No it has to do with the management along with the coaching staff not wanting Baca but wanting Shea. This happens in every team on earth. If the coaches liked or wanted to keep Baca and if they felt he could have contributed, he would still be here. The bottom line is they simply didn’t like him so he was the odd man out. Shea left and they brought him back because they liked the way he played.
The fact that Doyle is out of professional soccer is not proof he was wrong in this case, though he should have been out of professional soccer a long time ago. Doyle's mistake was he thought he could do better than Baca, and failed. A club like the Quakes are not going to get a Matic and Pogba, or a Wanyama and Dembele as their 6 and 8, we get a Baca and Cronin, or a Godoy and Ceren. And Baca's game is more suited to the Mexican league, it's not surprising he seems to be thriving there.
Exactly. A Latin type player playing in Mexico. Makes sense. MLS is a fast , big and burley type of athletic league that not all finesse players can handle. You don’t see superstars or even college stars shining all that much and many struggle as a rule. As far as Doyle is concerned , he was never qualified for the position of GM. I think he was in over his head. I’m glad he managed to milk it for 9 years. He lasted longer than Alexi Lalas did. He does deserve all the credit in the world for discovering Wondo. Not too many General Managers anywhere can claim they found a player who scored 140 goals.
No, I think he just fundamentally didn't get Baca. I'm sure he considered Godoy a big upgrade because he plays with more "bite" on defense and can crack some shots. But he missed on what Baca brought - amazing work rate, quickness in tights spaces, and harassing but clean defense. I think that's a false narrative, like he was a player who somehow didn't really fit in MLS and now he's "thriving" in Mexico. He was a very good player in MLS, and now he's a good player in Mexico. He doesn't score many goals in Mexico, just like he didn't score many in MLS. I think he was actually more of a full-time starter in MLS than he has been in Mexico over the last 3 or so years, though I think he usually starts there as well.
I knew Baca when he played with my cousin Chris Bernardi at Loyola Marymount University for Paul Krumpe. He said he was the best player at LMU. He may have been able to become a better player has he stayed. I still retain though he will most likely not have done much more than the rest of the losers did in these years. You are only as good as the rest of the team and I doubt Baca will have made a huge difference in the results. On the other hand he is probably fulfilling his lifelong childhood dream of playing in his home country and I’m sure is being paid quadruple the amount he will have made in MLS. Whichever way you twist it, the Quakes will have never given a $300k contract. At this point it worked out great for him and I don’t think he cares that it didn’t work out here.
Cruz Azúl signed 3 MLS players in 2014: Baca, Farfan, and Villareal. The only one they kept was Baca, and he became a starter for them not too long after. The other two were released that same year I think. That tells you something I think, in terms of the "perceived" value and the "real" value of those players. As an MLS player, Baca was highly undervalued, specifically by his club, the Quakes. His current transfermarket value is now over $2 million. Quakes / MLS probably sold him for a bag of chips.
I don't care how good he is, neither the Quakes or any other MLS team for that matter, will ever pay $2 million transfer fee for Baca. I guarantee that.
My point was that the Quakes badly undervalued him, and the numbers show it. Of course he is not coming back to MLS at this point
Not really because he wasn't worth anything when he was here and there was no market for him and that is why he was released. It isn't like there were tons of clubs asking for his services otherwise Doyle will have traded and if he tried, there were no takers. Same thing happened with Herculez Gomez after being released by Kansas City in late 2009. He went down to Mexico and started scoring goals and made a comeback but he was a non factor in after his KC years. Gomez will have never been given another chance by any other MLS club had not gone to Mexico. Even after he came back to MLS, TFC released him and did little for Seattle which is when he retired.
The point is that he turned out to be worth much more pretty quickly, with his rapid rise to the starting ranks of Cruz Azúl and rapid increase in transfer value. So with the exception of analysts like Matthew Doyle, and certain enlightened BigSoccer posters , people missed the boat on that one. Understanding value is about understanding value today, and potential value in years to come.
The problem is you are talking about the Baca's worth today in Mexico. You have no idea how he would do if he continued his career in MLS or if he came back to the league. There is no way to tell unless someone gives him a shot but I'm betting he would not be as good as you think he is.
He was already very good in MLS. It's just that not many people really got it. Armchair Analyst: Five who should have made #24Under24 1. Rafael Baca, attacking midfielder, San Jose Earthquakes Why he should have made it: Five or 10 years from now, when the soccer version of “sabermetics” is nice and polished, Baca will be the exact type of player who technical directors are desperate to uncover. He never loses the ball in traffic, is one of the league’s best at winning the second ball, plays passes to space instead of feet, and covers a Michael Bradley-esque amount of ground. Everyone around him plays better when he’s out there, and the butterfly effect is that the entire team plays better. We don’t have stats to quantify that – yet. Why he didn’t make it: Because we don’t have stats to quantify that yet. But one day – hopefully soon – we will. And that’ll be when guys like Baca are near the very top of this list instead of left off entirely.
No he didn't make it because the Quakes had and have few good players , hardly any tactic, style or system and too many coaching changes. This still applied until 2017. I still see no evidence of how Baca will have improved the situation from 2014 to 2017.
Speaking of... Official: Philadelphia Union Add To Coaching Staff With Hires Of Pat Noonan And Tim Hanley
Poor Tim. Philadelphia is one place I have no desire to ever set foot in again. Philthy doesn't begin to do it justice (I traveled there for business in the early 90s, and as I was checking into my top-rated hotel downtown there was a shooting in the lobby...)
Philly has one of the best young goalkeepers in MLS in Andre Blake, so Hanley doesn't have to do much to look good.
My daughter lived there for 4 years until 2014, and I thought philly was a fine place with great museums. It seemed very similar to San Jose
I’m sure it can be a lovely place, but seeing a man shot dead 20 feet from me didn’t give me the best first impression.
Try Downingtown. Here's an official Union pub that I loved and I'm sure falvo would appreciate: https://www.yelp.com/biz/coppa-82-downingtown-3