Post-match: Portland Timbers - San Jose Earthquakes (Saturday, 7/7) postgame thread [R]

I'd look like them too with a supporters group right behind me.

 

Add Ian Russell, who often chose not to play Colvey in his games with Reno. When he did play, he did not make any significant difference and even contributed to some goals against when he was in the line of defense. To his credit, some said he was being played out of position, which happens often to SJE players playing with the USL.

 

USL to MLS is not always as linear as you might think. Jackson Yueill looked pretty average in Reno, and then Leitch started him in some games with the Quakes and he looked very good. In fact I think both Yueill and Colvey had their first starts with the Quakes after stints with Reno in that first USOC game last year against Seattle. And they both had great games. Unfortunately Colvey got injured after that game and was not available for the next, and that kind of killed off any positive momentum he had going at that point.

 

I wonder if Colin Kaepernick could play left back? Might boost attendance.

 

I watched the game again on TV, and I have to say I noticed a number of problems with our team, which of course, I've noticed before.

• Our players typically play too far apart, requiring long accurate, well weighted passes. (Vako's "mistake" on the play Don is complaining about).
• Our guys don't move to the pass. They tend to wait in position for the ball to come to them, which enables the enemy to pick off our passes.
• We fail to support each other on either offense or defense. There is very little team work and coordination between players.
• When one of our guys does something either better or worse than expected, our other players are slow to react. It's as though they have a set of expectations and anything outside that throws them off, either good or bad.
• We don't man mark on defense.

The need to play the ball long (because our guys play too far apart) puts needless pressure on our players. Thus on offense, one of our guys makes a run with the ball and his teammates rarely move into position to receive a short pass. When we're deep in the attacking third, we get better about this, but that's because the space is more compact to begin with. On defense, we seem not to know each other's assignments. So sometimes two of our guys cover one of the enemy, leaving another enemy player open. Or, we just fail to defend certain areas and the enemy get to run free in our end of the pitch. I get that you want to play a zone defense, but when an opponent is in your zone, you have to mark that guy. You can't let him run around unmarked. Just being close to an enemy player often prevents a pass to him.

And there are any number of other errors we could point out, but this covers the basics.

Vako made a long pass (not enough zip on it), Magnus waited for the ball, rather than running to it, it got picked off. This put the ForestKillers in a position to attack us with even or better numbers. Defensively, we failed on our organization, didn't stay between the attacking players and the goal, and our GK whiffed on a save that he ought to have made.

The technical term for this confluence of events is clusterf#$%!

Go Quakes!!
Fire Stahre!!

- Mark

 

There was a play in the 2nd half of the LA game where Magnus had the ball and players were moving towards him to receive a pass and he actually waved them off and forward. He wanted guys to just lump forward so he could launch a long ball, kind of like what a GK does when he's going to boot it vs. play out of the back. Don't come near me! I'm going to huck it!

 

I'm sure that's one of the things that Stahre loves about Magnus, his "skill" in lumping the ball forward.

Enough of this crap already!!!!

 

I thought it was his foul-drawing expertise? ( Quakes are the most fouled team in MLS!).

If fire safety groups ever bring back the Stop, Drop, and Roll campaign we have the poster child for it.

 

Andrew Luck loves soccer. We should sign him. Probably would be a great CB. People would bounce off him. The guy is gigantic.

 

Best. Twitter. Account. Ever.

https://twitter.com/CaptAndrewLuck

(Edit) A taste:

Dec. 29, 2017

✉️#Colts pic.twitter.com/q0bwB3Pz40

— Capt. Andrew Luck (@CaptAndrewLuck) December 29, 2017

 

Just a reminder that his father, Oliver Luck, was a key player in the relocation of the Quakes to Houston.

 

Yeah a little weird because Andrew interned with Quakes 2.0 in college.

 

Andrew Luck: Trialist #1 #MarchHome pic.twitter.com/ickscTZhvu

— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) April 5, 2015

 

My photo with Andrew Luck. Don’t know why he looks so small in the above tweet. For comparison in this photo, my hubby #8 is 6’2”.

https://instagram.com/p/BlOX55VlMTv/