Was it 8k? I always thought it was 10. In any case I liked the atmosphere. But there’s a much larger untapped and/or alienated market here. Fans are fickle, everyone loves a winner. This team has never had the benefit of community and local media buzz, they’ve never had any star power, nothing close, and it’s soccer (well down the sporting pecking order as we know) and poor quality at that. Year after year the Quakes miss the playoffs or if we’re lucky, one and done. Quakes have put everyone to sleep. Matias is trying to change that but he’s not getting a lot of help from Fisher and our roster is thin. I think there’s a ton of untapped potential here with the right vision and approach. But you’re right, there’s a perception problem that has to be addressed first and that can really only come with some success on the field.
I used 8k as an exaggeration because it’s laughably low. The laugh for 10k was the same - laughably low. Like if it’s 10 and not 8, hey, we’re good!! We’ve never been consistently able to get above 12k or so per game as an average, even at PPP, and that’s being generous. Our official attendance has been goosed a few grand year after year by the Stanford game.
That first year at PPP? Back when everyone was excited about the new stadium, the house was packed, there was a waitlist for season tix and finally there was some hope of being better? I bet that season we averaged above 12k. Give people some hope, they will come.
I have made this point in a few other threads and I am not sure that a lot of people grasp the significance of it. The Quakes under Doyle (and Jesse) have historically built rather poorly constructed rosters that were up against the salary cap. When I looked at the salary numbers the thing that instantly jumped out to me were how many mediocre players were grossly overpaid. The obvious reason why they were overpaid was because of the cost of living in San Jose. If a guy like Shea Salinas is offered 400k from SKC and 400k from SJ, which offer is better? Not only were players overpaid to sign here, there was also automatic pay raises built in by the CBA. The higher the salary, the higher the raise (it was based on percentage). The teams with the best salary structure seemed to have more players on the top end being balanced by more players on the bottom. They were able to get significant minutes from low salaried players. Can you see the solution to getting more low end salary players in San Jose? Guys that can contribute solid minutes and allow the GM to go after better top end players? Clearly the Quakes need 3-5 more players like Cade Cowell. They need a pipeline to develop multiple players that are willing to play for apprentice wages while being prepared to hopefully play for the big bucks in Europe. The Academy is the answer to building a much more competitive roster in San Jose. I think this reality dawned on Jesse but it was too slow to develop. He put his good friend Alex Covelo in charge of the oldest players and he has damaged the momentum the academy was building. The Quakes could really use Luchi Gonzalez right now and they should support him to build out the best academy in MLS. If you were to go back and look at the youth national team rosters about a decade ago, you would see a huge amount of California kids on the rosters. Now you look and those rosters are dominated by Texas players (mostly Dallas area). This has been a direct result of Luchi Gonzalez's work.
I totally agree with most of this, though I think we've overpaid players in the Jesse era not so much due to cost of living, but due to an overvaluing of intl players. How many intl players did Jesse sign at say the $500k-1 mil level? Many! And which of them was actually worth it? Chofis, maybe Flo during his best years, Guys not worth it - Rios, Fierro, Alanis, Hyka, Kashia, Eriksson, Hoesen, etc. And then there were the intl busts at lower salary levels - Qwiberg, Quintana, Affolter, etc. It's been said many times - we should have been mining the league more to flesh out the roster at a much lower cost, and use the money saved for bigger bets in the intl market. And of course the other pool is your development system, which we have not gotten enough from yet, and which can give you even much more value. Cowell is making $130k this year, and he's 2nd on the team in goals and assists. The cost of living thing is I think a little overblown. So you pay an extra $2k / month in rent - that's $24k, and then how much more can food and other stuff be? Let's say another $5k? So we're talking about an additional $30k or something for cost of living, which isn't all that much for players making in the neighborhood of $300k - it's only 10%. And then of course the player is happier too because we have nice weather, the beach, beautiful mountains, and smart people . That extra $ is not for "nothing". I mean if it was only about the $ then nobody would live here. Everyone would want to live in Ash Flat, Arkansas.
Their career is usually pretty short and they have to think about investing their money when they have it. I recall Landon Donovan buying a house in the Bay Area at 20 years old.
Well they can invest a little more in a house in the Bay Area and make a nice return or they can invest less money in a house in Cincinatti and hope they're lucky enough to be able to sell it later.
It is expected that Ricardo Pepi could be sold in the next two weeks to a team in Europe for an amount that will exceed the record transfer fee paid for Alfonso Davies. That ought to catch Fisher's attention. 🚨 I'm told Ricardo Pepi could agree a move to Europe in the next two weeks 🇺🇲 #USMNT #DTID - Clubs from 🇮🇹🇩🇪🏴- 4 #UCL clubs- Fee higher than Alphonso Davies'Report for @90min_Football 👇https://t.co/XaqmUn421a— Chris Smith (@Chris_SXI) September 23, 2021
I want us to invest in something that will make me proud of this team and give us an identity. Maybe it will be the academy, but I'm prepared for the current ownership to pay some lip service, toss a bit of money at it, and in the end fall short of the required standard. Yes, I've grown pretty cynical, but tempered expectations has yet to let me down with Fisher.
I hear you. I'm not 100% certain of these facts, but I believe that with the MLS revenue sharing model team owners are responsible for paying any DP salaries over the cap hit amount out of pocket. That is why the Quakes' DPs seem to be BARELY DPs. On the other hand, the rules are set up so that homegrown player sales mostly go into the pockets of the selling team's owner. With that in mind, I surmise that John Fisher is much more interested in selling a Nick Lima than buying an Alan Pulido. One is debt and the other is profit. Fisher has shown the propensity to pay good money for coaches. He lured Yallop away from Galaxy, Kinnear from Houston and Almeyda from Chivas. The signing of Luchi Gonzalez would be more valuable to his bottom line than any of them.
Pukstas was impressing everyone at Sporting Kansas City's academy when he abruptly left to enroll in Barcelona's residential program in Casa Grande, Arizona, in 2019. There was nothing wrong with Kansas City, he told me, but he didn't like that MLS wanted to control his destiny. "Basically, my thought process was, if I go to Barcelona, I can get to Europe," he said. Because of his potential, Pukstas was given a full scholarship by Barcelona. But some of his teammates were spending as much as $70,000 a year. "Which is terrible," he said. "MLS academies pay for everything -- host families, food, whatever you need. But then you have to go to MLS." In Sanford's opinion, a player is better served spending a few years in MLS and then, if he's good enough, engineering a move to Europe on his terms. "We can get you there just as easily," he said. "We've done it with Chris Durkin. We signed him, he played his time here, he wanted to move along, we moved him along."
Interesting facts about AZ Barcelona and the Quakes. Diego Luna left the youth academy a few years ago to go to Barcelona when the Quakes signed Gilbert Fuentes as a homegrown. He got a full ride scholarship I believe. This year he signed a pro contract to play in USL for El Paso Locomotive. He's had a strong season with 8 goals and 4 assists so far. Meanwhile Fuentes has made only two short sub appearances for Austin Bold. Clear which academy seems best for development. Last year a current Quake's youth player went to a soccer camp in Arizona to get time playing (California was completely shut down from Covid). AZ Barcelona was impressed by his play and offered him a full ride (72k value). He accepted the offer but the Quakes intervened and had MLS threaten to kick Barcelona out of MLS Next if they didn't withdrawal the invitation to play for them. Very disappointing because the Quakes haven't even offered the player a homegrown contract. His family is not happy they blocked his development opportunity for no other reason then to spite AZ.
Suprising, but not surprising. Typical short term thinking by MLS. The idea that you don't allow kids to pick the places they think would suit their development best is crazy. If kids anticipate finding themselves locked in by joining an MLS youth setup, they will choose another path, of which there are starting to be many.
The academy was on a very promising trajectory before Covid struck. The big issue now is the dithering on hiring a GM. There has already begun an exodus from the academy. If the Quakes don't get the GM hired soon and fix things there, the trickle will turn into a torrent.
I am sure they did. They did not try to block his move to Barcelona. It is easy to play Monday morning quarterback and see things after the fact. I don't blame the Quakes for choosing Fuentes, but I feel it should be acknowledged that AZ Barcelona is doing a better job developing pro ready players. The Quakes need to get thier act together ASAP because they are going to lose a lot of Bay Area talent at the rate they are going. 2004 Damian Alguera has left to play for Philadelphia Union U23s already. He just started a full senior team friendly for El Salvador before WCQ. Hugo Perez is actively telling Salvadorian American players to avoid joining the Quakes. He is steering them towards Seattle, Galaxy or even RSL. He's not the only coach saying that.....
Our U-15s & U-17s have landed! #BeatLA pic.twitter.com/32PWClNwAz— Quakes Academy (@QuakesAcademy) October 16, 2021 Ochoa’s gotta be taller than 6’2” now.
Congrats to our U-15s for defeating LAFC 1-0! 👏#BeatLA pic.twitter.com/0VwrHDwhdi— Quakes Academy (@QuakesAcademy) October 16, 2021
Golazo Gilbert Fuentes ! 🇸🇻 https://t.co/PidxTxSvcK— SelectaTalent (Hugo Alvarado) (@SelectaTalent) October 16, 2021 Fuentes with his first goal for Austin.