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

I presume they initially wanted a higher fee than what Pumas was offering, and his agent warned that it might get messy if he stuck around without a new deal. When the Nacional loan deal came around, the Quakes were more inclined for accept for whatever reason - there may have been actual "personal reasons" as officially noted by the team, or maybe they were just obfuscating the optics of him leaving a month after signing the contract extension. And we don't know the details of AN's purchase option and whether there is an obligation to buy triggered by certain conditions.

Either way I agree that Bruce was lukewarm at best on the idea of keeping Chicho and the contract extension was purely for asset management and agent negotiations.

 

Viera moved to England when he was 13 and moved up the ranks there, and was even an England U-21 international. Had a couple of good years at Leeds when they were in the Championship, then they sold him to Sampdoria in Italy for 7 million pounds. His career kind of stagnated there, with a couple of loan spells.

 

Not sure how he would of fit in, I could only see him as a #9, but, I always thought he played hard for us and never doubted his commitment on the field.

 

Yeah I knew about his time in England but didn’t know he went over quite that young. That explains his fully competent English and he probably speaks Portuguese , and I think I’ve heard him speak Spanish.

 

Commitment on the field was good but tried to do a bit too much hero ball. People complained about Hernán losing the ball but Chicho lost it a lot too. And he had something like double the shots of anyone else last year and only about 9 non-PK goals. So many shots over the bar!

 

English:

Italian:

Portuguese: https://www.instagram.com/p/DTVN_wqjA7g/

 

if the Quakes were to move another Next Pro guy up into into a first team contract (like Adimobua) I think they should think about Alejandro Cano. Hugo Perez has been on soccer podcasts saying that he will be a future starter on the El Salvador national team team soon. His size and athleticism is needed and he has a ton of professional starts and minutes. I believe he is still eligible for a U-22 contract this year and I’m pretty sure if the Quakes flip him to another team then John Fisher would get to keep the profit instead of sharing it with the league. That might “open the purse” for Bruce later in the year. If Cano gets ES Nats team minutes and puts up solid performances on video that makes him even more valuable than say Emi Ochoa or Cruz Medina who only played international on youth teams without first team minutes. Doesn’t hurt he has 3 passports and speaks two languages fluently. Of course his agent should be making these points.

 

I guess Cano has been available on a minimum deal (or Homegrown) this whole time so the Quakes don’t have any pressing need to call him up - in the event of an injury crisis they could use the short term call up route. I wonder if MBFC / Roots are interested?

 

I don't think Bruce is interested in Cano, but it would be nice to give him a chance. He appeared to get a little sniff in preseason. I saw him in preseason training but I don't know if he ever got to play in a preseason game. Mendoza did however, and actually made a tackle in our attacking half, in the handful of minutes he played, that resulted in a goal. In my estimation I actually think Dossmann is the most promising CB on Quakes 2 right now. But maybe I'm overrating him, and as these things tend to go, he likely won't get a chance either.

 

I don’t consider it racism, I think Bruce has a better time communicating his ideas if everyone speaks English, especially as he tends to be sarcastic. When Dom was in charge, he wanted fast players. By the end of the season, the team was mostly black.

I’m just making simple observations. I don’t care either way they assemble their teams. Altho, if Bruce put one more Asian on the team, I’d be happy

 

Might have been useful for Bruce to learn Spanish sometime in his 30 year pro coaching career?

 

I don't care how they assemble the team,but I want more Asians?

 

She misses Vako.

 

I saw a handful of matches with Ulsan Hyundai and then Shandong Taishan where Vako looked quite lively, he counts as Asian in my book.

 

I'm sure he blends right in in Korea!

 

I was saying i didn’t care what algorithm Bruce or Dom used to assemble their teams.
But yes in general I want more Asian representation in MLS.
Players from Japan and Korea seem to be pretty well-valued in England and Germany.
But there are hardly any Asian internationals or any American-born Asians in MLS. Like what, 2-3 internationals?
And no Vako didn’t count. Come on.

 

I think at least half of it is MLS not being respected in Asia. I know a Whitecaps supporter who lives in Japan and whose pet peeve is Takaoka never getting any national team consideration, and the Gals' Yamane has fallen off the NT radar after moving to MLS as well. Europe is the be all and end-all over there.

In terms of Asian Americans we should see Rohan Rajagopal and Tomo Allen join the first team soon so that will be fun.

 

Interesting— I didn’t know thise 2 are not on the Blue Samurai

 

I’d be happy to see those guys get a shot with the 1st team but it’s tough with Bruce. He doesn’t rate academy guys much. We need to fix that somehow even if it’s just form a partnership with a USL team to give these guys a bridge.