Yeah... kinda like, who is that FIFA 2x POY again? Oh yeah... him. Wait, he's like, IDK, 1" shorter than Baca... I used to be a casual Earthquakes fan (I have no allegiance to just one MLS team) until I read ALL the extremely harsh comments on this board after he played less than 90 minutes total in his first 3 games. Now I am not. But I will continue to be a fan of Baca (as I followed his college career) and others that are worthy of a chance at the pro level because they have great vision and technical skill, not just because they are BIG.
Baca has a lot of fans these days. I think back around his debut he had a game at LM that didn't go so well and that's when he got a lot of criticism. I think he's been good in the center...good passing (better than Cronin and Ring), good work rate, good defense, much safer on the ball than Khari (who is prone to getting stripped of the ball and making some bad back passes when at CM). I would like to see Baca and Ring in the middle.
How can you watch Baca and not be impressed by how much he has grown during the time he's played? He's on a strong trajectory now, and even if he still makes some mistakes, I am generally impressed by his level of confidence. It would be a loss to the team if we let him go. Which is probably why Frank won't protect him.
Yep. It seems like sometimes folks forget who's a rookie, and apply veteran expectations to them. If a 1st year player is starting and doing well at all, he's likely going to be a good MLS player. And Baca is even kind of "less than" a rookie, as he wasn't eligible to play until just recently. Other promising young players like Beita, Ring, and Morrow really didn't start to look confident until their 2nd year. We shouldn't forget about Ampai either. He has looked pretty good at times also his first year. I agree with Neuwerld. Baca and Ring - I think that should be the Quakes starting central midfield going forward. I'm not too high on Cronin. Seems like a great guy - good teammate, level-headed, good attitude, but just seems to be very average at everything - not much bite on defense and not very effective going forward - just tends to make the safe pass.
Baca over the last month is our MVP among the field players. Busch will rightly be the MVP over the season. But Baca has been great, rookie or not, both statistically and just to watch.
He is a bit small, but I think he has enough quickness to cope. For example, he's faster and quicker off the mark than Khari, and he's learning how not to get bumped off the ball so easily. As he gets older, he should bulk up a little bit. I was not initially a fan of Baca, but I'm coming around. I think that this might be a good combination. Ring covers a lot of ground, so he and Baca might make for a good team. With Convey on the left and Gjoey or Peterson on the right, we might have a half way decent midfield. Then keep Cronin and Ampai for backups, and or challengers to start and we might have something. Baca has grown a lot, but he also had a lot of room to improve. I still think that Ampai might be the better player, but he's in Frank's doghouse. The one good thing to come of our bad run and injured players is that Baca got a good chance when it suited his style. So he looks good in the possession oriented game. (He looked awful against the DynamoeHumms, but then so did the whole team.) I fully expect that Frank and JD (if they are still making the calls) will expose either or both of Ampai and Baca. We'll lose one or the other, and he will come back to San José and kill us. Yeah, that's my prediction right there. We could lose either or both of them and get ripped on their return. GOOOOO QUAAAAAAKES!!!!!!! Fire Frank and JD!! - Mark
I've only seen Ampai play a few games, but from what I know about him his positives probably don't mesh with Yallop's style. I think Baca is pretty good. He is energetic and relatively skillful.
And if the Earthquake fans knew anything about him, they would have known that he did not play LM at LMU, he played mostly in the middle (and not as forward either) ... so I knew he was trying to adjust to being in an uncomfortable position (LM's and RM's are the hardest positions to play, I think, as far as positioning ... when to cover, when to defend). He needed time to get into a rhythm and figure things out. Fortunately, it worked out a bit in his favor getting moved to the middle and he's starting to get comfortable. Anyways, I wish him well, mostly because I want all good technical college players to do well at the next level as opposed to the big brutes who can't even trap a ball properly (cringe).
Still not impressed with the guy. Right when you think he's doing a good job he loses concentration and turns it over.
Rafael Baca is only a rookie. He is transitioning from being a college amateur player to a professional. Even though he has been training with the club since January, he really only has 7 pro games under his belt. IMHO , he has shown flashes of brilliance but to assume a college player can step into a situation that the Quakes have been in all year and set the world on fire all by himself, is simply ludicrous. I mean I don't know many college players who come in right away and become protagonists. At least I haven't really seen it in the MLS in years. It took Clnt Dempsey a few years to get acclimated and the same goes for many others. Baca can still grow and I for one do no see any reason on how or why he will not improve. He looks to me to have been a lot more consistent than other veteran players I.E., Bobby Convey who is a seasoned pro, who played in England and who should be starting and is not. When you compare the two, I think Baca wins out.
True, I don't know why people tend to forget that Baca is a rookie. Yes, he's Mexican, but he is a U.S. collegiate player. He was not signed as an experienced international player or anything like that.
Exactly. He has no international or professional experience and just turned 22. In many countries he would be a refined player but in the US, he is an experienced U.S. collegiate player and is still younger than many NCAA current players.
Not saying anything against the guy but I never knew who he was until yesterday so its not like he is a household name. Still, by looking up his stats though, he has played in every one of KC's 32 games logging 2057 minutes while Baca has played in only 12 games and started 8. I also saw that CJ was the 10th pick in the 1st round of the college draft so he has had people behind him while no one knew Baca in June and I think he went undrafted. He didn't even start playing until July 9th while CJ started at the beginning of the of the season on March 19th. That says quite a lot and it makes a huge difference when you are a rookie. Give Baca a full season with better players and he may very well surprise many people, and I hope he does for the Quakes sake.
CJ was actually a fairly unknown player going into the draft. He went to a small school where he was the best player and never got the chance to appear on a big stage. Scouts didn't know about his surprisingly good touch and dribbling coupled with great strength and work ethic. Was not expected to go in the first round and was routinely called a reach (a lot of us in KC did too) and even some people, including Ives, thought he was going to be a bust from the get go (except for Taylor Twellman who raved about him after seeing him at the combine). He didn't have anyone behind him besides the coaches and his teammates (and Taylor). He's had to prove everyone wrong himself. CJ himself didn't think he was going to go so high. He hasn't scored a ton of goals, but he's helped create a ton, leading the front line, holding off players, and just maneuvering around guys. When it comes to a rookie, they all develop at different paces. Some guys don't blossom until they're, say 24, like Graham Zusi. Chance Myers was a number 1 overall pick in 2008 and it took him until this year to come into his own. I think people are mightily unfair to rookies and I agree that you can't always expect a guy to tear it up his first year playing pro level. Some guys adapt faster to others and some guys need more time to mature both as a player and a person. People have been unfair to Teal, for example. He had a phenomenal off season and everyone treated him like he was already a superstar when in reality, he was still (and still is) developing. Basically, from a different persecutive, I'm with the above poster. He's a young player and just needs a little time to realize his potential. Granted, not every player reaches it, but every player should be given the chance to do it and having the weight of the world (or an entire nation *cough* Adu) makes it so much harder. Thats the mistake we in KC and nat team fans made with Teal this year. We didn't repeat it with CJ. Give him more chances with a full season and he could very well be the next Zusi. Someone who had his fans and detractors that when finally given regularly playing time, showed his real talent. You never know.
I'm not against Baca or anything; I just don't view him as a top 16 players on any MLS roster. I'd be happy to see him come off the bench from time to time, play in USOC matches. But I don't ever see him being a difference-maker in MLS play. I respect what folks are saying - he's a rookie, etc. I am not seeing that much of an upside.
I think Baca works better in the middle than on the side. He covers a lot of ground and he likes to move around. Is he a MLS starter every game? No. Does he have things to learn? Certainly, probably a lot too. I do see the potential and wish he has more time to develop. He is not the kind of speedster rookie the other team gets whom you can put in the game and see the raw physical talent right away. His advantage is his skill and quick feet which takes some mental maturity to utilize. Hope he is still with the team and whoever the coach is, helps him develop.
Went Christmas shopping with my Mom today who is an LMU alumnus and she told me about a big article in the latest LMU magazine about the Earthquakes. They have a really cool article and video on Rafael Baca and Bobby Burling: http://magazine.lmu.edu/media/video/mens-soccer-and-its-path-success-and-pros http://magazine.lmu.edu/archive/2011/path-paved
That's pretty cool , even though Bobby Burling is no longer with the Earthquakes. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
"Baca taking advantage of starting opportunity" (SJEarthquakes.com - Thursday, 3/15/12) (John Todd / ISIPhotos.net) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
“Everyone liked him, I would think,” Yallop said. “We liked him. We played against him two years ago and he was great. But it was like, ‘OK, he’s a foreign player with visa issues to get through. Is it worth our time and efforts?’ Because we didn’t have him until what, June of last year? That’s a long time. I could have been out of a job by then. You tend to move on.” So Frank is saying that he put his job on the line (kind of) for Baca? Frank and Doyle do deserve credit for being patient with Baca's situation, and also for not shying away from him due to his slight build.