Post-match: FC Dallas - San Jose Earthquakes (Saturday, 2/24) postgame thread [R]

Dante Sealy (No. 11). Photo: FC Dallas.

 

where did I say that? I mean they ended up not needing him but it’s always better to have your new players ready to go on opening day if at all possible, obviously.

it was nice that ours were all ready to go last night, except for our new CB.

 

I think he is a player that needs space. Don’t think he’d do well in a more crowded central midfield context. He can really fly too making long off the ball runs. There was one play where he was making a run and he looked like he could blow by everybody. I saw that in his games in Norway and wasn’t sure it would translate in MLS but I think it will.

 

Interesting - we didn’t notice the attacker being waved on to the field. But waving someone on to a potentially offside position is probably not a good idea…

 

Tell a countries embassy that...

 

wth are you talking about?

 

Thats why Dallas didnt have a DP last night same for us and other clubs. Visa issues. The off season is very short. Be patient foo.

 

1) Yes, Petar Musa's arrival was delayed. Dallas didn't have their $8 million DP because it sounds like he was getting married and trying to make arrangements for his wife to come over, etc., as I've said several times, these things happen. So again, what's your point?

2) Quakes didn't have a DP ready to go because we haven't signed one. Two very different things. Quakes players that arrived on a transfer? They were ready to go. The player who wasn't ready...the one we signed as a free agent, maybe we could've signed him earlier and had him ready...because he was a free agent and not bound by transfer window rules.

3) It's not just this past offseason, Leitch has been with the Quakes for 15 years. He's been GM this time around since 2021. He's literally had years to build us a competitive team. Stop making excuses for the man. Quakes fans deserve better, our town deserves better, our players and coaches, they deserve better too, foo.

4) Quakes fans should never tell other Quakes fans to be patient. We've had John Fisher as team owner for 16 years. 16 long, fruitless years. And we've been a pitifully small team the whole way.

 

I'm patient. I cant control anything.

We will always be a 'small' team.

Im not an apologist. But the facts are there. He has been trying to clear cap space since 2021. We dumped a lot of guys from the Almedya regimen, sold a HG for 4m and were assessing and recreating the ship from a barge.

Were not the only inept team in this league. 1 game doesnt define the season. We will win some, we will lose some we will tie some.

Its not Chris Leitchs fault Almedya, Kinnear and others have failed. Nor is it John Fishers. Lets get beyond this cracker jack argument.

Do I think we will be bangers in modern day MLS with big time money, big time players and big time marketing? Not at all.

Do I think we can find ourselves competitive for stretches of seasons like Nashville, Kansas City, New England and Houston? Yes, with an occsional break through and real shot at the trophy? Yes. In MLS anyone can win the playoffs. Thats the inner beauty of MLS. I watch so much soccer from EPL to 4th division African and South American leagues to the UPSL here locally, I find the MLS to be beautiful, imperfect by perfection. We have MLS Elites, Mid Card Teams, Jobbers and Cinderella Stories. We dont have to see the same teams every single year win the Cup.

We had a superior roster twice before and got eliminated by the lowest rank. In 2010 we were 1 deflected goal away from an MLS Cup trip, Almeyda had us indpired when he first came, but his highly progressive mouth and style couldnt translate to MLS success long term. Luchi needs to adapt more.

So we will be ok. If we absolutley suck by July below 10th then ill start the f*ck Leitch talk

 

Morales was partially at fault for the game winning goal. He vacated the defensive mid position to push way high up and high press their back line, he was at that point the highest quakes player on the field and higher than our striker. Then he ends up behind the play the rest of the way all the way up to their goal because he was so high up he couldn't recover in time.

 

We can agree to disagree, I'm fine with that.

 

We still had plenty of people behind the ball. I think the biggest problem was Akapo moving to the center / top of the box and leaving his feet to try to tackle or block a shot. That left Sealy open on his side. Yes, Akapo might have been trying to cover for Morales to some extent. But we had I think Baldi and Yueill standing right around there as well, so we had enough people to cover the middle. We complain that we are playing for a tie, and then if someone like Morales takes a bit of a chance to try to help win the game, and we complain about that too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Morales is an old slow 34 year old. He's not the guy who should be high pressing in that situation. That should be the younger quicker baldisimo. Baldisimo cannot be trusted to shield the back line as the #6. He has proven time and again he is too soft in the middle. Morales is like a Gruezo replacement he should stay at home and own zone 14 and shield the back line.

 

Morales may be old but he’s not any slower than Baldi, and he’s much better attacking with the ball than Baldi. Again we’ve got people here always complaining about how we’re not playing to win, including people liking your post. And so a guy takes a chance to try to win the game and we complain about that too.

It’s even possible that Luchi had assigned Morales to the attacking role of the 3 CM’s, in which case he should have been pressing. That’s part of the role of that position in Luchi’s system. Morales may have a rep as a dmid but he’s better with the ball at his feet than any one of our CMs except maybe Jackson. We have only one sort of CAM on the team right now so in the meantime we shouldn’t be surprised to see Yueill or Morales in that role until we get help. At that point in the game if it’s Yueill vs. Morales as to who plays the more attacking role I’m going with the fresher legs. If Morales were to win the ball there he could play Pellegrino thru. Those are the kinds of things you should be trying to do if you’re serious about trying to win the game.

if you’re willing to take chances to try to win the game then you also have to be able to live with the times you get burned by it. It’s part of the deal and you can’t have it both ways.

 

The goal was unfortunate, we had enough guys back to normally stop that play...but nobody can know where a deflected ball will go. You just hope it doesn't quickly fall to their guy for an easy opportunity, which is what happened.

 

Very much the same as the goal Benji scored. A shot (deflected too?) saved by the keeper and Benji took advantage at the back post.

We can almost trace every goal to a mistake or a miss by a player if we really wanted to after the fact. It's kind of like how far VAR should go back to review a decision. If I remember correctly, if not for Benji to lose the ball on the right near midfield facing our own goal, there would be no corner kick eventually. With no corner kick, there would be no Dallas first goal. What I am trying to say is sometimes it is a moot point to find the responsible party.

Whether it is mistake, luck bounce, right place at right time or moment of genius, it doesn't matter. The key here is in general the more offense you can generate, there are more of these opportunities and you are more likely to score and consequently win. We just do not create enough offense to see these moments. Nothing new.

 

Then that's on Luchi? Why would you have one of your slowest players pressing? If we're finally not going to settle for ties then have a game plan for that. Maybe Jackson at 50% is still better/faster than Morales at 100%? We're not at the practices during the week but I'd figure that a 33/34 yr old defensive mid probably wouldn't be a great idea to be pressing at the final moments when a turnover can lead to a break and goal while the player is nowhere near getting back to do his defensive duties.
Luchi wasn't asked why Morales was so high up field pressing and who should have taken his position....
all we're doing is speculating, who knows really. Maybe morales saw something and took it upon himself to try.

 

When Skahan went out, Yueill took his role, Morales more of the 8, and Gruezo / Baldo the 6. Yueill was doing the front line pressing at that point - that's the role of that player in Luchi's system. Morales would occasionally come up from behind and press a bit also because - 1) we want to try to win the game? (oh no, can't have that!), and 2) fresh legs.

On the play leading to the goal, Yueill was obviously completely gassed. He was barely jogging around. Morales took up the slack and pressured the ball a bit but then got back into position as the ball went out to the wing where Akapo was defending. Yueill never got close to the play in the box, he was just barely jogging. So no, I don't fault Morales no the goal. He took it upon himself to pressure the ball a bit and then got more or less back into position as the 8. Dallas didn't even attack down the middle in the space he vacated. The ball went out to the wing.

Here's Akapo laying out to try to try tackle the ball, leaving Sealy unmarked on his side as Rodrigues runs in to the defend the center of the box.



And here's Morales in the box defending, actually deeper than Baldi, who's supposed to be the #6 guarding the back line and who is inexplicably further out and wide of the play.



I would say the Quakes defending looked a little lackadaisical overall on that last play. But the biggest culprit IMO is Akapo for running out of position to try a tackle and leaving Sealy wide open on his side. Maybe he was the least lackadaisical, but made a poor decision. We just needed bodies between the Dallas players and the goal at that point - it was about the last play of the game.

 

Michael B was the d-mid, not Morales.

And Michael screwed up. A lot of our players, especially defenders were gassed at the end and losing focus. You can’t allow that many attacks and not give up multiple goals.

We would have to know Morales’ specific assignment, but he came on for Jack. Michael came on for Gruezo.

Many of our players screwed the pooch on that last goal.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

I agree with you. But Baldisimo was playing the #6 and Morales was more of a #8.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Yes, if you watch the minutes where it was Yueill, Morales, and Gruezo / Baldi, it was 10/8/6 respectively.

 

Someone one Reddit claimed that for the 294 minutes Baldi played, there were 7 goals scored against in 10 matches . That is one goal per 42 min he played.

We can probably build similar stats for any player. Any late sub may have similar or worse stats and our team was giving up goals late too often. There may or may not be correlation to an individual.

Regardless, based on eye test, I am not a big fan of Baldi coming in late in the game, whether to push for a goal or to secure a result. He is third string on a mediocre team and his plays show.

We sometimes have to play him because of injuries or suspension. We don't have much depth in midfield if Skahan or Niko is starting. TT?

 

Maybe we should just rotate the #10 (to see if we can find any chemistry) while we're waiting for Leitch to sign us a DP. Let's see if we can find anyone who can link up with Jebo, maybe create a few more chances.

I'd start with Benji. He's been on fire lately. Scored more than anyone over those preseason games, and scored our only goal in Dallas!! TBH, I'd rather he start again at LW since he's killing it these days, but how does Luchi keep Pellegrino on the bench to start the game Saturday? He's our biggest and best (new) hope for upping our GF. But we need to keep red hot Benji on the field too, so start him at #10. Give him 60 minutes, if he's not linking up well, creating some chances, sub in TT as CAM...lets see what he can do. If neither of those guys work out, give Skahan some more minutes. Hopefully Niko will be ready to go soon, he's our most experienced CAM these days.

 

Baldi is pretty careful with the ball - rarely turns it over, but seems to consistenly lose challenges, which is not good for a #6. There was one play I remember where he lost the challenge, and the guy got around him, heading straight for zone 14. I think it's mostly a moot point because when Niko is available again, Baldi will have a hard time making the bench.

 

For me in all fairness, I think the team played just as I expected they would. They looked about the same from from the last game in 2023, I am curious to see how we get our new guys into the starting 11 and how the team changes progressively.

I understand the lineup choices for game 1, familiarity, and maybe game 2 against the Galaxy we see the same or 1 / 2 changes.

The only player who was absolutely useless game #1 was Ebobisse. I liked Pelligrino and Judd's looks as a 1/2 or a 1/1 more than Ebobisse as our point man. I think as the season wears on, Ebobisse's minutes go down, PelG and Judd go up. I can see Judd becoming a target man and PelG running under him.

Skahan and Rodrigues outside of Skahan's confusion on the Kikanovic goal, he was also very un inspiring but I'm not surprised, I know he's not a everyday MLS starter and he shouldn't be at all.