There is obviously a lot of violence going on down there, but, I have spent quite a deal of time over the years in Guadalajara (work related) and am always asked, "Aren't you afraid to go there?". I usually take long walks at night after dinner when I am there and have never had a problem. Some years ago, though, we had a few of our counterparts from Mexico come up to San Jose for training. The day they arrived at our facility, we all heard about the shootings at Sandy Hook. Then, to make matters worse, they couldn't go back to their hotel that night, which was next to the Great Mall in Milpitas, because there was a bomb threat at the mall and the whole area was cordoned off. They couldn't wait to get back home.
Villarreal's victory over ManU in the Europa League yesterday shows what a well-run small team can do. They has been amazingly successful for many years given that they are a small club with a small budget--make that a tiny budget compared to the likes of ManU. They also have also had a consistent playing style across coaches and player changes. I think all that comes from having an owner that knows what he wants to do and how to do it. Small clubs around the world should learn from them. From villarrealusa.com: "Villarreal took on a team who outspends them by hundreds of millions of euros, whose shares are traded on the stock market, who in recent years have owned the world transfer record and who betrayed football to join the European Super League. They contested that icon of football commercialism largely with free signings, players who had represented Villarreal in Segunda, and an 18 year old kid from our very own academy. Villarreal was high level football at its most sustainable, exactly what every less monied club could hope to be."
And that’s what I’ve wanted the Quakes to be for many years. Be smart, be creative, and define a club style of play that transcends coaching regimes and even GM regimes. I even wrote Jesse a long message about it. It would have to come from him initially but yes ideally it would need to be higher than that, because Jesse’s only going to be GM for so long. We have a style of play now but it’s different than Stahre which was different from Kinnear which was different from Yallop, etc.
Villareal is the team we signed Espinoza from, and he didn't get a single first team appearance the entire time he was there.
In MLS any team can turn things around in a season or two. In the worst case you might need to wait for a few bad contracts to expire. Who would have expected the Columbus Crew to win MLS Cup the year after they were expected to be relocated? Who would expect an expansion club to win the MLS cup or supporters shield in 2 years? Those are amazing stories, but in MLS they're routine. Relative to the wealth of the club owners, every team in MLS is a small budget team. There is no Man City or Barca in MLS. The spending differences between teams are relatively small and don't necessarily correspond to the wealth of ownership, size of city, or even club revenue. There is really no reason for an MLS club to go 10 years without even coming close to winning something.
While there are spending differences in MLS, it comes down to more like 2x vs. say 10x that you might find in some other leagues. So it comes down mostly to being smart. That's why I always emphasize the "smart" part.
Yes though I’d argue that acquiring good talent for the $ and developing team spirit is part of being smart. And to be fair I rate our team high in team spirit right now (though it was bad under Stahre and so-so under Dom). Almeyda does that very well. Talent for the $ - we’re not doing so great. We actually partly overcome weak talent with team spirit.
The point is, even though Villareal is considered a "small" team, they were still too big for Espinoza.
Looking at estimated market values on transfermarkt: Man United: 782.93m Villareal FC: 272.47m LAFC: 73.26m SJE: 22.41m If we assume the market value perfectly represents the quality of each team (which of course it doesn't) then it's more likely for Villareal to beat Man U than for SJE to beat LAFC. Villareal is a bigger club than I thought they might be - their spending limit is the 5th largest in La Liga. https://www.statista.com/statistics...-football-from-the-league-in-spain-2015-2016/
My intuition is that it's not entirely linear like that. We can see that ManU is 3x Villareal and LAG is 3x SJE, or we can say that the ManU / Villa differential is 500M and the Gals / Quakes differential is 50M. You can acquire several world class elite players for $500M.
I would guess you're right that it's not linear, but my guess is that it's a steep curve up and then levels off at some point. So the 50m at the low end is a steeper curve than the 500m at the top of the graph. The other point is that I would assume Man U's budget has bought them a much deeper roster. If Villareal was able to play their best starting 11 the quality difference on the pitch might not be that great. i.e. Man U's money is sitting on the bench. LAFC's money is almost entirely on the pitch - Vella, Rossi, Rodriguez. If they aren't able to play those guys the Quakes all of a sudden match up in quality.
Good to know! For those #Quakes74 fans wondering, scoring just one goal in our past five games is not the worst stretch the club has had. One time previously the club scored 0 over a 5 game stretch. Also 3 other times SJ scored just once over a 5 game stretch— Quakes2024 (@sjeq74) June 21, 2021
Sometimes I think our owner is one-eyed Willy. He certainly has similar predilections vis-à-vis his treasure...
Ok, I think we got the price per point that we want now we just need more points. And we did this without an academy that cranks out million dollar players. I'm posting this in small team just because I have no idea where else it would go. EDIT: link to reddit post where I got the graph from: https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/commen.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 EDIT: Apparently this graph is based on the transfermarkt's estimated roster value, not how much each team actually spent.
Too bad the stadium concessions don't conform to this. I don't have any data to support this, but I would be surprised if the price of concessions at PPP aren't among the highest in MLS.
One reason I'm glad I'm not local anymore. I can at least take a break and go watch a competent D2 team play in the SD Loyal (even if Baby Judas is their head coach and admittedly a ballsy one at that). Bay Area fans don't even have that option with the Oakland Roots recent turf travails.