No Chofis?! No way. Chofis is going to start, probably every game until he either leaves or we bind him to our club forever. Personally, I think we'd be better off if Chofis leaves and we get a slice of his transfer pie. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
Looks pretty close to my guess... same front six, just two different defenders. It's not that Chofis won't be starting or playing significant minutes, I think like with mine Matt Doyle is just acknowledging that the Quakes will eventually ease him out of the lineup if he's heading back to Chivas in the summer.
Our original deal for him included us getting a slice of the transfer if he went elsewhere while still under contract to us. I don't know if that's still true or not. But that was the word when we signed him. So he'd need to go elsewhere while still nominally on our roster. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
I can see Almeyda favoring Calvo over Beason and also Remedi over Judson...which would irritate the hell out of me. My front foot home opener line up...3-4-3....I'll include Judson where he should be instead of Remedi...... Lopez and Espinoza as wing backs. Chofis free to go where ever the hell he wants...basically the free role like he played at forward last season...tucking in underneath the forwards...finding pockets...hopefully now to combo with Jamiro... Yueill and Judson to drop into the central back line in transition to protect against the counter...need to cover if CB gets pulled out to flank. I'd rather have Beason instead of Calvo...a Calvo/Lopez left side could be shakey. But Almeyda will play Calvo if he's fit...I don't mind the defensive risk with the attack minded wingbacks...if Yueill and Judson drop in to cover the middle to make a back 4 .........Cowell............Jebo...........Chofis .....................Jamiro........... Lopez................................................Espinoza .....................Judson.............................. .............................Yueill........................ .............Calvo.....................Nathan......... .........................JT..................................
Three games is a very small sample size, and yet... the Quakes are looking like the worst team in 2022 MLS so far, by quite some distance. In the top right quadrant are all of their opponents so far, NYRB, Columbus, Philly (3 of the top 5-6 teams)... can't say if playing three good teams is making the Quakes look worse than they would otherwise, or if the Quakes are making their opponents look better than they really are. The teams everyone expected to be bad (Cincy, Inter Miami, Charlotte) are all pretty close to the X axis... The four teams currently in CCL (New England, NYCFC, Seattle, Montreal) seem likely to improve when they no longer have to rotate for that competition... (link) So here's a chart evaluating teams exclusively based on adjusted defense vs non penalty goals per 90 minutes. #MLS 1/11 pic.twitter.com/z0sxIQakjA— MLS N XL (@xl_mls) March 15, 2022
The Earthquakes position on this chart reminds me of the results of a personality profile we took at an Institute of Internal Auditors meeting in the early 1990s. About 150 dots aligned with the rest of MLS and me standing out by my own. That's when I determined a career change was necessary, but I'm far from sanguine that the Earthquakes ownership will determine this means serious change is needed, based solely on 14 years of history being cheap, non-reactive, and smugly complacent...
At the home opener, a friend of mine said to our other friend: soccer is all about setting up passing triangles. I told him: you're going to be disappointed. We don't support our play with the ball. We have this one-v-one mentality that just doesn't work. Whether it's because our guys aren't good enough to pull it off, or because it's just stupid, or because other teams tend to double-team whoever has the ball doesn't matter. The fact is, this shit doesn't work. We need to move to provide outlet passes for whoever has the ball, and I don't mean backward outlet passes. We're organized vertically and there is very little horizontal play. My pal is right, passing triangles are good. We need to support whoever has the ball, and swarm to the ball when the enemy have it. This bullshitido stuff just isn't work. But Almeyda will stick with it to the end. I'm a grump. I may never be happy with what we're doing. (I was happy in '12 and in '05, and in '03 and '01. There have been other moments where I was happy with our efforts. So maybe I can be happy with the team.) I am very frustrated that four seasons in, we have not progressed one iota toward a recognizable system. We don't appear to be making progress. And we continue to suck in our results. Go Quakesfans!! Almeyda OUT!! - Mark
At the beginning of the season it feels like its always the same song and dance; season previews come out and have us near last, fans here say that they're being too harsh, the season starts, and we look terrible.
We don't always stay terrible though. We have ups and downs. 2019 was a terrible start but midseason we were one of the best teams in MLS, 2020 was a terrible start but we were semifinals or quarterfinals in MLSIsBack. Unfortunately the downs tend to win out over the ups and we tend to wind up around 10th place.
We keep getting off to bad starts, most seasons. That puts us in a hole and the rest of the season is tough. We need to win out of the gate. That means playing a system that fits our players and playing some pre-season matches against other MLS clubs!! We need to be ready for the speed and skill level of MLS, and playing against minor league sides doesn't provide that. And again, we need a system that fits the players that we have, not the players that coach fantasizes about having. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
Frank and Dom used to talk about maintaining our shape a lot. I thought it was pretty dumb, but contrasted with Almeyda's no shape at all, I'm beginning to see their point. On defense, we are easily pulled out of position, partly because our outside defenders are way the hell up the field, and partly because we're still trying to man-mark, which means that the second runner is almost always unmarked. This is problematic, at least. We need to keep our defenders home more. Leave the attacking to the attackers. And we have to stop this man-marking madness. It's not working. Every team in MLS has sussed it out. And on offense, we need to look for the quick counter. Our speed should be an advantage, instead our attack is slow and plodding and mostly without any shape, and thus, we don't get any shots on goal. This mess is unacceptable. We need a new coach. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
When coaches talk about focusing on maintaining shape, they are primarily defensive coaches. It works great when you have some talent up top who can create chances on their own or make you pay in the counterattack. Worked great when we had Donovan and DeRo, even with Cerritos. When neither of them had that talent on the roster, you become boring ball with hope to win games 1-0. You are correct that it's not working today for the Quakes. MA has the same problem as Yallop and Kinear with a lack of talent on the roster. Last year, he did make a change by going away from man marking and focusing on defense in the middle part of the season. We were getting a lot of ties and not giving up huge chunks of goals. Towards the end, MA changed to get attempt get goals as we were slowly losing the points to make the playoffs. This year, MA has given up. He will play the style that he likes and show everyone that his roster doesn't support it. Yes, he could get more shape, but we would just disguising an average roster at best with a bunch of ties and a few wins. Either way it's a "no win" situation for us fans. I know that you and some others think that we have a better roster and will look better under a new coach. I suspect that we would look better (as most teams do with a new coach), but it will be short lived. You have to be a really good coach to make up for an average roster. MA is not that coach and I doubt that the Quakes will find one.
I agree with your whole post except this very last part. Matias has consistently had a below average roster to work with and he's managed to put together some decent runs, established some belief and confidence amongst his players, and for periods each year, had the team punching above it's weight. for me that's the hell of the situation, we aren't going to have the opportunity to see what Matias could do with an average or an above average roster. you have to build a competitive roster in the offseason and get off to a strong start to have any chance of a great season, in MLS. Matias has never had the that. the last three off seasons have all been laughable - this season was well and truly over before it started, nobody picked the Quakes to do much, as per usual.
What I think we need is more shape defensively and more fluidity offensively. JT is a good GK, maybe even very good. Nathan is a very good defender. Calvo is a good defender. Beason is a good defender. And that’s it for the CB’s. Marcos and Paul are decent outside backs, they are serviceable. Shea is better as an outside middie, but he can play left back. TT is an OK outside defender, but he’s better in central midfield. And then we’re out of defenders. (I’m not counting Oskar and Walls.) We need more good to very good defenders. But no matter what, we need better defensive shape!! We cannot get away with one or two defenders back and a single d-mid and hope to stop a counter attack. And then our midfield needs more defined roles, except for Chofis. And we need two strikers, maybe three. And Jebo needs to ride the pine. We don’t have an offense because our attackers are two far from goal and too wide to generate much, and Jebo isn’t getting it done. Let’s play Benji and Cade as strikers. And we need to move to the open space!! How do professional players not get that!! But improvement has to start with better shape in the back. And maybe we bench Jamiro for either TT or Haji. Almeyda sucks. Yes we need a better roster, but Almeyda wouldn’t know what to do with better players in any case. Go Quakesfans!! Mark
I have seen a guy the Quakes found that did very well with what I’d consider to be an “average” roster. He just did things in a different way. https://www.uslchampionship.com/news_article/show/924611
The Quakes by this measure remain by far the worst team in the league statistically, and their next opponent Austin is just about even with NYRB at the other end of the spectrum.
There really are an almost unlimited number of ways to analyze/chart the Earthquakes' performance vis-a-vis the competition, but interestingly every single way seems to validate the utter suckage we've witnessed so far, relieved only by the second half of the Columbus game...
Saw this on Reddit. I wonder if it is from 2021. We suffered the most fouls in the league. I can think of a few reasons. 1. Remedi 2. Our slow build up/possession and individual focused style attract the physical plays 3. Physical plays in the name of aggressive press can be high reward and low risk in general We are a rather "soft" team. Also, if I remember correctly, most of our red and yellow cards are not from consistent and systematic fouls which in some way can help our games. Our cards are from one or two silly but obvious fouls which the refs have to show the cards and we don't gain anything from the silly aggressiveness. Now another take is that we have played NYRB, MN and Philly so far this season. Three of our four games were against the top 5 fouling teams. We lost all three. We know we have all sorts of problems. Failure to deal with physical teams is one of them. On the other hand, we didn't commit that many fouls. I don't know if we are more gentlemen or we are just too slow to foul anyone. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SJEarthquakes/comments/tltgli/is_it_me_are_we_the_most_suffered_fouls_club/
The Quakes have been floppers for quite some time. Before Remedi it was Magnus and prior to him it was MPG. It’s lazy and frankly cynical. At least with Grey Goose on the field there is a chance to score on a free kick. Before it was pure time wasting. I think Almeyda has checked out. His body language and tone when he speaks now scream “I don’t care”. I doubt he’s putting much energy into practices these days. Maybe after he watches his daughter graduate he’ll be ready to move on. That’s the middle of June……