Los Angeles - San Jose W.C. Semi Game 1 (Saturday, 11/1) postgame thread [R]

I agree,i think the quakes vs. the fire would have been the way to go this season and just skip the whole playoff crap system that basically gives the regular season no use...and that would have been one heck of a game because they were the best two teams in MLS. It sucks that we did so well the whole season and now that it really counts we are going in the opposite direction!

 

Here's another place where I fault Yallop. His comments about the playoff system were not exactly... inspiring. He was basically saying that it sucked, which is true, and we all know it sucks. But even so, you gotta forge ahead. I don't want a coach saying the playoff system sucks. I want a coach that talks about how he's psyched to have the opportunity to punk our rivals, LA. When the coach and at least one player (Agoos) talk about how much they dislike the playoff format, it gives me the impression that they lack the confidence or swagger needed.

You can't dwell on the fact that the playoff system sucks, otherwise, the guys just aren't going to have the right kind of motivation. It's like the college football coach who loses one regular season game on a referee's call, thus negating any chance at a national championship. If he spends his time bemoaning that lost chance and blaming the referees, it rubs off on the rest of the team, and they lose sight of what to play for. They can end up tanking the rest of the year because of their loss of a psychological edge.

I feel this is similar to what happened with the Quakes - by spending time being negative about what is required to win the cup, the team is not as focused as it should be. I think they feel like they were ripped off and they deserve better. Well, guess what, that doesn't do crap for your chances of making it to MLS Cup. At the end of the year, if we're not in the cup final, it's because we didn't do what was required. Remember, it's not the way things should be, it's the way things are.

After watching tonight's self-destruction and the offensive malaise over the last month, I'm convinced that Yallop did not have this team in the right mindset, and that we will not make it so the cup final as a result. If you go into a game or series feeling that you're entitled to something better, you're probably not going to play very well. A head coach has to address this head on and prepare the team psychologically.

I really, really hope that they prove me wrong next week. I am so pissed off...

 

Looks like it was a 2-0 score in all of today's games...what a coincidence.

 

somehow i don't think, were you guys 2-0 up or even 0-0, would the "crappy" playoff system be an issue at this point.

personally i agree, i'd like the regular season to be the determining factor for who wins the cup. if that were the case though, you realize that LA would have won two cups (1998 and 2002) and you guys wouldn't have one yet.

even if you went with the best in the west vs the best in the east, then this would have been your first opportunity.

does the playoff format still suck?

 

It's not the playoff format that sucks, it's the playoffs themselves; the fact that we have to have them.

The real problem is that 8 teams in a 10-team league make the playoffs. By having so many teams make the playoffs, there's no point to the whole season.

If we have to have a playoff, MLS should have a system where only two teams from each division make the playoffs and they play each other in a single game at the leader's home for the division championship and those two champs face each other in the Cup.

The single game at home would give true incentive to finish first, and there'd be a real battle for second place. Also-rans like the Galaxy wouldn't even be in contention.

The current system really makes me wonder why I bother going to all the Quake games during the season. I should just show up for the playoff matches since they're the only ones that matter!

-- Marc

 

Oh, it's all our fault. If we had half the team we did last season, the Gals wouldn't even be in the playoffs. C'Mon you pansies, you can pull out of this. You have to, the Quakes are the only team I don't hate out of the bunch. I was looking forward to a San Jose-Chicago final and San Ho winning, don't dissapoint me! *shakes fist*

 

Re: Re: Los Angeles - San Jose W.C. Semi Game 1 (Saturday, 11/1) postgame thread [R]

I don't like to put down Yallop -- he's brought life back into this club. But the bottom line is he doesn't know how to coach for playoffs. He's awesome for the season: he doesn't panic over a bad performance, lets the players take time to get used to each other, etc. But that's the wrong strategy for a playoff series.

In any single-elimination tournament (or short series like group play), results are the only thing that matters. There isn't time to fix problems gradually or work the kinks out in other games. If the Quakes' have a stinker game, heads ought to roll: Yallop should bench sucky players and put out a new lineup. Period.

Look at World Cup group play. If a team has a bad first round game, do they field the same eleven in the second game? No way! You either play well or you sit on the bench and the players know it and leave it all on the field.

If you look at Quake history under Yallop, we have done extremely well during the league season. But this year and last year we sucked in the playoffs (and just before). We also were eliminated early from the Open Cup and international competitions. This really bothers me, especially the fact that no one in the organization seems to care.

Last year when we were losing steam at the end of the season (giving up lots of goals) I thought it was horrible; but I remember Yallop not being concerned during questioning at the Shake with the Quakes event. For the past month I've being seeing the same thing happening again: the Quakes were terrible in Oct. but rather than start Walker or some others, we get the same tired team that couldn't score the week before.

The bottom line is I'd just like to see some passion: I'd like to see Yallop get mad when players suck, I'd like to see him bench players when they don't play well, I'd like to see fresh blood start, and I'd like to see the players step it up a notch (not wild tackles and frantic clearances like in tonight's pitiful performance). I think Yallop's just too nice to the players. While that style of coaching works great for the team during a long season, it is not appropriate for the playoffs.

-- Marc

 

I'm here to blame the ref for the actual scoreline, yet again. Ruiz tripped Dunivant and that goal should have been disallowed. And Bo's card should have been red because it was a last man, clear goal scoring chance foul on Donovan. I'm not saying the Quakes played well enough to win, just that ref decided the final score.

-KMJvet

 

man that was just sad tonight. I have so many thougths on this game i can barely compose them. here goes......

1) the quakes need to cull the herd.
we need a talent upgrade folks. russell, lagoos, de ro, ekelund, waibel, roner, even agoos and dayak. all must go. sure it would be unrealistic to get rid of all these folk but some will have to go.

waibel is a thug and a looked like a recreational footballer at best tonight.

lagoos has lost a step.

russell just does not have it as a winger.

agoos and dayak are getting long in the tooth folks. i respect both players and think they provide a lot of leadership. they are also injury prone and a step slow. (not that i have any right to talk!)

roner is a goofball. the kid is seriously outclassed and should be joining wrongway (er...conway) in the A-League next season. yeah i know he plays defence but not tonight. he looked crappy. real bad. OUTCLASSED!!

de ro, ekelund and onstad are on the fence. we need onstad for one more season. he can rotate with josh saunders as we prepare him to take the full mantle in seasons to come. ekelund may have a couple of good seasons left. to be fair he was hurt a lot of the year but the times i saw him play he looked acceptable. De Ro is a wild card. sure he is coming back from injury but i just have never seen that much from him. I still have faith in all the above players but they are on the last chance.

faria has taken some flack for his play but i think there is an upside to him. he could work really well next year with donovan. i see faria and ching upfront and donovan as an attacking midfielder. faria is a good talent and much better than de ro.

2) FY what up buddy. the man whose name i use on this bulletin board used to know how to bollocks his players when needed. shankly was not afraid to raise hell in the locker room. take bobby knight's advice and throw some chairs, kick some boots at players heads, whatever it takes to get their attentions. how about kicking some rogaine at LD? (just kidding i am bald by the way)

3) why playoffs!!!!!! lets have the league competition mean something. If you want another trophy have a club cup competiton. that way all ten teams (with more on the way) can play for a MLS cup trophy. Also lets have the supporters shield mean something!

4) love the new aggregate playoff system. some may bitch but this really adds a nice touch of desperation to the game. and desperation creates passion for the sport, the surprise and joy of the unpredictable immense and the depths of the defeat great. After all why am i already thinking of how great the next LEAGUE season will be.

I will be there on saturday night win or loose. singing and supporting the lads because we can win, weirder crap has happend.

I have witnessed some of it (the immaculate reception, a baseball team coming back from an 0-3 world series defecit pittsburgh/baltimore 1979, and many more) by the way i am from baltimore and have never forgotten the pain of '79. see aforementioned optimism and love of the game above.

go quakes

 

All I'm going to say is really bad game. The major stickler was the goal that should have been saved by Onstad with 3 defenders trying to run for cover--someone should have been there to stop that, be the keeper or at least a defender to swat the ball away from the ball.

After all the debate over the past playoff systems used, maybe it's high time to figure something out where (1) the home team gets rewarded in the postseason for regular season performance and (2) something is acceptable or equivalent to the European and Latin American playoff system. Deciding on crapshoots, first to 5, and home and home still is a matter of debate. As for me, the aggregate system is the standard with the core fans, and why not--I'd rather have that instead of the other anamolies, unless it should be 2 out of 3 straight out? Or, maybe just have the league (re: regular season) champion like the rest of the world and that's that.

However, LA is now in the driver's seat--they don't need to win on November 9 to advance and they can just bunker down. The Quakes better try to attack from the get go or that's it.

After seeing Ruiz with his flops and dives, I wonder how long he'll be here before he moves on to other pastures.

With a loss like that you just want to have more beer (which I did after I left the pub and crashing at a party where it was Halloween redeux).

One more week to regroup and score a few quick goals. Cheers!

 

I am so incredibly sad. I'm not going to berate the team or the coach. They gave what they had to give, and it wasn't good enough. LA has our number this year, I guess.

I hope by next week's game I feel better and more optimistic. Hopefully, the team comes out on fire and scores from the get-go (hope Walker gets to START), we beat LA on aggregate and go all the way to the final. Miracles do happen, right?

 

I just read the game report in the L.A. Times. Sounds like Ruiz and Dayak got into a little skirmish in the tunnel at halftime. Guess that explains Ruiz's goal celebration in Troy's face.

 

As someone who has no vested interest in this series, you might want to look at the fact that you've been shut out in 5 of your last 6 games before blaming the playoff system..

If your team scores goals, you'll win.. I've seen the Quakes many times this season and when on song they are a damn good team, but blaming the playoff system for a lack of goal production is simply sour grapes..

At least you still have a chance at salvaging this series (LA, despite the big goal advantage, still hasn't won a match on the road this season) unlike my team (DC) which blew any chance they had by losing 2-0 at home.. We have no chance in Chicago.. You still have hope..

Good luck and I hope you do put LA out because I don't feel that any team that couldn't manage one win on the road should be playing for the right to win this leagues championship match...

 

In the cold light of a new day...

We were crap....they were crap. I think Sigi's tactics are to bore the oppostion into making mistakes.

There first goal killed the game..a nightmare. I ahve to concur with those that said Onstad should have saved it. There was no way Victorine should have had another shot.

We can't blame the ref for this..bu IMO Marshall should have been off for his Kung fu assault on Faria...totally dangerous a reckless play. The frustrating thing is that they showed the way to beat LA and then stopped doing it. The same thing Walker showed last week when he came on....Their defence will gobble up through balls all day...we need to run past them and make them turn. Bo is superb with the ball at his feet but running at him he cannot tackle to save his life...hence the yellow..if we'd run at him again he could have been off..the same with Calif...If there's an argument to having another red it would have been Calif because if Donovan had fallen in the first half it would hve been at least a yellow and a strong case for a red...just because the forward doesn't fall still doesn't mean a foul hadn't been committed and a card should have been issue....next week I suggest we run at these guys with pace, if lose it keep running it won't be long before they screw up either with a bad foul or we get through.

But above all, we need to learn to shoot straight with power. Apart from three minutes we were even with them, and if we'd taken the chances we'd had this discussion would be completely different

OK, I'm still depressed...Its going to very, very difficult next week. I'm not a quitter but it looks gloomy.

-Richard

 

Yes. It does.

However, there's a line between blaming that system for the loss and realizing the Quakes lost cuz they sucked. I've been complaining about the playoff system for months now - even when the Quakes were the best in the league in the standings.

You're right, if that were the final and the Galaxy were Chicago and the Quakes played like that, we would have gone down hard.

The playoff system still sucks. But it's not the reason the Quakes lost. It's not the system that made them suck last night. They had the chance to pull out of the crapiness they've been in the last several weeks and make a turn around with a clean slate. They didn't do that. And that's why us Quake fans are pissed. Because the team that was the best in the league for so long should have had a better showing last night.

 

See my last post fishface! I'm not blaming the playoff system. Where did I ever say we lost because of the playoff system?

 

Hehe. Why doesn't that surprise me! I love that Cowboy!

 

The very last paragraph of Jeff Carlisle's pre-game article on Quakemagic is coming back to haunt my thoughts this morning:

"Psychologically, Yallop is attempting to play down the pressure on his team and has continually stated that he considers the Quakes’ season a success no matter what happens in the playoffs. The extent to which his mind games work will be found out on Saturday."


That's not good. That's not the attitude that they should have had going into the playoffs. I want them to want that cup. I want them to come out playing with passion, determination, and the fishin' will to win. I wanted that to be the best game all year. And it could have been. But it wasn't.

The season may have been a success to Franky. But to me it crashed and burned in the last few games. We had the supporter's shield, we had the best keeper in the league.... Then it was all just lost. Last night was a chance to get that back. And the team lost that chance. Anyone who thinks this team can turn this around at home is seriously just kidding themselves.

I'm still fishin' bitter and pissed.

 

I'm just curious....

All you all who fell into the "I'd rather have the Cup than the Shield" philosophy (which I'm still struggling to understand), how do you feel now?

 

Hey, you're still in it! A 3-0 result for the Quakes at Spartan Stadium is well within the realm of possibility. This tie is far from over.

 

Well, that was crap, might as well start the autopsy now. Once again, Onstad lets in a soft goal that dooms us, he should have smothered the first one instead of waiting to be scored upon. To be fair, both teams were shyte but if we could only manage one goal in five weeks we don't deserve to be champions this year. To blame anything but the Quakes and Yallop for this loss is wrong-thinking. Sure the referee sucked and Ruiz dove and a 30 game pre-season just to cut two teams out of ten is retarded but none of these things played the match last night, we did. In the off season Onstad,Conway,Dayak,Russell,Roner and Faria should all be shown the door, they're all dead weight and they're killing us on the pitch. Agoos may or may not have one more year in him, but if he gets any slower he'll be going backwards and those two defensive blunders last night showed it.
PS: Faria is useless up front, start walker or Alvarez.

 

Hey, put down the crack pipe, you've had enough. You guys could mail the next game in and still win it. Fat zigi is going to play five defenders and bunker the whole match, it's going to be a snore fest. Stick a fork in us, we're done.

 

Yeah, what he said.

Someone pass me a beer....

 

Geez, did FY really say that? That's disgusting. If I was GM that'd be cause for termination (or at least reevaluation).

What kind of attitude is that? We won the battle but lost the war so it's okay?

Under the current system, the season record means *nothing*. The playoffs *are* the season (at least until MLS changes the format in 2096).

I want a GM and manager that want to win _everything_. The Quakes should lead the league in all the top stats: best defense, top offense, best keeper, etc. We should win the Open Cup, international matches, Supporters Shield, beat LA, and win every single league game.

Look at soccer in England: a top coach like Glen Hoddle is on the chopping block when his team lose just the first few games of the season. Yet here in the U.S. people are still shocked when Mike Jefferies gets sacked (finally) at the end of Dallas' dumper season. It's a completely different attitude (mostly generated by the fear of relegation). Yallop is coaching for the season not the Final, and if that's his attitude, he's got to go. If we're knocked out next Sunday the whole season's been a waste, just like last year, and if that's okay with the people upstairs in Quake management, I have to wonder if the right people are running the club.

-- Marc