San Jose Earthquakes - Real Salt Lake (Saturday, 10/5) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

A deserved loss. Terrible. How many times has Judd had the ball fall to him in the box and fail to score? Hernán made a few nice plays towards the end but as Mark says his final ball was off tonight. There’s no reason we have to be so much worse than RSL. Their players aren’t that much better.

We couldn’t win the ball from them and we played narrow so that they could easily waltz down our wings to our final 3rd. Then we just have to hope we don’t have an unfortunate bounce in the box. And we didn’t attack down the left at all. Gotta give Marie and Verhoeven a chance. Verhoeven was standing there open on the wing the whole game.

 

Just become a masochist. It’ll all make sense!

 

There’s a reason why Habbas Law - your San Jose Personal Injury Lawyer, is a sponsor.

 

Miss you Bob, but nice to c u in writing

 

RSL plays very physical - they’ll see what they can get away with, always playing on the edge and as a result they were much better at winning the ball tonight. Not surprising for a Mastroeni team. Their left back was basically marking Espinoza via bear hug. He should have been given a warning and then a yellow the next time. Meanwhile the Quakes played passively and rarely won the ball in midfield. And Niko gets pushed off of it too easily. Rarely wins 50/50 balls..

 

I feel like Ian has kind of run out of arrows to make his case for getting the full-time gig. This was maybe the last chance to leave it like - well, we finished with 2 wins at home, and squint real hard and say that we made a little progress. I wouldn't be opposed to giving him a full year, but it'd be hard for CL to justify it at this point, if CL is even the GM.

And speaking of CL, I think it's hard to justify him keeping his job as well. After 3 years, we're one of the worst MLS teams in MLS history. Hernán was a pretty good signing, but most of the other ones this year have been a disappointment: Judd, Morales, Pellegrino, Yarborough. Costa's been OK and maybe Wilson would be OK if hadn't been injured almost the whole season.

 

We are too soft physically and have been for a long time. So lots of teams play us physically and we wilt.

Did you catch Paul Marie’s presser? He said that we are like a symphony where many of the players are not on the same page. I think that’s an apt description.

Also, a lot of our players did not want the ball tonight. You always have to want the ball! We need a house cleaning and that Must include leadership. CL and Shawlee need to go. Also, Covelo and most of the other top guys. There have to be consequences for being so awful, and clearly, that’s not the case.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Well, went to the Element Hotel bar after the game and said goodbye to our STH friends of 10 years who have said they will no longer give one cent to Fisher and his cronies.

Can't say as I blame them, but as MJ said in a recent post, it's hard to meet and hang on to friends as you get older...

 

The audio failed during the Ian postgame so it was a complete whiff on that. Someone's "laptop" (don't remember the name) was supposedly the problem. Too bad because it seemed like Ian was saying some things that we might want to hear.

There was a question that led him to the topic of being interim, etc., but as the audio was cutting out he seemed to be saying something like, yeah, I didn't really get to put my stamp on this team w/o preseason and w/o having input on players, and "they" have a good core and are a few of pieces away from being pretty good. Pretty sure he used the word "they" in describing the "good core" which seems odd. Does he already know that he won't be part of the future? Again, hard to tell when the audio is cutting in and out. Kind of a last gasp making a case for his staying. But hard to know exactly what he was saying because it was cutting in and out and then failed altogether. So we basically got 0 comprehensible comments from Ian on the game. Yet another failure to pile on top of the all the failures in the game.

They did have the Paul Marie postgame and he said something like they're a "symphony" of players who aren't playing together.

 

Luchi and Leitch assembled one of the worst teams ever. No one could have pulled a whote rabbit from there ass with this roster.

 

Diego Luna had a killer goal off the post for RSL.

He is from Sunnyvale and was with the Quakes academy.

Nice to see him score like that in front of his hometown friends and family.

I remember his dad, Alberto Luna when he played with the WSA Earthquakes in 1987 and 1988.

Too bad the Quakes let him get away.

Maybe Rodrigues and Daniel were decent.

Lopez had a nice steel only to be fouled.

Other than that, not much to see here.

Onto LA and then 2025!

 

Will this have been 80-year-old Krazy George's last Quakes game as a cheerleader?

 

WE

 

Figures...

 

I wonder if there was some "reverse Money Ball" involved in letting Luna get away.

One of the premises of Money Ball, in the book anyway, is that the A's started going against the grain of scouting for physical characteristics. There was this guy Jeremy Brown, who was kind of a "bad body" catcher, a sort of portly guy, but a guy with a knack for getting on base. He was featured in the book. I see Luna as a kind of "bad body" soccer player. He's 5'8", 190lbs, kind of top heavy, etc., one of the least soccer player looking guys in MLS. But he's sneaky quick and makes lots of good decisions with the ball and you can see the results.

On the other side of the spectrum is the guy with all of the physical traits but who has trouble getting out of his own head. Billy Beane himself was used as the example. Highly touted, had all the physical tools, but couldn't get out of his own head. I see Cade Cowell as kind of like this as well. All of the physical characteristics, but like Billy Beane has trouble getting out of his own head. He's having more success now but he never got out of his own head while playing with the Quakes and his production actually decreased over time. He's having some success now, but look at Cade's last year in MLS compared to Luna's current year - Cade - 4 goal contributions vs. Luna's 20.

So to the extent that there was ever some kind of choice about who to "protect" or prioritize in the academy between Cade and Luna (and maybe there wasn't - why can't you do both), it seems that we might have done a "reverse MoneyBall" and went for the physical specimen over the unlikely looking soccer player guy.

 

Sad. I can't blame them. My wife and I are regretting renewing our tickets for another year. She was pissed with search of her clear bag (again) during entry (mumbled something about new rules).

Boring, ugly game. RSL controlled the game. At best, we could have stolen a goal if Judd hadn't hit his shot straight at the GK. My favorites moment of the game was Rodrigues going up for a header, hanging in the air, and completely missing the ball.

I like Jack, but he was terrible off the bench. Hernan has a decent game, but all we did was sit back and hope for a lucky goal.

Good turnout by the fans and loved to see the support/celebration of George.

 

Hubby decided to renew one more time, to make it 30 years.
I would have been ok with non-renewing, as I feel like we are giving a robber all our money along with a tip.

 

Hubby knows best.

 

It is a testament of you and your partner’s fortitude and character.

Quakes don’t deserve you both.

 

Thanks, but the renewal decision was not mine. And 30 years is going to be it, unless the Quakes suddenly become a team to enjoy watching. I’m literally falling asleep during games even in the stadium.

 

Jazzy J's Merry Band of Polite Squatters still accepting new members!

"Jazzy, looks like plenty of empty seats over in that section".

"Which one exactly? For they all have plenty of empty seats'.

 

Exactly! It's a cornucopia of empty seats - Squatter's Delight!