I love how Miami have lost their first two matches, but are ranked higher than us. I don't really view the power rankings as having much meaning, especially with such a small sample size, but give it a few weeks and their analyses will be more worthwhile. Go Quakes!! We suck!! Fisher OUT!!! - Mark
I can imagine three events that could propel us up the standings, though these are a very low order of probability. 1. John Fisher dies (come on BudLight virus!!) and the new owner gives a shit. 2. The new owner fires Jesse and Matias. 3. The new owner makes Chris Leitch the GM, Chris brings Ian up from USL to be head coach. Failing that, we're going to suck like a Dyson all season long. We needed reinforcements after last season, but signed only one new guy and some rookies. The enemy have analyzed our man-marking scheme and figured out how to defeat it. Almeyda has not made any adjustments for this, or our players are too stupid to follow his new and improved instructions. Almeyda can't tell who his best players are. Judson appears to be injured and we're going to lose JT and Jackson for a few weeks to Nats duty. We are completely screwed. Go Quakes!! Fisher OUT!! - Mark
I agree with your first two points (excepting for the dying part). However, can you explain to me why Leitch and Ian are the answer to all problems with the Quakes?
I don't agree with the deathwish portion, but I also fear we're going to be pretty hard to watch this season. I hope to be proved wrong.
When you're cheering for a 58-year-old man to die of coronavirus in hopes that it will make your sports team better, it's time to think about perspective.
I don’t think that they are necessarily the answers, but, CL bleeds blue and I think that Ian does too. Also, Ian wouldn’t try to institute a system that is so complex that you need special or super-fit players to pull it off. Ian might not lead us to promised land, but he could get us out of the dog house with our substandard roster. I don’t see it as the “solution,” I’m just tired as hell of losing. No more patience, no more excuses, no more bullshit. We need to do better right now. Our off-season was a disaster. I want change. I don’t see Jesse and or Almeyda leading us anywhere except straight into the toilet. Maybe we’ll suddenly get better, like last season, but like last season, it will be too little too late. Perhaps it’s unreasonable of me to want immediate results, but the promise has been improvement since we sacked JD and instead, we’ve seen a downward spiral into the abyss. Yes, last season was better than the season before, but we still missed the playoffs (an extremely low bar) and this season we’re starting off badly when our “consistency” was supposed to mean that we started off well. F@#$ it!! (I don’t actually want John Fisher to die, I just want him to sell the team, or suddenly decide that we need to win.) Go Quakes!! We’re crap and we know it!! - Mark
I was thinking that part was sooooo far over the top that no one would actually take is seriously. I do not wish actual death for John Fisher, merely that he either sell the team or develop a desire to win, as opposed to just limping along waiting for his investment to increase in value. Go Quakes!! Fisher OUT!! - Mark
And thus, the seams are exposed. ' I don't think our coach values the small team mentality. And I also don't think he likes being in the underdog role. But we're like the 10-year-old who goes to school wearing size 8 clothes because our parents are too cheap to get us stuff that fits. MLS is increasingly not a league where small teams can prevail. Goliath will always win.
We are a crap team and our owners and leaders don’t care that we are a crap team. At a minimum, we need: A better GK. Two better CBs. A real ACM. A better left winger. Better forwards (at least to back up Wondo and take over for him when he retires). That’s half the team, more or less. We made zero effort to address any of those issues in the off-season. It’s getting harder and harder to support a team that doesn’t at least try to get better. Go Quakes!! Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
Almeyda is the perfect coach to enable a cheap-ass owner - having been quoted multiple times saying, essentially, that "We don't believe in star players; the stars are far away in the sky and cannot be touched..." (https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...theres-more-earthquakes-style-man-man-marking) along with similar quotes. To me, this (Almeyda) attitude enables Fisher to continue to sit on his fat wad without spending for great players - "Almeyda says he doesn't want stars". Of course, Fisher seems to have internalized this to mean: "Almeyda can make a silk purse out of USL castoffs", and that is the mentality behind this team. The fact that we made the quarterfinals is going to be heralded by the Quakes as proof this is working, and isn't it wonderful?!, when in reality: Just watch - the owner of a team that has only made the playoffs (in which at least 50% of all teams qualify) thrice in 12 years of ownership is not going to change a thing. 12/3 = 4, so this latest fiasco will satisfy Fisher's need for SOME success on the field through the 2024 season. Not only do we suck, be we (our owners) are okey dokey with that. What really sucks is being a Quakes fan, because you KNOW that we care so much more than our owner, who is so happy developing his property and padding his nest.
A thread on the obstacles to MLS becoming a successful selling league (something I wrote about on here a few years ago), and guess which team is last in squad value? Here are the top 4 Euro clubs in the last 5 years in net transfer income (sales - buys)1) Benfica +$388m2) Ajax +$254m3) RB Salzburg +$230m4) Sporting Lisbon +$200mWhat do these have in common? They're all giants in some of the lowest parity leagues in the world— Tutul Rahman (@tutulismyname) August 25, 2020 MLS parity can be described in the club value differential in the biggest in squad value (ATL - $57m) vs it's smallest (SJ - $15m). So that differential is 3.8xIn EPL it's 15x.But Eredivisie? It's 62x.In Liga NOS? It's 63x.In other words, these teams have the ability to— Tutul Rahman (@tutulismyname) August 25, 2020 sell their best talent and not have to immediately replace their level of play and still can easily beat the rest of their league and compete for trophies.In MLS, you cannot. So the tension in-between win now & develop talent to sell them is super heightened due to parity.— Tutul Rahman (@tutulismyname) August 25, 2020
Cool! In other words, we suck, and our owner cares about his team, OUR Team!!, less than any other owner. We are soooooo screwed. Go Quakes!! - Mark
Atlanta has 9 pts. (in 8 games) With a squad value of $57 million they have earned .157 points per $1 million of squad value. San Jose has 8 pts. (in 6 games) With a squad value of $15 million we have earned .533 points per million of squad value.
so great to be reflecting once again on the futility of fisherball! yay for signs of things slowly getting back to normal!
I like how you have limited the scope of your comparison to just this season, with Atlanta United in turmoil having just fired their coach and with their best player out all year with a torn ACL, instead of looking at say PPG for both teams since Atlanta entered MLS... Atlanta United since joining MLS: MLS Cup 2018 U.S. Open Cup 2019 Campeones Cup 2019
So, are you surmising that value is predicated on performance? If so, I wonder why we're still valued at something above $0...
I made a comparison dealing with that little bit of data that was provided. And I see it as pretty telling that all it took was for Atlanta to lose a coach and one player and they became pretty average.
Reportedly for $18 million, which is more than they paid for him. Reminder that this started with a series of tweets on MLS trying to become a selling league... Also worth noting that when I asked Jesse if there were any plans to sell Vako back to Europe at some point, he said that was not something they had considered when signing him.