I love your optimism! It looks like we’re going to play four in the back. If we go with Munie and Roberts as the CB’s, that will be good, and probably an improvement over last year. But with four in the back, either or both outside defenders have to get forward, which exposes you on the counter. This 4-5-1 formation is going to put a lot of pressure on Vieira and Beau. I don’t think that Vieira is up to it. We’re going to play Timo as a single striker with Niko behind him as a creator. I don’t think Niko is good enough to start in MLS, though he does look better than last season. I think that Bouda will help create chances. He’s good at that. I’m less confident in Jones, but maybe I should have more faith in him. I’d feel a whole lot better if we had signed three or four more guys two weeks ago. We still have a ton of open roster spots. On its face, that’s a glaring weakness. And we should have replaced both Daniel and Junior. That’s another glaring weakness. I think we’re going to have a terrible season. Of course, I hope I’m wrong about that. Go Quakesfans!!
Here's another good detailed analytical thread about the Quakes prospects this season. This is by Ben Bellman from American Soccer Analysis. https://www.americansocceranalysis....mls-previews-colorado-san-jose-real-salt-lake
Yeah, a valid and serious concern. It looks like Bruce thinks the answer will be some combination of: Niko Bouda Jones Benji Beau and I'm not sure who else. But Niko is at the top of that list because a lot of that service will fall on him. If we go with two forwards, so that Timo can play a withdrawn striker role, then Judd or Nonso? will have to provide some of the service. But who else is going to score besides Timo? Also, is Timo a head case? That’s one of my big worries about him. Will Timo be good in the locker room? Or will he be difficult? Go Quakesfans!!
This observation is a critical one in soccer. When I coached youth teams, I always opened the season by asking everyone how much it counts when we score. "Duh! It's one goal" they would say. Then I'd ask: "How much does it count if we SAVE one goal?" The obvious answer is still the same. One goal. So defense is worth as much as offense. And frankly, defense is a little bit easier to coach than offense, in my opinion. Of course, you still need to score to win and to keep those damn balls out of your own net. But I always viewed defense as important as offense. As Don, says, drop GA from 63 to 43 (still > 1 goal allowed per game) and it's the same net effect of signing a 20-goal/season elite striker !
The problem is that we are expecting an over 30% improvement on defense with essentially all the same players. Minus a bunch and addition of one attacker, but essentially all the guys projected to start were with the team last year. So it's well, maybe 4 in the back will be better, and well, maybe Daniel will have a much better year(!), and well, maybe Timo will press better than Chicho (not a given). All kind of hopeful stuff w/o much objective evidence. And then on top of that, we've *also* removed over half the goals from the team. So we've got kind of a hopeful rationale for a better defense, and an attack that will, on paper, be significantly less potent. I don't know how we take those 2 things and conclude we'll be a better team. Seems like a lot of wishful thinking and not a lot of objective argument. But once again, I hold out hope that 1) Bruce can coach the team up - sometimes teams are better than the sum of their parts, and 2) we will make a few move impact signings.
The young talent is there to produce a winning squad. The team has been hampered by too many friends of Bruce hogging minutes.
I didn't argue that the team will be better. We still have holes to fill. I just want to see a better balance in the discussion of progress by realizing that strengthening the defense can have a bigger effect than merely padding up the offense.
Fair point. One thing I did not factor in in my analysis is that players are not static entities. Younger players can take significant positive strides while aging players will typically get slowly worse. Again, more hope than anything else, but there's some reason for the hope.
Yes. I'm just saying that I'm not convinced that we've strengthened the defense - I know it's not necessarily your argument. The arguments for a "strengthened defense" seem more hopeful than anything. We'll have to see...
I'm in the camp that the Defense will improve. A primary reason is Roberts. I think highly of his game and continuing development. I think he's flat out blue chip. I also think there are more players bought into what Bruce is selling defensively. I think he has more players that will actually try to do what he wants them to do. We lost a handful of free lancers on both sides of the ball and i think that will have a positive impact on overall defensive performance...and it may bring more continuity to our attack...probably less all or none individual sizzle...but that remains to be seen. I think Bruce feels he has enough athletic grinders to give up less of the boneheaded goals we gave up last season...which should keep us in a lot more games and hopefully brings us more points.
One potential positive is that it looks like Bruce has a set lineup on defense. No more jerking players around - it was seemingly a different back line every game last year, with Wilson and Rodrigues coming in and out, due to injury and falling in and out of favor. And then we went from 3 in the back to 4 a few times. I want to say something like 4-5 games.
Our defense was shit last season, to put it politely. So improving the defense should be a top priority. I thought that the improvement program should start with sacking Wilson and Rodrigues. And we sacked them! Yay! I still prefer three in the back, but OK, we’ll go with four. BUT, I also thought that we would replace Wilson and Rodrigues. Which we haven’t. We have brought in Jasinski, but he’s more of a Lima replacement. Who else is new on defense? Maybe you count JoGo? Do you think that Vieira is going to help defend the backline? I want three stay at home defenders with two d-mids in front of them, but maybe four defenders will be better. We’ll see, but I fear that any defensive improvement will five to ten goals better, rather than twenty or so goals better. Go Quakesfans!!
I think the defensive profile is almost entirely new... with players who were around last year. But it looks like it will be a 4 back...with Jones at LB, which is entirely new and Benji as an RB not wingback. Munie won the CB position late last season, he's the constant. also new, fingers crossed, is Roberts paired with Munie. So we got a big upgrade athletically in terms of mobility and speed without outside replacements. Roberts is the Key and finding two way responsible outside mids is also critical. I'd love to see Bouda at left mid...he was really coming on last season on the left. I think it's only a matter of time before we see Jasinski and Benji on the right side.
This guy seems to think we're going to play a 4-4-2 diamond, which is possible but it creates a bit of a problem with central midfield. You've gotta leave out one of Beau or Niko - there's only space for 2 CM's, and, let's face it, Bruce it not gonna put Vieira on the bench. You could possibly move Niko to left outside mid. I think we'll probabliy go 4-3-3 and have Timo set up on the left. And since both Timo and Bouda are comfortable on either side, they can switch at times. As I've said, Timo would have plenty of license to cut in and attack centrally as we have outside backs to provide width. Chicho ostensibly was our left side forward last year and he was usually playing more in the center. https://www.americansocceranalysis....mls-previews-colorado-san-jose-real-salt-lake
I think we’re going 4-5-1. This allows us to get the best of our mediocre players on the field. Something like this. - - - - - - - - - - - Judd Timo - - - - - - - Niko - - - - - - Bouda - - - - - Vieira - - - - - - Beau Jones - - Roberts - - Munie - - Benji - - - - - - - - - - - - Daniel Clearly, I mean for Timo and Bouda to be very involved in the attack. Niko too. I expect over lapping runs from Jones and Benji. I hope that Beau sneaks into the attack too. Timo wants to play as a “withdrawn” striker. So I don’t expect him at the #9. Also, the “official MLS site” show our lineup for the games against Charlotte and Portscum as a 4-5-1. Far from definitive, but it doesn’t look wrong. I don’t think this is set in stone, it’s just what I think right at this moment. Go Quakesfans!!
4-5-1 as you have it there, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, all variations of the same basic thing. Just depends on exactly how you position the front 4. But in all cases you’ve got 4 in the back, 2 6/8’s and a 10. Then 2 outside attackers and a 9. And that’s what I think we’ll do at least initially. It’s what we’ve done in the preseason games so far. When Timo joins the lineup the easiest / least disruptive thing to do initially is drop him into that formation, not switch to 4-4-2 or something. And most likely he’d take that outside attacker spot on the left where Rickets has been playing.
You know what’s missing? ANY new quality players aside from the shot-in-the-dark that Timo willl revert to something approaching the form he had five or six years ago. Call me crazy, but I don’t find that comforting, and am not impressed by a few pre-season wins against other teams trying out different tactics.
And then there's our "addition by subtraction" poster boy, Hernán Lopez. If he was "addition by subtraction" for us, he must therefore be "subtraction by addition" for Argentinos Juniors. And here he is "subtracting" with the winning goal against River Plate yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gx0XScHQTBg
Yes, going to four in the back and shuffling in new players, it's a whole new scheme. It better work, because last year we were a sieve in the back. I hope that Roberts starts out of the gate. The less we see of Romney, Harkes, and MAK this season the better. But I fear that we won't see as much of Beau as last season. And with our outside defenders getting into the attack, that's going to expose us in the back. I'm still not optimistic. Go Quakesfans!!
Haven't seen this posted yet: https://www.americansocceranalysis....mls-previews-colorado-san-jose-real-salt-lake Some fancy charts......scroll down to: ESPI-NO-ZA AND ARAN(G)O
10 -> 12 isn't that big a drop https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/expe...stern-conference-western-conference-standings LAFC Vancouver Whitecaps FC San Diego FC Seattle Sounders FC LA Galaxy Austin FC Minnesota United FC Portland Timbers Houston Dynamo FC FC Dallas Real Salt Lake San Jose Earthquakes St. Louis CITY SC Colorado Rapids Sporting Kansas City
On Ted Ramey's latest Soccer Hour podcast he had Jamon Moore as guest, to talk about American Soccer Analysis stuff (analytics). Jamon used to be an "Epicenter guy", and in fact I think he used to lead the discussion, but now he is purely an analytics guy and contributes to American Soccer Analysis (I don't know if this is a paid position or just volunteer stuff). Anyway, I was surprised that it took over 20 minutes (?) of the interview before AI was mentioned. I would think that AI integration into analytics would be a big thing these days. Ted finally asked him about it, and one of things he said is that teams are starting to stand up their own LLM's with their own data. And then they can ask things like - what are the game states where our high press has been most successful, etc. Then maybe you could use that to tweek your triggers, etc. Of course with Bruce, all of this is likely to fall on deaf ears. Also, he said that video can be transformed into numerical data via analysis, and in the NBA there are now something like 30 cameras in the arena, and all this video data is transformed into numerical data. He said we don't have that kind of setup yet in soccer, but could be more and more cameras used in the future, the idea being that the more angles you have, the more precise / better data you have. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soccer-hour-podcast/id1479227902?i=1000749490104
I expect us to fall off more than that. We'll be dueling it out with the Sporks and the Crapids for worst team in the west, if not worst team in MLS. There aren't even any rumors of us signing new players. If we go into the season with six empty roster spots, that's going to wear down our starters something fierce. And we need serious upgrades at a couple of positions at a minimum. I'd replace both Daniel and Junior. We need a high level striker to spell Timo, and or Bouda, and or Judd, and or whoever else we play up top. Who's going to sub in for Niko? Fernandez? Skahan? When, not IF but When, Daniel gets hurt, we're going to sub in the very worst GK in all of MLS? Gives you warm fuzzies, no? We're thin at a number of spots. We need to sign new guys. I mean Need! Meanwhile, every other team in MLS is trying to improve. Even the Sporks have a new coach. We could be sucking up the smell before mid-season. Go Quakesfans!!