Los Angeles FC - San Jose Earthquakes (Sunday, 4/19) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

Re Floriani I think he will steadily improve. He's not fast but his decision making is the biggest weakness in his game right now...and I think that will improve with experience. He takes some horrific angles on plays...basically runs himself out of proper defensive position...overzealous trying to cut out passes...and his doesn't have the recovery speed to make up for those mistakes. I think he'll learn to read the game better set and himself up better to play against speed.

 

I'm more positive about Romney than some people are. I think it's pretty close between the 2 of them, but Roberts is better and still improving while Romney is aging so that gap will continue to expand.

 

Sounds crazy since Beas was a pretty solid Nats player, but I think Ricketts has the tools to potentially be a better all around player than Beas. But it will come down to how mentally tough Ricketts is...Beas was nails, really disciplined and dialed in.

 

Bruce already got rid of most of the Hispanics, so i can’t imagine him bringing in Chucky

 

I rewatched the game. During it, i couldn’t figure out why we were winning. Watching it a second time, i’d say we won because we made almost no mistakes. And LAFC just couldn’t put away their opportunities — they just weren’t sharp. Also, I think we have players who are pretty fast — in spurts. The fact that they don’t put on the jets every time makes them difficult to predict.

 

Also have the Quakes won everytime they wear the Grateful Dead jersey?
Maybe that’s key?

 

Mark Dos Santos, after the game, was saying stuff like, yeah, I could talk about how we had to play on Tuesday in a big CONCACAF game, but I'm not gonna talk about that. And I could talk about having to play at high altitude but I'm not gonna talk about that. And I could talk about having to travel to a hostile environment to play last week but I'm not gonna talk about that. And I could talk about having to play multiple weeks on short rest, but I'm not gonna talk about that, etc...

It wasn't that bad, but that's kinda how he started his comments. It was kind of a non-excuse excuse. But he basically said that they played like "shit" (his words) and were late to 2nd balls, not together on their press, etc. And then called it a bad day at the office. Nothing much in praise of the Quakes except maybe at the beginning when he said they thought it was going to be a tough game, which was probably mostly to give himself cover that "no we didn't take the game too lightly".

 

Their only goal was an own goal.

 

Yeah, maybe the biggest factor was the Grateful Dead jersey…

 

Just looked this up online....

I can't believe the Grateful Dead are 60 years old!

 

Probably before your time, Falvo!

 

Every single LAFC pod I've seen (there are a lot of them!) echoes the same sentiment. Basically like uhhhh i don't know much about San Jose but it can't be that they were good, it's San Jose after all....we (LAFC) were just totally ass. I mean we talk about KNBR hosts not knowing soccer but these people are posting under the pretense of being familiar with the game, it's kind of embarassing.

 

Yeah, I would have liked to hear Mark Dos Santos just say one nice thing about San Jose. Bruce seems to tip his hat to the other team after virtually every game, win or lose. I know Dos Santos wants to focus on what his team did wrong, but they weren't playing air either.

After our win over Vancouver Bruce said something like, well they're trying to accomplish greater things than us, or something like that - the implication that they're on a level higher than we are (which may not actually be so much the case).

 

MDS should have simply said: “The better team won today.”

 

The whole league and pundits are waiting for the bubble to burst...they look at our attack with young guys and Judd up top and think we're playing way over our heads, but they should be looking at our team speed and new found collective disciplined approach to defense. That's the foundation for a quality side. When you can go on the road in MLS and lock a team down you have the potential to do big things. If we can keep some key defensive players healthy the D should continue to get better with more experience...which is scary to think about since our D numbers look really solid. Imo, our attack looks great on the counter with our speed, we're doing well getting it done, but teams will adjust and i believe start playing a lower block against us minimizing counter opportunities...then we'll see if Bruce brings in a savvy 9 later in the season...So far so good...enjoying the ride.

 

It’s been a *long* time since we had a ride like this. 2005, 2012, and now maybe 2026, if we can keep it up at some level. It validates my contention that we could succeed if we got smarter and got a really good coach.

 

The 2005 and 2012 teams were supposed to suck, per the preseason prognosticators. So, too, the 2003 MLS champs.

 

Haha, it's amazing what winning does to fans perception. It wasn't long ago...end of last season and the off season that Bruce had lost his sh*t...was an MLS 1.0 relic and didn't have a clue how to put a team together...

 

so far this reminds me of 2012. We were one injury away from potentially taking the Championship...big Vic going down against LA doomed us. At the time a significant drop off from Vic to Hernandez and at that time in his career Opara. The same span we currently have with Munie to our other defenders... although i believe Roberts will be really solid but is still green...that lack of quality Defensive depth is the ominous dark place i try to keep out of my mind.

 

I was in "show me" mode this year. Not convinced he couldn't do it, but not convinced he could either.

I still question why he couldn't do this last year, at least towards the 2nd half by which time he had been able to assess the players. I don't think all the guys he's starting this year who didn't start last year all of a sudden got much better. I get it at the start of last year - you don't know the team, you get some MLS vets you know to kind of try to right the ship. But by mid-year he could have course corrected. I mean "addition by subtraction" sure, but OTOH many of the "addition by subtraction" players are players that Bruce himself added. There's a bit of "putting out the fire you started" here.

But yeah, he deserves a lot of credit for how the team is playing this year. Further cements his legacy, for sure, assuming we hold up reasonably well. I’m impressed.

 

he waited too long to put Munie in as a starter. And i think he was trying to keep the locker room somewhat intact with a few disgruntled players. He didn't have everybody on the same page in the second half of the season. Imo, he couldn't wait to send a few guys packing.

 

Yeah but a bit of a mystery why he re-signed Chicho for another few years unless he was just trying to get leverage on a future transfer fee.

 

I don't think there's any racism going on here but looking at the roster I don't see a single player from a Spanish-speaking central or south american country, or Caribbean. That's gotta be pretty unusual in MLS these days. There are 2 Brazilians, and Vieira, who was born in Guinea-Bissua but grew up in Portugal, and then a German guy. That's it I think.

 

The contract renewal happened a month before the loan to Atlético Nacional and around the time that Pumas made an offer - a move to Mexico or Colombia was always looming on the horizon so I assume the Quakes hammered this out with Chicho's agent to have him stick around for the time being, give him another year of guaranteed money, and leave the door open to a future move. Then the Colombian move entered the picture and Bruce was like ok whatever seeya.

 

Yeah, but if Bruce is doing "addition by subtraction" not sure why he'd want to keep Chicho even for the time being with his new vision of the club. I'm having a hard time seeing how Chicho would fit into to the way this team is set up right now. I guess he'd be taking Bouda's minutes (when Timo is in the lineup). Or actually, he could play the #9, but I don't think Bruce would want to sit Judd, and Chicho's not gonna be happy with a sub role or even split time role I don't think.