Columbus - San Jose (Saturday, 7/9) pregame thread

Link doesn't work.

 

New Holes to fill this week...

Califf and Robinson.

I never saw anyone give an answer on what Grey really did when Califf left but I would assume Cochran is going in for Califf, Grey into the middle too?

Aliosi for Grey?

Seems that the holes for Davis and DeRo are filled by Chung and Clark just fine, no need to change there. (O'Rourke fills for Clark and Mullen for Chung).

 

Ekelund4life - while I question your judgment I admire your courage to take the vote with Drum'r Boy that San Jose would shut out Dallas. How long do you have to go with this avatar and Sig?

 

2 weeks. No biggie. He would've gotten it much worse than this, had we picked up the clean sheet. At least it lasted ... 3 minutes ...

 

Woohoo! My first Quakes game of the season! I have been looking forward to this game for 5 months! I can't wait!

As for the on-field stuff, I will be very bitter if the boys don't pull out a win against a very poor Cbus side. We may be missing ERob, Califf, BD, DeRo, and Chinger, but they are missing something bigger: drive. I don't know if it is the coaching (as most in town would suggest) or if the team just isn't clicking but the play is very lackluster. They have been playing dump-and-run all year, just feeding the balls over the defense and trying to connect and, needless to say, it hasn't been working well. The Crew will also be without K-Mart and Frankie, so whatever they were bringing to the table (which wasn't much IMO) isn't there.

I am a bit worried about Rodriguez. He has looked dangerous a couple times and he has the speed to take off with the ball up the wing before anyone can catch him. Other than that, the only thing I am concerned about is history. The Quakes have never won a regular season game at CCS, and only pulled out a tie their first time here (when they were technically the Clash). We know they can win here in the post-season, so maybe the boys should just come in with a November mentality.

And, somewhat OT, but does the team travel home after each game? It makes more sense (in my head at least) for them to come here straight from Dallas, and then go directly to Boston. It seems like it would be much less wear and tear on their systems, although it would definitely suck being away from home for three weeks.

 

I'm pretty sure it worked before, it's just not your usual "Discuss" type link.

 

Link works. Just unnecessary.

 

Boston?


The "Discuss" link didn't work and now it's fixed.


It should point to another page that has a Discuss link which should come back to this one...

 

The team travelled home from Dallas Sunday morning, leave Thursday for Cbus. I believe they come home in between Cbus and DC. Earlier this year when they had Colorado in the middle of the week and then KC on Saturday, they went straight from Colorado to KC, but otherwise they have come home in between the games.

Whether they come home after Cbus or not, it's a tough week. Either two long airplane flights or else 5 days on the road away from home during the week. That's why I think it will be very hard to win at DC United, after being on the road the previous two weeks.

For Saturday, even if we are missing Califf and Robinson, I'd expect us to hold the Crew scoreless. Assuming O'Rourke starts again in the middle, that really strengthens our defense up the middle, particularly with how well Clark is playing. So they should be able to help cover for the loss of Califf and/or Eddie.

The only question to me is how many goals the Quakes can score. The Crew defense has given up its share of goals, but they do have 4 shutouts in 9 home games. The good news is that they're missing Hejduk and Martino which should help us offensively. But they've got some new life with putting Walker in the goal, and they only gave up one goal to DC United this weekend.

I hope the Quakes romp, but I fear it will be tight battle.

 

Sorry... brain fart... I meant DC.

 

Oh, yeah... Anyone else coming out to the game? Plenty of good seats are still available!

 

3 points would be nice

 

I think they do come back to SJ. I've often wondered the same thing. It would be better for team bonding, and less tiring, as you say, if they just went to the next destination, but with many of the guys having families, being fathers, that wouldn't work out too well.

 

Can't say this will be an easy game, but given how the Crew have struggled this season after having the best regular season record (Supporters Shield) in 2004 on paper, this might be another opponent to grab points from although we always seem to have trouble at Crewville during the regular season. As losgatos fan mentioned, we will be without Danny Califf sitting out due to red card suspension, and Eddie Robinson who always seems to pull up lame.

Hey, we're on a roll stringing out the wins and draws so even if we can pick up a point, we should be sitting pretty on the top three in the west. Cheers!

 

OK, this picture just doesn't look right....I'm sure that's Brian's foot, but the angle of the picture sure makes it look like he's either Gumby or else his leg has been disconnected from his body.....

 

That raises an interesting question. There are 3 points at stake in every game played. If the two teams tie, one point is awarded to each team. What becomes of the third point??? Is the government stockpiling them in a warehouse somewhere??? Are they being deposited by MLS in some off-shore account to schmooze AEG??? What becomes of those points?

It's things like this that keep me up nights.

Hmmm.