2024-25 Offseason Thread

Imo, Bruce will get us respectable this season...hovering around 0.500 ball. He has a keen eye for assessing who can help him and who he needs to bring in. He has a good eye for talent, so I'm looking forward to seeing his draft picks. He's also a no bullshit coach, so guys will actually be held accountable and be on their toes. Initially, just stabilizing the performance of the team will be a huge success...yeah, low bar, but the real ball game is sustained incremental improvement, hopefully over 2-3 seasons. He had a wealth of riches in LA and the Revs actually dropped some serious coin for him to improve their attack...when he has high quality attackers, he's been quite successful...don't know if that's a pipe dream or down the road for the Quakes
But where we are as a club and organization right now, Arena is a breath of fresh air and credibility...he doesn't even need to come close to challenging for a championship, simply rebuilding the respectability of the club and organization is the big win...everything else comes after that.

But still, I'm having a real tough time trying to get used to him coaching the Quakes...just doesn't seem right.

 

Tommy’s already off the team. These guys aren’t affecting that. I'm sure they will be fine but I wouldn't expect Ching / Mullan kind of impact at this point.

 

What do you mean by .500 ball? As many wins as losses? 1.5 PPG? That would make us a top ten or twelve team league wide. I don’t think that’s happening.

This year, in the west, Vancouver and Portlandia made the playoffs with 1.38 PPG.

I’d be happy with 1.30 PPG next year. This year we were 0.62 PPG.

I fully expect us to be better next year. But il Bruce won’t be able to build sustainable progress in SJ because Fisher won’t fund it.

I’m going to drink a lot of whisky this coming season.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

This came up a while back - what does “.500 ball” mean in soccer. If it’s equal wins and losses it could be 17-17-0, which as you say would be a very good year, or it could be 1-1-32, which would be bad. We were “.500” in 2023 - 10-10-14. Or does it mean equal wins, losses, and ties, or as close as possible, like 11-11-12? I think that’s the best reasonable proxy.

 

It's a stupid statement that means much in baseball but does not at all suit soccer. It's one of those things that make people from the rest of the world think we're all idiots...

 

FYI, someone on the TSS Discord posted this:

In a money sense;
New England got $1,471,667 in salary relief + $500,000 GAM for Kaye ($750,000 salary) & Romney ($721,667 salary) & essentially traded Harkes ($286,583 salary) straight-up for an International Roster slot. **(All 3 players will be 30+ years old in 2025)**​

 

I wonder if Jonathan Mensah will come back to the Quakes !!??

 

okay 0.500 was a very loose term meaning slightly above or slightly below the middle of the MLS blob...how's that for scientific. Or maybe for the lab rats (of which I am one) it should have been 0.465-0.535....zzzz

my 2 cents...Arena will focus on putting something in place to cut down on the clown car defending...the crap soft goals that ruin our games. So in that regard, he'll emphasize grinders and work rate and disciplined D. Short term, I think it will look like MLS 1.0 defensive soccer..and countering...hopefully good coordination between mids and back line...organized team defending...then he'll build it up in the attack from there. I'm curious where he'll play Hernan, I'm betting he'll use him as a pure attacker and not as a dropping central mid. Arena is such a hardass, he won't suffer a lot of silliness or freelancing coughing up the ball in bad spots on the field. So there will be big time accountability.

We'll see where it goes..usually the hardass coaches get a real nice initial bounce with the increased discipline, but that act wears thin over time if they can't progress the teams attack, competitiveness and success. It will all depend if he can find a way to score some goals and hopefully bring in a creator and have some attacking punch...hopefully that happens before he beats the team senseless and they tune him out. For as much as he's won, with the credibility he has, he doesn't need to prove anything to anybody, but I think he truly values this opportunity to get back in the MLS fold...with a successful return.

 

OK, on the finish thing, we can say "mid-table." Or we can be more specific and talk about total points or points per game. The playoff line is usually about 40 to 43 total points, and somewhere around 1.4 to 1.43 points per game. So that's got to be the initial goal. Making the playoffs, even if it's just the first round last spot or two.

I think you're right that il Bruce will bring a lot more discipline to our team, and that will be good. If he plays a counter attacking style, I'm all for it. Some of our best performances last year were when we played counter attacking ball. So I fully support a counter attacking style.

I also agree that we'll get an initial bump in '25, but I think '26 is going to go to shit unless RottenFish is willing to spend some coin. That or we get a wundkind or two out of our academy.

I don't expect us to make the playoffs next year. I'll be OK with that, as long as we are noticeably better. A 10th or even 11th place finish will be real improvement. Also, we need to finish strong. I don't want to see us start well and then fall off the pace like in Luchi's '23 season. We need to be on lookout for that.

I expect us to suck. I'm just hoping that we suck less.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Nathan is available! I hear he fits Bruce's criteria of MLS experience.

 

I thought that Nathan played well for Seattle in the playoffs. But he started in I believe their very 1st game and then their very last game. He was injured most of the time in-between I think. Seattle probably just doesn't have confidence that he'll stay healthy.

 

Agree pretty much with everything you wrote but did you mean a forward when you mentioned "hopefully bring in a creator".
Hernán is a #10. We've got that covered. We need a good finisher and someone who will balance Espinoza on the other wing. Although I'm pretty sure pellegrino will be the left winger starter once again since he's still under contract.

 

I have a feeling Bruce won't rate Pellegrino and he's gonna sit on the bench. Or maybe they will still try to transfer him.

 

I'm all for an upgrade in that position but who's next in line? Kikanovic looked better as a RB in my opinion. Maybe if we actually sign a U22 player? Also, Bruce may give Bouda the opportunity to win out that position? So many questions and it's still way to early to get an understanding of what Arena will do.

 

Dark horse candidate - Jamar Ricketts. He’s a guy who will take players on just about every time he has the ball. The Quakes had him pegged for left back and he played some games there for The Town but I noticed that they started him at left side attacker a few times at the end of the season (which I’d been hoping they’d do), and he scored in one of those games - their last playoff game. He can help disrupt a defense. Unfortunately he was injured most of last year so we didn’t see him much.

Seattle has a similar player, Georgi Minoungou, who started against LAG in their playoff match after spending most of his time with Tacoma. He terrorized the right side of LAG’s defense. I don’t know why they didn’t use him more this season. Their attack was pretty toothless.

 

True Ricketts could get a shot there. Good call. I've never caught a Town game so you'd definitely know better how he plays.
After being injured most of last year I'm sure he's coming in real hungry for next season and with a new coach everyone basically starts with a clean slate. Would be great if he takes a spot (LW or LB). Would be like a new signing.

 

Yeah best case is that we get a new left side attacker and Ricketts is maybe a sub. Don’t think he’ll be ready to be a starter yet. That and we need a striker.

 

I also doubt Nathan is the type of CB Bruce wanted. We already have one on the team.

 

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that we get him back. Too injury prone for one. He was pretty stay at home for Seattle, so I don't think that's really an issue with him if he's coached that way. I actually think we're OK with CB's as it is. We are 4 deep and I'd be OK with any of them starting. We have bigger needs.

 

https://www.am.com.mx/superdeportiv...omprar-brandon-vazquez-de-rayados-726093.html

 

OK, now we're talking. He had similar results as Jebo in MLS - one really good year with 18 goals, and then, meh, 8 goals as a regular starter. But I think he's a solid striker.

 

I think this could be a good signing (if true).

 

I didn't see him much with Cinci. He obviously had great numbers and the team did well.

I mostly seen him with the USMNT which has been underwhelming, and in the past two games, he was awful (missing several sitters against Jamaica).

Overall, it would be a good signing based upon his prior time in MLS.