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

Well, given your odd version of what this all "really" means, I'd say I'd rather have the Cup, because the Shield doesn't mean any more now than it did before: nothing. The MLS champion is crowned when one team wins MLS Cup. So your question "really means" "nothing over nothing." Except that the Cup *is* something to someone, because someone, maybe even the Quakes, will win it. Twenty years from now, people will still remember the time the Quakes won the Cup. No one will remember the Shield.

 

Sheesh! Have another beer. I think you're misunderstanding my point. That's all.

I hear what you're saying. Though I still don't understand it.

And why don't you ask the Fusion fans if they remember when Miami won the Shield.

 

I would like to see a day when the Shield means more than MLS Cup. It may not receive the attention and acclaim that comes with winning the Cup, but winning the Shield is the greater, more difficult accomplishment.

 

I agree one hundred percent. now trying to convince everyone else.

 

I was away for the weekend and just watched the tape last night, so excuse the tardiness of this post. But honestly, is this a post-game discussion or a bitch about the playoff format discussion?

I can't believe everybody is ready to give up on the season. An early goal next week, and everything is still possible.

We didn't play poorly in the first half -- in fact, I thought we looked the better of the two teams (which isn't saying all that much.) Aside from Moreno's good try that went over the bar, the Galaxy didn't threaten. DeRo and Mullan looked dangerous on the ball, and were at least creating dangerous situations in the final third (the fact that we didn't turn these into scoring opportunities is disappointing.)

After the second goal, we were screwed. The first goal shouldn't have happened. There is no excuse for a man to have THAT much time to essentially shoot twice from six yards away. I don't care who you blame, it was a defensive collapse and is inexcusable at playoff time.

The second goal was inevitable as soon as Ruiz got the ball. We did a great job making him play with his back to the goal in the first half, and as Hopkins or Bretos wisely noted, Ruiz wasn't playing the first touch ball -- the extra touches would kill the attack.

The most important thing that needs to happen next Saturday is for Donovan to take over the game. If he has to come back in the midfield to gather the ball, so be it. We can't rely on him to simply run up top and have a moment when he beats Califf in a foot race to create chances.

To all those bashing the playoffs, the format, etc., give it a rest. We win, and the format is no issue. Be happy away goals aren't counting double.

Sure, these thoughts are scattered, but I'm sick of reading such negative posts after one leg. The season is NOT over. You'll have all off-season to second guess anything and everything to your heart's content. For those of you in the Bay Area, get out there next weekend and support the team! Be loud, heckle LA incessantly, and be the proverbial man advantage. Beats the hell out of whining about what should have been.

 

I needed a couple of days to relax after watching this game, I was so mad.

I was mad because I wasn't surprised at all. The Quakes have been off for five games. The offense has been out of synch and hasn't created scoring chances. My wife and I were afraid that this would happen, and it did.

LA didn't look very good but finished. And I agree-you can't blame Pat Onstad for the first goal. A deflection falls to the feet of an opponent inside your box, he flubs his shot but the ball is still on his foot-no way is the goalie to blame here. Pretty slack marking on Victorine, if you need to point a finger, but in my eyes, it was a fluke and bad luck to the Quakes.

Goos and Dunivant gave Ruiz too much room on the second.

However, the bigger problem is the Quakes failed to create scoring chances. Faria was useless. Roner was outclassed, especially in midfield.

Waibel was on the field because Corrales was injured and there were no midfields on the bench. What happened to Ronnie Ekelund?

I agree with the comments above-Walker should have come on sooner, maybe even when DeRo went out injured.

 

You know damn well what'll happen. Same thing that happens most times* we play a home-and-home tournament round and the second leg is at home: we'll get in too deep of a hole on the road leg, then come back and win the home leg by just barely not enough. I predict 2-1 Quakes on Sunday, LA goes through anyway.

*This trend dates back to the Blackhawks, BTW.

On the other hot topic, winning the Shield and the Cup are important. And the positive momentum the Quakes could've carried into the postseason had they somehow managed to hold onto and win the Shield might've paid dividends against LA. Instead, they played like lameasses the last few weeks of the season and played like limpdicks on Saturday.

 

Playoff system bitching?

Sorry, I don't agree with the bitching about the playoff system.

It's the States, so there has to be a playoff. Even NASL had playoffs. And to generate interest, there needs to be a sufficient number of games. The problem is that the league only has 10 teams.

Home & Away works much better for me than last year's crappy best to 5 points.

And there is a significant home field advantage if you get to the second round (one home game for the higher-finishing team).

This is a pretty decent system given MLS's limitations.

It's just unfortunate that the Quakes sucked so bad on Saturday.

 

Thank goodness someone is seeing my point!

 

In hindsight, I think we're all seeing it. As soon as top spot in the west was secured...we stopped playing. And has been pointed out ad nauseam you can't just "turn it off and turn it back on".

You don't just run to the finish line, you run through the finish line. Supporter's Shield would have been a nice trinket to pick-up along the way, but it's more important to maintain momentum and intensity as the playoffs approached.

The strategy has backfired...not only are we playing like The Tin Woodsman, but we've given LA a confidence advantage.

Much as I want to trust FY saying "it's only halftime and we're only 2-nil down", I find myself questioning my faith at the moment, given what we've seen in the past 6 weeks.

 

Q about the lineup...

Ok i wa slooking on the mls site...and it had quotes from after the 1st playoff game between LA and SJ. It listed Mullen as a forward and Donovan as a midfeilder. my understanding wa that Mullen has played forward b 4 but is currently a right winger, and i always thought Donovan was a striker, and not a midfeilder. Can someone please clear this up for me... Another question...where does everyone else line up in the midfeild and defence? thanks for any help you guys can gimme.

 

Hey, these are hard-core San Jose fans! You've heard of the fraternal group called the Optimists? Here, we have the Negativists. The motto is "The Sky Is Going to Fall Any Minute Now!"

 

How can Quakes fans not see the importance of the SS? The Cup is a joke when a team like LA who sucked all season long, are given the opportunity to make a serious run for the Cup. The whole MLS regular season becomes nothing more then practice for the MLS Cup. SS, is way more of an accomplishment. MLS Cup, Open Cup, whats the difference, a few A- League teams?

 

No, no it's not.



































Not until November 9th around 8pm.

 

I think Belushi's speech from Animal House needs to be played before the second game

It'd be interesting to see to which competitions bonuses are linked.

 

Phrase of the Day! Can't disagree at all with that one.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you that the league/playoff format is stupid. But that's irrelevant.

This is the USA. Every major professional league in this country (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) has a playoff system to decide on a champion, and this has been true pretty much forever. MLS could have decided to junk our traditional system in favor of a European soccer tradition, but they did not. For this reason, whether or not the playoff structure is fair, whether or not a team can suck all season long and still win the Cup, the Cup matters, the Shield doesn't. There will be one MLS champion at the end of the season, as there has been in every season, and that MLS champion will be the team that wins MLS Cup. Not the team with the best record in the season, but the team that wins the Cup. You can argue that this isn't fair, but it ain't about fair.

Who had the best record in the National and American Leagues of baseball in 1997? No one cares, because neither team made it to the World Series. People remember that the Marlins were the 1997 baseball champs. That's what mattered, and if you own a baseball team, your goal is to win the World Series.

If you have an MLS franchise, your goal should be to win the MLS Cup. Nothing else is as important ... US Open Cup, Supporter's Shield, Best Record in California Derbies, not as important.

And for those who say the Quakes are in trouble because they lost momentum when they lost the Shield, the Shield has nothing to do with it. If you are correct about momentum, they should have played to win in October not because it would have gotten them the Shield, but because it would have given them a better chance to win MLS Cup.

I would prefer a single-table league structure with no playoffs and increased commitment to the US Open Cup. But as long as MLS has playoffs, those playoffs will be the most important part of the season.

 

Here's why we have a "playoffs". MLS fears that with a single-table that one team could conceivably run away with the league table, rendering the last one-two-or-three weeks meaningless and a complete bust at the gate. So, in order to keep the stretch run of the schedule meaningful, they've created this artificial device called "post-season" to inject some life into a potentially meaningless run to the finish of the season, so that everyone has reason to play and play to win. MLS has bought into the fear of "meaningless competition" to create playoffs that draw 40% less at the gate than regular season competition...and why is that?

 

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

MLS Parity is what you should be bitching at, not the playoff system.

 

Not just three weeks. Try three months or more. If the only thing to play for in the regular season was a single-table championship, a majority of the league would have had no reasonable chance since at least July 4. This doesn't mean 8 out of 10 and a format that nullifies home-field advantage is a good idea.

Because playoffs are fun, they culminate in the league's most important and usually well-attended annual event, and, as you said, they provide meaning to the games played by teams who know they won't be top of the league. As long as they don't go back to formats that encourage lots of midweek games, a 40% attendance dropoff is not going to happen.

 

Where was Ekelund?

???

 

If that's true, the logic stinks, because in allowing 8 of 10 teams into the post-season, they make the entire regular season irrelevant. So they've decreased the number of meaningful games, not increased them.

I attended six MLS matches at Spartan this season (not counting cup matches). If the Quakes had lost every one of those matches, they still would have made the playoffs. So you could make a case that every one of the matches I attended was meaningless. (Plus, I had tickets for the last regular-season match and didn't go because I preferred watching the World Series on television to attending a meaningless MLS match in person.) If I were a casual fan, I could have stayed home the entire season and waited for next Sunday, when a match finally means something. (Heck, I have the Shootout package, I could have watched those six matches at home.)

I don't think there's a whole lot of disagreement here that the way MLS has constructed its schedule leaves something to be desire. But whatever the reason they have the schedule they do, one thing is clear: the league champion is the winner of MLS Cup, and therefore, MLS Cup is far and away the most important prize for any and all MLS clubs.

 

Well, a lot of bile here, and I've got some too.

The match sucked. Our guys played like crap. We were terrible. (If I say we when our guys win, I should have the stomach to say when we when our guys stink.)

Pass the beer.

In the first half, we played well as has been noted. We came out flat for the second half. For this, I blame Yallop. How could he fail to inspire the troops at halftime? "Hey guys, we're doing well. Keep pressuring the ball all over the field. Mark up tight in the back. Look for the counter." Surely, he could have found some inspiring words. "Let's get out of here with a win, then we trash them in front of our fans and it's on to the Cup!" Something like that. Instead, our guys came out sleep walking.

I need some bourbon.

The ref sucked. But he's not why we lost. If he'd been a good ref, he'd have given Landon a yellow card for that early nasty off-the-ball foul on Elliot. Instead, he decided to let a lot of physical play go. Our guys fouled the crap out of El Pedito, but he got back up and played hard. Landon disappear for long stretches of the match.

Where's my Bridgeport Black Strap Stout?

Walker should have replaced DeRo. Faria should go play in whatever league Harut Karapetyan is playing in, because he's about that caliber.

My wife was so pissed off, she got angry with me! Like I really need my freaking soccer team to get me in the dog-house! Pass the Cabernet already.

Waible needs to be traded or cut as soon as the season is over. One of Agoos or Dayak need to become Dominic's assistant coach and the other one needs to retire.

Yallop should become my drinking buddy, because he's going to need to drink alot as the Canadian National Team coach.

I'm pissed. And I need to get pissed.

This team and this organization need to learn that every freaking game is important. Play hard for the league matches, everyone of them, and every Open Cup match (we haven't made an effort to win the Open Cup since Bridgewater left!), and the Champions Cup (not that we're going to be involved in that again anytime soon). Instead, we tank the end of the season and are left holding crap all.

I think I'll open a nice bottle of Port now. And don't tell me that we have some sort of chance to pull it out. We're down two to nil. The next match is on a tiny field that favors defense. The other side has a height advantage on us. AND our two best players from last match - DeRo and Corrales - are doubtful with injuries. I bet Frank plays stinking Lagos and Faria, just to make sure that we have a really slow team on the pitch.

I need to hurl now.

"MLS Parity is what you should be bitching at, not the playoff system."

Eat me you scum-sucking galactofilth fan! If there were league parity, your league favor pansies wouldn't have been in the playoffs every freaking season. You wouldn't have a roster loaded with stars. You would have had to give up a ton of players to San Jose to get Hermosillo and or Hernandez. You suck! Shove that "parity" right straight up you culo! Freaking twerp!

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

Friend Wilson:
Trust me, "everybody" is not ready to give up on the season!
Think of it this way: we're down 0-2 with 90' to play!

 

Hey, come on, Mark, Faria is not that bad. I can see why you're wife is pissed. Did you say you're outside on the curb with your laptop? Looks like the Mad Mark has returned.