Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Austin FC (Saturday, 4/2) postgame thread [R]

And unless Judson has lost a leg and is 100 pounds overweight I'm want him in the starting 11!!!

 

Even at that, not sure that he couldn't help us.

 

San Jose Earthquakes 2, Austin FC 2
Search virtually any defensive metric out there and the Quakes are at or near the bottom of the standings. I think the most damning, though, is that they spend by far the least amount of time defending in an organized state, as per Second Spectrum, than anyone in the league. In fact, the gap between the Quakes in 28th and NYCFC is about the same size as the gap between NYCFC and Montréal in 18th.

Let me ask you a question: Does this count as defending in an organized state?



Armchair Analyst: Quakes man-marking disaster


Highlights
The clip starts with center back Tanner Beason pushing up 80 yards from his own goal to press an opposing winger, because that’s how it’s done in Matias Almeyda’s man-marking scheme. And the other thing that happens in man-marking is you leave one center back free, so Julio Cascante strides forward and dimes a ball over the top to Maxi Urruti, who is wide open because Jackson Yueill is trying to mark two players, while Francisco Calvo is just standing there keeping everyone onside.

Yeah, it’s a golazo and J.T. Marcinkowski is probably not happy with himself, but Marcinkowski has been standing on his head all year keeping the Quakes’ scorelines respectable.

Nice comeback for the point, but I don’t see any plausible path toward playoff contention as long as Almeyda sticks with his man-marking approach. It’s been figured out.

What hasn’t quite been figured out yet is the right attack/defense/possession balance for Austin. They don’t have the horses to be a purely defensive team that drops guys behind the ball and absorbs, but they also don’t have the firepower to open up the throttle and blow teams out. If they did, it would’ve been 3-0 by halftime in this one.

The most likely scenario feels like one where they get better at using the ball, to the point that they can take the chaos out of games like this one. But they’re not there yet, and I’m sure this result felt like two points dropped rather than a valuable road point earned.

 

Exactly what I was thinking when Remedi was subbed in. If MA would ever go back to Judson/Yueill we may actually be an OK team.

 

Is Judson injured or is there another reason on why he isn't playing?

 

I watched him warming up with the reserves on Saturday. He looked fine.

 

Have we been dialing up the man-marking so far this season? I thought we very much toned it down in the later half of last season.

This man-marking scheme needs to go. One, it leaves so much open space to be exploited. Two, no one is able to provide cover if one player slips or is beaten. Three, we are so far apart from each other and becoming static because players have to stick to their guys.

One and two hurt our defense and three on our offense. Our positioning and shape is not dictated by us, but by the other team.

I am also concerned how it affects the development of the young players and how they see and approach the game.

 

I think it's too soon to evaluate Cade's big pay increase (I think it is 700k?). However in his last contract he was making 130k. Most people are pretty happy when they get a 100% pay increase, but Cade got over 500% pay increase.

He might live up to it by the end of the year or he might live up to it at some point in his contract. I guess I'd rather see us take a bet on a local kid - in the worst case he's got plenty of money to pay for school and other academy kids see a path forward. However if Cade got bumped up to say 300k or 400k those things would still be true.

 

Well, couple of things. 1) It's a long contract, like 5 years. So you bet that at some point he's going to be playing at a level that's worth $600k or so. With 5g, 6a in 1600 minutes last year he was arguably already producing at that kind of level, though I think those numbers flatter him a bit. 2) You send a message out to the academy kids that it might be worth sticking around a bit longer to start with career with the Quakes because you can get paid a bit. Imagine what $600k looks like to a middle class family.

 

Bingo! They rewarded Wondo when he put up numbers. This is a signal that Leitch doesn’t value “foreign players” more than local guys.

 

Maybe there is another reason why they aren't playing him? Maybe it is a contract disciplinary issue?

 

Almeyda just doesn't rate Judson for some reason. I think he prefers Remedi. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. If we were winning it would be easier for me to accept his choice.

 

If that is the case I doubt he would be on the bench as a potential sub.

 

I'm going back to my Almeyda needs to go position. He can't coach this team effectively. He may be a brilliant coach without the tools he needs, and to me he's just a disaster as a coach in MLS.

Eat his salary, let's bring in a real coach of American players who will play the best 11 players in position and see how much better we become.

Fact of the matter is, we can't get much worse.

 

If reports are true and he is making $2 million, that means Fisher has to pay out $1.5 mil to buy out Almeyda’s contract. Then he has to pay off the coaching staff and hire a new one and pay them too.

Even though he should , I don’t think he will be doing either any time soon.

 

Can't get much worse/can't get much better - without opening up the purse strings. 2012 was a one-off - all those last-second wins and draws - and could never be replicated.

 

But that's $1.5 mil he was going to have to pay anyway. They could promote within and pay someone a little more to coach on an interim basis and net cost would be close to 0. As I've said before the problem is more about logistics - what do you do about the coaching staff, when it's Matias's posse? Would they stay or quit, and if they stayed, how would morale be, etc. With those kinds of complications in mind I think Leitch believes he's better off riding this one out.

 

But our other options are even shittier. Every time he has played this year he has made our team better. You can argue that he’s not great, but he’s better than Paul Marie or Espinoza (in his current form anyway). I’d start TT at right mid, and plan on subbing him out. But we’ve got five subs per game, so not that big a deal.

 

Cade improved dramatically as soon as we switched him to the right side. Boy needs to work on his left foot a lot more, but played as a right mid, he’s better than Espinoza.

 

Those things would be true if he got bumped up to 400k let alone the 700k he's rumored to be getting now.

 

He might be better than current Espinoza - he's not better than Espinoza in prime form.

 

What difference does it make if he over pays a foreign guy or a local guy?

Wondo was always under paid btw.

 

Once again you can send a message to the academy players - you can get paid if you stick with us for a bit, 2) remember it’s a 4/5 year contract - what might seem like overpaying today will likely not seem like it in a few years, if you believe in the player, and 3) remember there are 2 parties to a negotiation. It would be folly to think that Cade has no one representing him taking part in negotiations.

 

350k sends a message too.

Glad to hear Cade has a great agent working for him!