I guess I don't understand your reasoning. Kaval went to the A's in 2016. The potential move of the A's to San Jose was dead in the water prior to that. As far as I could tell Kaval was not involved in the effort to get the A's to San Jose. He went to Oakland to try to get a stadium built there when it was clear MLB was not going to allow the move to SJ, which was backed up by the court. So, again, what makes Kaval a traitor?
Other than leaving the Quakes for the A's , or rather going to a baseball team rather than working at a soccer club , I am not sure if he is a traitor or not. Obviously Kaval left the organization for a reason. Possibly for more money and/or a bigger opportunity with a fully established sports team and league or to get the A's stadium situation worked out. I think it's more of the latter as opposed to the former. I don't believe he was ever much of a soccer guy even though he said he watched the 1990 World Cup in Italy or something to that effect. I do believe he was brought on to the Quakes initially to get their stadium deal worked out. When that project was over , coupled with the firing of John Doyle-Dom Kinnear and the hiring duo of Fioranelli/Almeyda, either he or Fisher decided he was no longer needed at the club. Honestly, I don't think Kaval knew much about the tactical aspect of the game other than being critical of Doyle's "boring team" at the end. I think anyone who knows the game or is even a casual fan , with maybe exception of 2012 will say the same thing though. I doubt he was useful in bringing in players or in negotiations. Supposedly , all the player signings were in Doyle’s hands and he had nothing to do with the roster nor did he bring much else to the team that any of us can see.
You do know that the Quakes and A's are owned by the same person? Right? So when your boss says, "good job getting the Quakes stadium built in San Jose, now I need you to get the A's stadium built in Oakland", what do you think the response should be? "Oh...no thanks, I am happy here in San Jose, no need to put another feather in my cap, and help the person who signs my paycheck, or be involved in baseball, my first love."
Dave is a baseball guy. He came to the Quakes after running a baseball league, never tried to pretend he had a soccer background, and obviously a move to the As was a major promotion in his mind. From the many conversations I had with him, plus my observing him being grilled by parents/Quakes fans at AYSO events, I'd say his focus was on listening to fans and trying to accommodate fan needs. He saw his role as marketing the team to the community, not figuring out which players we needed to acquire, and for better or worse, there was much more outreach when he was at the helm. Who cares about the fans now (other than the reps trying to sell us tickets!)
...though didn't he try to impress us by sometimes calling it "association football". I think he tried to pretend he was knowledgeable and passionate about soccer. But I think we all knew - he was a baseball guy at heart. https://www.sjearthquakes.com/post/2012/05/14/kavals-kickoff-great-weekend-soccer
Wasn’t sure which thread to post this in. But I had an idea on how to influence Fisher to sell. From an article I read lately, Fisher hates to be called cheap. So we start a new chant, something like Fisher Fisher Fisher Cheap Cheap Cheap. And we wear yellow baby chick heads and yellow shirts that say Fisher Cheap on them
After the team spent $7M to acquire Hernán doesn’t that take a little bit of steam out of the “Fisher Out” effort, at least for a little while? I mean we shouldn’t be fooled that we are now going to suddenly be a spendthrift team. But it was at the very least a little bone that we were thrown.
Do multiple people share that account? How can you be against Fisher paying a $6-7 million transfer fee for a player which is apparently "doubling down on Gruezo" by "spending more money having previously spent money" and then call Fisher "cheap" a few weeks later?
We've been waiting since 2008 for Fisher to spend a little money. He finally agrees to spend a little for Gruezo ($3 million TF, maybe), and then for Hernán (who should've won the game for us last night), Quakes are still sitting bottom of the west and among the very worst performers (in the league, again this year) and that tells you Fisher has changed his spots? C'mon, be serious. Fisher made a big move but it's going to take a lot more than one (potentially) great signing to change the looooooooooooong standing culture o' fail in SJ. Fisher Fisher Fisher Cheap Cheap Cheap!!!
Uh, not sure what is so hard to understand here... "Fisher cheap" a fine position to hold, but then you can't be against "Fisher spending millions on players" because THAT MAKES NO SENSE
Nobody is against Fisher spending money for players, that's what we've been clamoring for since the dawn of the DP era. But it's the culture that needs to change in SJ after 16 years of under-investing in players. Signing Hernán is a positive step but we shouldn't kid ourselves, it's one step. We need to see the Quakes competing at the other end of the table for a few years before we can imagine Fisher has changed his spots in any meaningful way.
What I hear @mjlee22 saying there is that it's still too soon to say if Hernán can be that game changing player we need. So far, he's looked pretty good, if you remove last night's performance. Are you convinced that $6 million TF for Hernán was money well spent? We're all obviously hoping so but it's too early to say. That's what I'm hearing. Not that spending money for players is a bad idea, which is just silliness.
That was right after the transfer before he had played a single minute, the person who made the comment has no idea as to his abilities and didn't say anything about his abilities, the comment is against the Quakes spending money on players. That you may consider such a position to be idiotic and/or to not fit with the narrative that you are pushing, doesn't change the facts.
Instead of looking for logic in those posts, maybe lend more credence to the ones in the past where they (jokingly?) said they were becoming senile.
I didn’t pick up that anyone’s complaining about spending money, my take is it’s more about wasting the relatively small amount of money Quakes have had to work with, over the years. We’ve seen a fair bit of that. I hear people complaining here all the time about Gruezo, it’s legitimate to hope the money for Hernan was well spent…particularly since nothing close to this (the money spent to bring him in) has ever happened here before. So yeah, I’d say we get caught up with nitpicking here and it’s pretty stupid. Has Fisher decided (after all these years) that he finally wants to get in the game? Jury is still very much out on that.
Time will tell. He struggled last night. Seemed to be lacking that all important composure and ability needed to finish, when he had his chances. But that was one game. Overall, I'd say he looks a like a great pick up so far... ...not sure why he was playing with his shorts hiked up yesterday though...maybe he needs a pair that fit him better?
He tends to hike up his shorts, especially towards the latter part of games. No idea why. It looks odd. Maybe he feels they hamper his running a little bit.
Hernán"s played a handful of games barely. He's the real deal, believe me. Give the kid the rest of the season to figure out MLS and next season you can go off if you feel he's not good enough. He's still trying to figure out how to play with the Quakes, very different than how Godoy Cruz played and understand Luchi"s amazing tactics jeje.... I've been kinda like you against fisher but he's finally spent enough to get us a difference maker in midfield. Only if we had a real coach that understands tactics better and knows how to motivate a group. Something that as time goes by it's becoming clearer & clearer Luchi ain't it.
Well, after bsman posted about Fisher’s fortunes declining, I posted a couple of articles I found about JF. One of them mentioned how Fisher hates to be called cheap. So it just occurred to me that it might be useful for protesting in the future, so i put it in one of the protest threads. I did not say, let’s go out and protest now or next game or anything like that. Heck, I drove 7 hours to and from SAC on Tuesday, and I had a good time. It’s not like Hernan has made people on this forum talk about how great the Quakes are now. We are still bitching like crazy. If the Hernan balloon pops, we will go back to talking about protest. And in general, Fisher is still cheap. How many here would disagree with that?
What bothers me most is the way this team has been buffeted about throughout the MLS era. Our ownership has ALWAYS been a major question/issue since the days we were league-owned and 2008-now is simply a continuation of that.