a small team

Jesse said that to me in a one-on-one conversation. He said: "I couldn't let Chris continue to coach the team. He was ruining the team." That's pretty close to word for word. I have not repeated that until after Jesse left the team.

Frankly, I was shocked that he would say that, even if he thought it, to some random fan. I'm guessing that he was referring to the players all but demanding that CL switch back to a 4-4-2 from his prefered 3-5-2.

In any case, Jesse is gone now and it really looks like CL will indeed take over the team. That's certainly my hope.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Wow. Surprised he would say that to a fan. If he said that, I can just imagine what was said or went on behind closed doors. He may have been right to a point but it’s not like Jesse did any better though. It’s no wonder why he was let go midseason.

This club as a rule though with Doyle , CL and Fioranelli , has been a joke for way too long and it can't always be a coach or GM's fault.

Sooner or later, the blame game has to be shifted to the guy at the top. I don’t see how Fisher can’t be responsible for this debacle. I wish he would just sell all or part of the club to a more ambitious owner.

 

Yeah, it does come down to Fisher. He’s the one who tolerates all of this failure.

But sports shouldn’t be about which team has the best owner. No one ever roots for the owner. I just want Fisher to care about the team, but clearly he does not.

Also, you can’t fire the owner. We can hope that he sells, that he at least sells a stake in the club to someone who gives a crap. But that’s a long shot. We’re stuck with Fisher for the foreseeable future.

Go Quakesfans!!
Fisher OUT!!!

- Mark

 

I’m sure Fisher is holding on for some type of profit. Probably why he doesn’t care how the team performs.

Honestly though, he is a horrible owner.

In the last 14 seasons, the only positives that I can come up with when it comes to the Quakes is all of Wondo’s goals, the 2010 & 2012 seasons and the building of the stadium.

Other than that, I can't find too much else to get excited about.

 

This actually makes a lot of sense considering how much progress Leitch seemed to make when first taking over coaching versus the further along he got where the team seriously regressed back to its awful style. Fioranelli really was an awful GM. I'm glad he's gone.

 

I'm not defending Fiornanelli but clearly, he wasn't right for this team or league.

It is understandable though as he is not coming from a league or continent for that matter, that is either familiar with MLS or its crazy mixed up roster rules.

I think we were all excited initially when he was hired but in retrospect, the relationship seemed doomed from the start. He came in and worked with Chris Leitch then fired coach Dom Kinnear midseason. After a win nonetheless.

I mean hiring an outside agency to land a foreign GM outsider to head your team? Which viable professional sports organization or team does that?

 

Jesse’s problem wasn’t that he didn’t understand MLS’s “arcane rules,” it’s that he didn’t respect MLS players at all. Also, he failed to recognize our salary cap, which should be easy for anyone to understand, especially with Chris Leitch on hand to explain everything. No, Jesse’s problem was over paying for mediocre players and thinking that American players are crap, even though we got stomped by American players routinely. So he paid serious money for players of middle quality from other leagues. He never did create his “profile” of successful MLS players, because he usually signed guys who were far too slow. Players who need time on the ball won’t be very successful in a league where a lot of teams play a pressing defense.

I liked Jesse as a person, but as a GM, he sucked.

Go Quakesfans!!

— Mark

 

I liked Jesse when I met him but he was not MLS or Quakes material.

As far as the blue jerseys are concerned, I never liked them but I'm a little biased!

 

Our club is bluer than blue!

 

Let's not forget that this was also the result of our cheapskate owners. When the Earthquakes came back in 2008, what I heard was that the Earthquake blue was not already part of the Adidas lineup, the ownership wouldn't pay for them to implement the color, and we ended up with the black shirt.

 

....with Amway as a sponsor. Let's just forget about that, shall we?

 

I think some people around here get way too hung up about the jersey designs and colors. I certainly prefer the blue shirt and black shorts, but the all black design was perfectly fine. They change uniform designs all the time, anyway, so it's not as if there were long-standing consequences for any particular design. Heck, the vast majority of blue shirt designs up to 2005 weren't exact lookers, anyway.

Not wanting to pay to modify a template provided by the uniform manufacturer is indicative of how Fisher was going to operate the team, but anyone who knew anything about Fisher beforehand didn't need that piece of evidence.

 

Amway was not a sponsor when the Quakes adopted black kits for the 2008 season with "San Jose" written in large lettering across the front. Amway sponsored the team starting in 2009.

Also, while SSV advocated for the blue-black-blue kit-shorts-socks ensemble, along with other status quo ante recommendations, we were told by team vice president David Alioto that they had focus-tested color schemes, and black tested best for marketing purposes because black is slimming and could be worn with anything and therefore was likely to be more merchandisable. This may or may not have been their real rationale for choosing black, but it is plausible.

 

In the halftime car race between Q, Richter, and Krazy George, Q's car spun out and looked to explode in flames, so maybe you won't be seeing Q again. Sorry, G.

 

it was only a flesh wound!

 

If we can’t get a new owner, Fisher should at least get the Quakes a GM and coach who knows the league.

Looking at their roster, there are very few players who came from other teams within MLS. Most of the American guys either came through the draft or are local home-grown types.

Signing a bunch of foreigners isn’t always the key to success in MLS but I think if you have a GM and/or coach who knows and follows the league closely, you may be able to sign some good free agents through trades and waivers.

Even some USL guys can’t hurt. I mean they can’t be worse than $225k Vega, $850k Alanis and Fierro or $1+ million Andy Rios and Espinoza, to name a few…..

Even if they are less skilled, they would be cheaper and may contribute more through hard work and could grow into their positions.

Either way, something has to give because they can’t continue on this same road much longer.

 

Nonsense! Fisher can sustain this level of failure and financial loss for years to come. The idea that this is a normal team in a normal league is just not supported by the facts. Fisher makes money from the rest of the league doing well (at a minimum because his “asset” - The Quakes - continues to appreciate in value). So it makes no difference to him how horrible the team is, and he doesn’t give a squat what the fans think.

The only way that “something has to give” would be if the other owners tried to force him to sell. Failing that, Fisher can sustain failure and financial loss almost indefinitely.

I share your frustration. I want that asshole gone. But it’s not going to happen short of the other owners kicking him out of the league, or him dying. Not that I actually wish him dead. I just want him to sell the team. He’d make enough money on the deal to live lavishly for the rest of his life.

Go Quakesfans!!
Fisher OUT!!!

- Mark

 

What surprised me about austerity season ‘21 was that Matias was able to put together a long unbeaten streak, pretty amazing considering the last couple of off seasons.

In the end though, the purple sweater and all the Matias magic in the world wasn’t enough to overcome all the austerity and so 2021 played out as per expectations, surprising no one.

wash. rinse. repeat.

the San Jose way.

 

I got the impression that Jesse was somewhat defensive about the hiring of Stahre. Not surprising, it was his first big hire.

Examples:

1) That comment to you (basically "I had no choice but to remove Chris from the coaching position!"),

2) Jesse's fawning interview with Stahre as he took over (not so much defensive, as "look what I got!") and

3) Even when they had the press conference to announce the firing of Stahre, Jesse seemed to still be defending Stahre. "Well he had his bearing walls (Stahre's terminology), but the bearing walls weren't holding". Forget his dang "bearing walls" already! Stahre was a catastrophically failed coach for the Quakes. It's the press conference to announce his firing. I think that's a good time to drop his soccer tactical terminology.

Actually just looked up the article about the press conference. It's worse than that. He started talking about how great the Quakes win was back on the 1st day of the season, and how that win showed that we had "confidence and we made a commitment to things that were important to [Stahre]". Basically, "hey don't forget about that win in March! That was good!"

And then, even more stunningly, he didn't assign accountability to Stahre on the "bearing walls crumbling", he blamed "shortcoming that all of us have to accept"! What does that mean? If we didn't get him the players, and it's not his fault, why is he being fired? Or is the fault of the players underperforming, and not Stahre? Again, why not keep Stahre then and change out the underperforming players. It's kind of like he's saying that "my decision to hire Stahre was a perfectly good one - we just let him down. "We made his perfectly wonderful bearing walls crumble!".

“If you watch the first 60-70 minutes of that game [first game of the season win against Minnesota] we did things that we weren’t asked to do because we had confidence and we made a commitment to things that were important to [Stahre]. He called them the bearing walls,” Fioranelli said. “Unfortunately his bearing walls started to crumble over the course of the season. That’s not because of [Stahre], that’s because of a shortcoming that all of us have to accept.”

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/san-jose-gm-mikael-stahre-his-bearing-walls-started-crumble

 

true, although the extent to which this is true is hard to quantify. the big lift for this team came with the Jebo signing. "wow, finally another player who can score some goals!" I thought. And sure enough, he was coming close, showing some flashes of the goal scoring prowess he was signed for, then, he get's his first goal, a sweet strike! It looks like our string of ties could finally turn into some wins, maybe even (gasp!) we make the playoffs, and then, massive disappointment. He's out indefinitely, no word on his injury (still) or return date. fans left to speculate (as usual) and, even though Chofis goes on a scoring streak keeping our thin hopes alive, Quakes lack of depth proves too much and we begin to drop like a rock. losing Jebo like that put the kibosh on 2021.

 

Actually Matias has essentially said that he's cleared medically to play but does not feel ready. That's understandable. Frankly I think this is a case where Matias could give him a little cover. It's a sensitive issue. Framing it like that puts pressure on Jebo and doesn't necessarily reflect well on him. He could just say something a bit less specific like he's coming along but not ready to play yet.

 

that just adds to the murkiness. what was Jebo advised to do last year? keep playing? keep playing and if he gets another similar injury, retire? maybe the team doctor is saying one thing but he has specialists telling him another. maybe he has some residual symptoms, maybe the imagery is telling him something else...we have no idea. No one can fault Jebo for doing what he needs to do for his health. he's young and these kind of injuries have to be taken very seriously, of course. Matias' desire to have him back as quickly as possible, also understandable. But, Jebo has to decide what's best for him and given that '21 is over in terms of playoffs, etc., no reason to rush him back, as you said previously. give him the benefit of the off season to weigh his options. it's terribly disappointing all around.