Reminder, as a great statistician from St. Louis once said (and I paraphrase), 90 percent of the game is mental and the other half is physical.
Ok, but if you say that coaches suck the life out of players but then only apply that to one player, then it would be helpful to know what sucking mechanism you are really talking about.
Well, it’s clear that both Jackson and Cade have been told not to do what they do best. No incisive forward passes from the captain and fewer aggressive runs from the teenager. Part of the backward passing, slow buildup Barca-lite plan, evidently. Neither player has the gonads to ignore the authority figure and simply play their own game. Meanwhile, Benji has had to scratch and claw for everything he’s earned, and he’s not likely to suffer an emotional setback from a little adversity. He showed fight last night. Just my impressions. I have no psychological training. But Quakes should probably hire someone who does.
I wonder if Landon Donovan would ever have become a star without having Troy Dayak around to proverbially slap him upside the head as a rookie.
It has been tough place to play for him the last two seasons. Everything has been funky in the midfield. just a weird mix of players that don't have a lot of chemistry. Jackson has struggled at times...segments of games where he's really dialed with his seam splitting passes...and also a lot of disconnect between his intended target...and some reluctance to pull the trigger on the pass...a lack of faith perhaps...he'll just cycle until he gets something he feels is a sure thing pass up field but his main job is to get it to Montiero so Montiero can create and distribute entering the attacking third...Jackson's other job is switching the point of attack. He isn't a dominate athletic presence who can take over the game in midfield...that is not his bag and will never be his bag... he's being used as shuttler which is not terribly exciting to watch. It looks boring and imo, he looks a bit low key in that role. I still like his game a lot. The situation is tough...Imo, he is still the best option for captain on this woeful lame duck team considering the circumstances. There are not a lot of options...I think most undervalue what he brings to the table as captain.
My own pop psychoanalysis: It's been a long time since I read the book, but I think it was Nick Swisher who was used as a sort of counterexample to Billy Beane himself in Moneyball. Beane was a model athlete type who the scouts loved but failed partly to his head - he couldn't get out of his own head. Swisher OTOH is portrayed as the "bro's bro", who doesn't seem to be fazed by anything and always seems to just be having a great time. Benji strikes me as more of a Swisher guy. He's a little cocky and doesn't seem to be fazed by anything. When you watch him in interviews he doesn't seem to show any self-consciousness whatsoever in his body language. And on the field he just seems to go out and play in the moment. Cade seems more introverted and like someone who can get too much in his own head. I think what's happening to him a bit now is that he's overthinking things, and not making the right decisions because he is pressing and not just reacting instinctively. This is not to say he can't overcome all of that. I think he needs a goal or two to get him to relax a bit. Plus he has a ton of pressure due to all of the expectations. It's a really hard thing, especially for an 18-year old, but he's gotta just not worry about all of the expectations and just try to be the best player he can be.
There is no doubt JY is going through a rough patch. I kind of think the slump happened after the USMNT call-up where he seemed to have been replaced by that young KC(?) guy that I didn't think was all that great, but, pretty much took his spot (at that the time, haven't seen that KC getting USMNT playing time lately). Hearing that MA wasn't to keen on guys joining their national team and kind of tough on them once coming back (Nick Lima), wondering if that may be part of the issue. Having said that, I think of him as a Quake and there must be something thing about his all around play/demeanor/attitude that has been the reason for him wearing that captain's armband week after week. Hoping he (and his team mates) can turn things around soon!!!
I agree. And as captain, Jackson needs to play with his heart on his sleeve, and not like Simon Dawkins 2.0.
If anything I think he might be trying to deal with the fact that his career has kind of wound up a good notch below what people (and he) were anticipating at one time. No longer really in the thick of the nats mix and not much talk about Jack in Europe, which Matias had suggested was going to happen or should happen. I think this is similar to what Cade may be going thru - dealing with not meeting expectations that are “out there”. To add to the Benji vs. Cade thing, Cade is playing against much higher expectations / pressure. Benji is a kid from Sac State - there were no expectations - he’s playing with house money.
Unfortunately for Cowell, the first team has proven to be a pretty big failure at taking promising prospects and turning them into good pros. He was wrongly put out on the wing instead of at center forward where he belonged. And even if they now wanted to play him at center forward, they can't because Ebobisse is going to deservedly get all the minutes. Now they have Kikanovic playing better than Cowell and is also a fairly young player, so he's going to get minutes that otherwise would be going to Cowell. So he's essentially gotten screwed by a team that just doesn't know what to do with him because they have no real plan for how to build a team and develop players. Yueill has a very different problem where he's the only person left on the roster to play the position he's playing, basically, and he's stinking up the joint with seemingly no way to get his ship righted. He almost certainly suffered under the combination of Almeyda's lack of tutelage and Berhalter's inane "coaching", and now he's working under a coach who he knows is going to get fired and probably grappling with having to adjust to yet another play style. I feel for the guy, but he's also just not playing well on an individual level at all. We rag on the defense a ton because they're a joke, but arguably the bigger problem with the Quakes is that their central midfield is dreadful when they don't have the ball. Yueill is a big part of that problem.
I really hope Cade gets sold to a better team this year. Perhaps it won't be the high-seven-figure amount Fish is hoping for, but it would be the best thing for Cade, and at this point his future is more important than the future of DumpsterFireFC...
I have a different POV on Cade. If he doesn’t show well consistently in MLS on the Quakes or any other MLS team, going to a better league is not going to solve things for him. He’ll do worse and his confidence will further erode. There’s nothing stopping him from improving here. He just needs to do it. If I was trying to teach my kid to ride a bike and he was struggling, my first thought wouldn’t be - “hey I think I need to find some more difficult terrain!” I think the main things for him now are to let the game come to him a bit more, work on his defense, and to get into a place where he’s not pressing so much, and reacting more instinctively.
Problem is, it's hard to work through problems as a pro when you're just getting garbage minutes in games that you're already losing. He's seen his playing time evaporate and his performances prior to that were inconsistent. It's very much a problem of his own making in that sense. But he's never going to be given the chance to actually improve if he can't get on the field. And Covelo is so desperate to make the team not look like a disaster that it means sacrificing player development. That's the Quakes MO, so I'm very much in favor of him going to another team. He certainly won't get worse instruction, so then it would be up to him to see if he can actually improve or not.
I agree he should be getting more minutes. He would be a regular starter if Benji hadn’t beaten him out for the job. There’s an aspect of “good problem” to have in that - you have one more emerging young player and harder to get minutes to each. Benji is a young player who is just as worthy for development, so if we have Cade minutes at the expense of Benji we wouldn’t be solving anything as a whole. But Cade could get some spot starts and get onto games sooner. As it is he usually gets some pretty substantial sub minutes, but could be more for sure.
Look guys, Jackson and Cade both started going downhill quickly after they got their big raises. They lost their motivation and mentality. It’s very clear from the way they play now that just showing up became good enough from that point on.
Yeah no reason to try to improve and try to get a gig in Europe and get more nats time. They’ve hit the jackpot with their $600k contracts with the Quakes! The big time! Time to just check out!! Heck at this point $600k is practically like a junior engineer starting salary in Silicon Valley . If the contracts had any psychological effect whatsoever it may be the pressure to perform well, which leads to pressing. It’s not de-motivation but more like too much motivation / pressure.
Maybe I watched too many episodes of Ted Lasso, but I recommend the team bring in that shrink who worked wonders with Ted's players. If we can see them struggling, how do the people who work with them day after day not get it?
How many is just the right amount of episodes of Ted Lasso? Seriously, though (and on a side-note): though money's been pretty tight for a while, I've recently been considering subscribing to Apple TV+ and checking out some of its series such as Ted Lasso, Severance and Mythic Quest (and if it all works out, other shows there as well). Should I go for it or is it not worth it? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
I watch about one show a year, so I'm not a good person to ask. I don't know how much Apple TV costs as we got Ted for free through SAG/AFTRA.
Umm. I would disagree that they lost their motivation and even mentality. In fact, I think that both of the them are over thinking and trying too hard. It's almost like you can literally see them thinking when they get the ball. At that point, it's too late. Danger mentions Yuell's challenges each game (I.e. needs to be more aggressive, fast decisions). Cade had to show in practices that he deserves more playing time because his game minutes aren't showing it.