't see a miraculous second half following a coaching change, propelling this team to playoff contention like last year. Watson better figure out the best formation and lineup quickly. I notice that Djalo is on the questionable list for this week. He might want to start Shuler or Harris with Wondo and save Gordon for Goonie time because Gordon looks like he's got one foot in the glue factory. At some point soon, Watson must jettison the Cronin/Pierazzi pairing if it doesn't start working, even if doing so exposes Doyle for his mismanagement.
I specifically stated that Colorado on the road is NOT a must win. It is a "must-play-better" (i.e., I was agreeing with you). As for the 3 home games we have coming up, if we don't win at least one of those and probably two, the hole will start getting too deep to climb out of. Yes there will still be 25 games left after that but only 11 home games, and we'd need to pretty much WIN all of those. We won 11 games at home last year and still missed the playoffs. So we may need to win 12 at home this year to secure a playoff spot, or we need to magically become a very good road team. If we win just 1 out of the next 3 home games, our season is probably done. If we lose all three, our season is definitely done. Therefore we have some "must wins" coming up real soon. The "league average" has been rising ... our central midfield simply cannot compete. Best two central midfielders per team in Western Conference ... and most of these teams play with 3 CMs: RSL: Beckerman/Morales (2) Seattle: Dempsey/Alonso (2/3) Dallas: Diaz/Thomas (3) Portland: Johnson/Chara (3) Vancouver: Morales/Laba (3) LA: Juninho/Sarvas (2) Colorado: Powers/Jose Mari (3) SJ: Cronin/Pierazzi (2) Chivas: Pelletieri/Alvarez (3) Our guys are nowhere near average, I don't know if they're better than Chivas but even if so that is still a big step down from the next 7. And we field only 2 CMs whereas most teams play with 3. Therefore we need to get used to being dominated in the midfield unless our braintrust grows a brain and gets us at least an average midfield and/or tactics that can compete. The "short term season issue" with our backline being old (and fragile) is that they will miss lots of games due to injuries. Our "star" RB from Bayern hasn't even played yet. Goodson, Stewart and Barklage have already ALL missed games due to injury. It's only a matter of time before Bernardez joins them. Is 6+ seasons long enough? Based on those 6+ seasons in which we haven't really done anything different while the rest of the league has moved forward in various ways, would you say this is a good, average or bad team? I could make an argument for average as a realist but it would take the blindest of optimists to call this team good.
No, the Crapids match is not a "must win" per se. Still, we need to start racking up W's, because if we don't our season will be in the toilet before we play the filth at Stanferd. We are in the "comparatively easy" stretch of our schedule right now. If we don't capitalize on that, we're screwed. I figured. It's the tech writer and former English teacher in me that twitches when I see stuff like that. (And I make mistakes typing quickly and twitch when I see them after my edit window has closed.) In theory, I agree with this view. In practice, I do not. Wat(TF), and Yallop before him, suffer from a failure of vision. When they try something and it doesn't work, their solution is usually to try that same thing harder. It does not occur to them that serious change is necessary. Our "flatulent" 4-4-2 is getting played off the field. Cronin does not appear to be 100% (or even 80%). We should bench him in favor of Khari, and play a diamond midfield. But Wat(TF) is incapable of making that switch. He thinks that Sam and JBP will eventually learn to work better together, and he won't give up on it unless one of them is so injured that he can't play. I cannot imagine Wat(TF) deciding to go to a 4-5-1 while Wondo is away, but it might be a big help. We could try Schuler at a-mid. I think he could work there. Or we could go to a diamond with Khari as the attacker. (That's pretty conservative, which is why I keep coming back to it.) We have the pieces to fix this mess, but we don't have the necessary leadership to fix this mess. And do you think that Wat(TF) could bench JBP? I think he'd get a lengthy paid vacation if he did. As Blurry said, these guys are more prone to injury and take longer to recover. It's a serious problem for us right this minute, down the road it looks like catastrophe. At some point, we will need to replace at least two or three of our starting defenders all at once. We have very few young defenders in the stable. There's Joe Sophia, who is good, and Muller, if he can ever get healthy, and then . . . um, yeah. Oh ye least pessimistic one, while we may not yet be over the cliff, the hill we are treading is getting steeper and steeper by the game. If we don't have some wins in the bag by May 17th, that could be a morale and discipline crushing defeat. So yeah, I'm panicking right now. And I'm going wine tasting the whole weekend of May 17th, so I won't know the outcome of that match until much later. Also, I won't be tempted to leap from the upper deck of CenturyStink Stadium. go quakes!! Fire JD and MW right now!! - Mark
Something to consider, if current scores hold up, our opponents this season to date are a combined 13-6-12.
Maybe. We don't know if he has the right skills, or if he has enough connections both nationally and internationally to be able to get good players. Of course, it's vanishingly unlikely that he could be as bad as JD, but we don't really know if TheJoe has what it takes to be our GM. Just a fantasy really. What we do know is that Wat(TF) played a guy who he almost certainly knew didn't have 20 minutes in him, and he left a guy on the pitch at least ten or twelve minutes too long, and our coaching staff have turned a gentle player into a thug. Great! go quakes!! Fire JD and MW!! - Mark
JD earns $450k a year, no reason why he would quit. Unless Lew fires him, he is in for a long, long time.
Too much, whatever it is. You could grab the average poster on these forums an throw them out their pro bono and they'd probably do a better job.
Depends. Spam Classic or Spam Hot & Spicy? I find the Hot & Spicy particularly crafty with roster building.
Chris Dangerfield would make a good coach but at 58 years of age, I don't think he would want to leave his job as a high tech recruiter for the uncertainty of a head coaching position with the Quakes. I also don't think Doyle would hire him. Johnny Moore might but not JD....
He has played alongside George Best and Johan Cruyff at the highest level , at least as far as American soccer is concerned. He knows the game inside and out and currently is a coach with the DeAnza Force youth academy, one of the best in the country. A lot better in my opinion than JD's Mustangs and he has experience coaching the San Jose Oaks to the US Open Cup Final I believe and even in the Concacaf CL against Mexican teams. I'm more than sure he would be prepared , more so than Mark Watson. I remember speaking to him and I think he implied Peter Bridgwater approaching him to replace either Laurie Calloway or Brian Quinn (I forget who) and he said he didn't want to quit his job as a high tech recruiter (head hunter) for the uncertainty of a head coaching job. He said he wanted guarantees , something that for SJ Oaks player wanted also. I don't blame either of them in retrospect.
If we're gonna get a new GM and/or coach, I would prefer that we start fresh; someone with absolutely no connection to the Earthquakes. Our entire third iteration, this team has been going forward on the winds of the past -- Doyle, Frank, Watson. I'd like to see a clean sweep rather than someone with deep roots in San Jose...