LEAGUES CUP 2024: San Jose Earthquakes - Club Necaxa (Thursday, 8/8) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

I liked Nexaca's #8 , Augustin Palavicino. Turns out he is a 27 year old Argentine CAM who just (June) went on loan from River Plate for a year. Looks like he has also played the Yueill role as well. TransferMarkt puts his value at $1.8 million euros. He showed good vision, nice ball control, accurate passing, and worked on the defensive side as well.

 

Good post.

A lot of the mid table and low table Mexican teams are slow, and extremely comparable to 2000-2010 Major League Soccer Elite, which is below the standard of the worst MLS team today. It's one of the main reasons the Mexican National Team has regressed over the past 20 years. Very bad youth development, below average rosters, level of competition isn't good at all, bottom feeders beat each other up and then get beat up by the top of the table and money/politics are destroying Mexican Soccer. The best thing they did was eliminate Pro/Rel.

The only starter Necaxa didn't use was goalkeeper, Gudino wouldn't have let in 5, but letting in 2 isn't out of the question. They still would have lost. Ian was well prepared this game to press and hold pressure on Necaxa and let off the gas at the right times and let them press to catch breath. Overall good performance.

LAFC are coming off a game where they could have and should maybe have tied or lost against Austin. Austin just couldn't find the net and Lloris was having a career game in goal. They dominated most of the game. LAFC though will be fired up if Giroud makes his debut (I have a huge magnet of his on my fridge - I might have to take down for superstitious reasons). But we shall see. Pellegrino MUST work on his power when shooting, his placement shots are way the hell too weak and his first touch is ass. If Jebo is catching fire then good. Hopefully Ian is prepared.

 

I noticed Hernán and someone on Necaxa with a warm greeting before the game. Not sure if it was Palavecino, but it probably was, since they should know each other from River. But hey, what about Hernán convincing a few of his friends to join the Quakes. “We lose a lot but the weather’s nice and the pay is good.” And in Palavecino’s case, he can’t be thinking the Quakes are that bad after last night.

 

Don't worry in about 6 more years it will just be screaming ,and angry.

 

..and 6 more years it will be you screaming and angry.

 

Good call out about Pellegrino. There are some nice things to call about his game (timing or runs, positioning, and playing with others). However, it's super frustrating to watch him to try to pass the ball into the goal and his first is poor. Based upon his highlights from Norway, I don't think that he was penalized as much (I.e. more space and time).

LOL. His assist to Jebo was actually a pass to Rodrigues who had stopped his run.

 

Pellegrino is so afraid to get hit, MLS is the wrong league for him. In Norway they allow you much more space and time on the ball vs here where defenders close in on you for the hit. Probably why Pellegrino never found his way into the Bundesliga or England. Finesse isn't suited for those leagues.

He does do some things really well, runs and positioning as you said. But I wouldn't put money on him to bang home goals.

 

Did not see the match. Just now watched the highlights on mls website. Dam the Quakes looked awesome in the 7-minute highlight reel.

 

The EQ should move to La Liga MX. If they move today they will be just in time to win the 2024 Apertura!

 

In his post game comments, Ian said that he told Hernán to get rid of the ball sooner. Not to try fancy stuff, to play more simply. Hernán did exactly that, and the results were awesome!

Ian had one-on-one chats with several of the guys. The results were impressive.

So I credit Ian with the win. And the guys played their butts off.

So I'm hopeful that we will play better going forward.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

It should be obvious to everyone (including Hernán) that he needs to get rid of the ball sooner. So I'm not sure that it was Ian telling him and it was like, "Oh, really? I never thought of that!" The real test will be when we play a good MLS team again like LAFC and there's a lot more pressure on the ball again.

 

No. It was Ian telling him: You’re great, but you can’t do it all. Use your teammates, pass the ball.

Some players will try to carry the team, but you have to use your teammates.

For comparison, how many one footed players do we see? Are they not smart enough to know that they must use both feet? Did they not have coaches long ago who told them use both feet? Practice with your bad foot?

Same thing here. He needed reminding to depend on his teammates, to use them. And Necaxa blow, so they gave us tons of space. That helped too.

Hernán has been trying to do too much on his own. But the game against Los Rayos should convince him to pass the ball more. We ought to be a better team going forward, even if we lose to LaFck.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Ian mentioning the 1-1 feedback to Hernán and Jebo was insightful. I mean I don't think the club overhauled the player development setup overnight, so maybe Russell has a more direct and individualized communication style. Maybe Luchi is missing that aspect - in hindsight perhaps he shows his players too much deference and the results suffer, even as he seems well liked as a person.

 

Hernán knows he’s been losing the ball too much. I don’t think he needed to be told that. He knows that the way to lose it less often is to get rid of it sooner. These guys understand soccer. I think it had more to do with the opponent giving him more space and possibly not having scouted him - that he’s the guy you need to converge to double of triple team when he has the ball. We’ll see how things go against LAFC, but I think we may see some regression towards the mean.

 

If if took until now for someone, either Luchi or Ian, to tell Hernán not to play so much hero ball, that’s a pretty serious dereliction of duty! We could all see what was happening for many weeks.

I don’t think Ian is hard angling for the permanent job but doesn’t hurt to tie some positive performance of a player to something you did. Opportunities for that may be few and far between with the Quakes so doesn’t hurt to take credit when you have a chance.

Alex Morgan on The Aftershock got carried away as he tends to do and said Hernán will
be the best or near best 10 in the league and then will go for some huge transfer. I don’t know. There are a lot of great 10’s in the league. He could be top 10 though and we could get good transfer $ for him but I don’t think we’re looking at 8 figures. I mean before this last game there was some debate about whether or not Hernán was a semi-bust or a disappointment. Not my position but let’s not get carried away on the basis of one great game against a poor defending team either.

 

Agreed. Enjoy the big win but do not get carried away. The 4 attackers, Jebo, Hernan, Espinosa and Pelle, did seem to become more fluid and dynamic with their runs and positions under Ian. Let's see if that continues to develop and also if it works against better teams in MLS.

 

I think everyone needs to revaluate their perception of the coach and team. It's one game, against an opponent who traveled a long way to get here and had short rest. This is still the same Quakes we've watched be the worst team in MLS all year.

We played well because they put no pressure on us, gave acres of space between their lines and didn't try very hard. End sentence.

Ian has done something to help the defense so perhaps we'll be the second or third worst MLS team this year.

I was totally wrong on JY's goal... it was Jebo who created the space. SodaWater created space on Hernan's goal.

 

It's the nature of fandom to have wildly swinging opinions of the team and the players based on......the last game.

 

and don't forget the teenage years......

 

Adolescence transitioning seamlessly into toxic masculinity? For a daughter I’d say 0-11 or so is good then all heck breaks lose and things don’t start to get better until around mid-20’s

 

I’m looking for positive signs.

Our team have been total crap this season, ant sign of improvement is welcome. We have been playing better in Leagues Cup, so that’s good. In the games before that we also showed some modest signs of playing better.

I’m not looking at wins and ties at this point, I’m looking for better organization. Evidence that our defenders know their assignments, signs of cooperation and understanding by our offense.

And we’re mentally weak. Sure, we’ve been screwed by the refs several times this season, but instead of getting angry, our guys have gotten depressed. In many games, we’ve seen our guys get that deer in the headlights stare. They just know they are going to fall apart and give up two or three goals late. Since Ian took over, we haven’t seen that, at least not lately. Our guys are better organized. We’ve turned in solid 90 minute games. Thanks an improvement.

Baby steps. That’s all I’m looking for. This season has been epically bad. So even tiny bits of improvement are good. I’m hoping that we can avoid the wooden spoon this year. That’s all I’m hoping for. If we are better than our ‘18 season, but still worst in the league, I’ll consider that a win.

Go Quakesfans!!