SSV is/was a great group of diehard FANS who gave their all. Despite what the moronic trolls spout here and elsewhere, it was not up to SSV to keep the Quakes or to bring them back. It will take dedicated $$$ to bring a franchise back to the South Bay or elsewhere in the Bay Area. SSV said there were others intersested in the Quakes in their email, so perhaps with the idiots at AEG gone, there will be real work done. But I BELIEVED and CHEERED on my team and the fans working on keeping them here and now all of that is gone. It will hard to win back my BELIEF, my money and my heart over the next year. I for one cannot take anymore of this optimistic line of maybe they'll come back. Their gone. The stadium will sit empty this coming summer and fall.
Who's saying that it's up to SSV to bring them back or that it was up to them to keep them here? I think everybody understands their role as a liaison btw municipalities, the league, AEG and interested ownership groups.
SSV is merely a catalyst. Hopefully they will continue to keep working for the team. I for one would like to help them in their efforts. If we don't start considering future possibilities, then do we deserve a team?
Sorry to hear about a classy team being moved, I feel for all of the loyal fans. I know it wouldn't be the same but it would be great to see the Earthquakes back next year in the USL 1st Division a league that remembers the history of North American soccer. We haven't gotten a MLS team in the northwest yet, but soccer is alive in well with the Sounders, Timbers and Whitecaps. Teams with histories almost as long as the Earthquakes.
And when do you all really think the 'quakes will be back? Garber and AEG have never been up front with the city and the fans, so why should we beleive that they'll be trying really hard to bring an expansion team back, particularly when they didn't try very hard to keep the present team in San Joe? I think it's a bunch of bull just to cover their tracks out of town. And now that all is said and done, I'd like for SSV to come and tell us who all these potential mystery owners were. I wrote months ago I thought they were full of it because had there really been a deal in the works, something would have leaked simply because one can't keep negotiations like that secret for very long. Someone on some side would have leaked something. MLS just destroyed the best rivalry in the league and for what? A chance to play in a city that despite its Hispanic population isn't considered a soccer town, save for a few exhibition games? Rest in peace Earthquakes, we will accept no cheap substitutes.
The USA subsidiary of Ajax, located in Orlando, was going to step in. They were the first groups identified, and eventually it was SVS&E that became the lead potential investor/operator.
If there is any shred of truth to Garbor's story, then we won't hear anything from SSV as they will not want to burn any bridges with a tell all. But, I'll line up for their story when they decide to tell. It'll be a bitter sweet ending to a fun time. I have no faith in the current S.J. government and I think that between them and Spartan Shops you could cover way more than half the blame for 'Quakes exodus. So how long does one wait, with little or no visibility into the process before it becomes obvious that Garbor was full it and SSV should spill the story? If it is the same bunch over there at 4th and Santa Clara trying to get a baseball stadium built for a team that'll never show a year from now... Well maybe I'll be spared and have forgotten about all of this by then and it won't bother me.
My sense is that, this whole expansion thing is just to appease the fans. This is gut feeling and a very strong one. Trust will be hard to come by after this so I won't hold my breath. If a team ressurects in 2007 or beyond, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, the World Cup is coming. Our boys are going up against some serious competition so, I will make sure they get my support.
Of course he's an soccer idiot... he's an NFL guy brought in to give the league credibility... So one round of expansion and we CD Chivas USA (can you say poor pandering to a demographic that will never buy into the league) and Salt Lake City? Nice town, but if you have twelve major league teams do you put two in LA, one pandering to people who think MLS in an inferior league and the other in Salt Lake City. Step Two: take the team that drew the third largest attendance per game (taking away internation exhibitions, national team double headers, etc... and move it to Houston (no local ownership, no stadium, no tradition)... Garber is a moron, has always been a soccer moron and he and AEG will doom this league...
The only way I would be a fan of an earthquakes expansion team would be if it was in the USL. Because I will not be an MLs fan as long as AEG is controlling it.
Talk to me after you've been lied to and misled for three years by AEG - when your best player is talked to about coming back to another AEG team they want to succeed more.... When your President and General Manager leaves in the middle of the season to go to another AEG property. If you think this is a good deal for Houston, you and AEG deserve each other.
Why appease San Jose fans? What's in it for MLS if they have no plans to return to the bay area? Remember, they took away the team records - the Houston team will not get credit for two MLS Cups and a Supporters' Shield! Won't that hurt efforts to market the Houston team? That's some pretty serious commitment to the bay area if you ask me. I'm optimistic.
It was interesting to listen to Garber talk about the Quakes as an "expansion team". If you "read between the lines" it almost like he was saying, "Now that AEG's out of the picture, we can get to work and do this right". How else can we explain the commish now getting personally involved in discussions with the city of San Jose? Supposedly he's coming over here in January to meet with city officials. Why wasn't he involved before AEG's decision to move the team? I think he was simply staying out of AEG's way to let them do what they want with the team. I won't have a problem supporting an Earthquakes Mach III if that ever comes to pass. If it does it would probably have to be in a new stadium and all if it's MLS, and so it would be a new experience, with new chapters to write, but hopefully with a connection to the past legacy of the team. I suspect that a lot of people who are swearing off MLS would probably have a change of heart if it involved a local owner and a new stadium.
Kudos for your optimism. On this one, the glass is definitely half empty. That's where I am at the moment. And, it is only right to leave the legacy that San Jose Earthquakes earned in the Bay Area. You can't really say, Houston_____, 2 time MLS Champions! That's just plain wrong.
Sure, you and I say it's wrong, but one could make the argument for it anyway. They could point out the direct heritage of players and staff back to those MLS Championship teams. It's just the location that the home games are played at that differs. But no, they are making the Houston franchise start with a clean slate. I say that bodes well for us.
I don't know if somebody posted this yet, but here is an article from the Mercury news. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/soccer/13419699.htm
Sure you could. Most teams that move in the "big 4" sports retain claim over the championships, etc. that they've won in the past. Of course, most teams in those sports that move do so after years of sucking.
It's a dome........the field is on a giant plate, it slides in and out for sun, water and other things. not a huge amount of land. stadium also has an observation deck so you can see all of sapporo. it's pretty cool
Its still far to early for me to say. What I do know is that I will not be purchasing Direct Kick this year and will not be watching games this year. I think that for MLS to win me back Garber has to prove what he said yesterday and get the Quakes back. Then I will be able to move forward. Even, then I will struggle. As some have said it will not be our team. The reason this all went down is that AEG wanted Houston, but, after Chivas and Salt Lake this year they did not want an expansion team to suck...therefore..If a deal is 90 to 120 days away it would have been much more sensible doing a KC and hanging around for year to maintain good will and give H-town an expansion team. Seeing my wife in tears yesterday with announcment hurts as much as the team going. That costs to me than $20 million or whatever will ever hurt Anshutz. Time to heal and I will probably be back in blue in 2007. -Richard
Well, I don't know what it's worth, but what is in Houston in three years will no longer be the organization that goes down there now. Just look at the Quakes who won the 2003 Cup.
Sure, it's about appeasing the fans, but it's also about not burning any bridges here. We won't get a team until somebody LOCAL steps up. So in that sense, Garber could be 100% sincere about expanding back here, but it's not much of a risk because we haven't yet found anyone to sink money into the team. I won't struggle, I wouldn't even think twice about it. Hypothetically, if the Quakes come back, it would be because a local guy was found. And I'd give them MORE of my money than I did to AEG. A team with a Bay Area owner is more "ours" than a franchise owned by an entity who isn't constantly threatening to move it. Hands down, no question about it. If they found somebody local to buy the team, and to build a stadium, that would be the only connection I need.
If the Quakes are going to have a team in 2007. They should have put them on hiatus for a year and loaned out all their players to other mls teams for one season, and gave Houston an expansion team.
I think SJ should not be a "shoe in" for another expansion team. The Bay Area, maybe. The city has already shown that they are more pre-occupied with obtaining a phantom baseball team than keeping what they had. If the city really wanted to negotiate, I beleive they could of forced the hand of SFSU. The mayor and all the inept politicians never took this issue seriously enough. Sure AEG sucks, but this has been going on for years and the politicos were just not interested until the 11th hour. too late. horrbile leadership. SJ loses, we all lose. Why reward that? Maybe another city might actually be a little more serious?
If some other city wants to step up, it can feel free. San Jose may have put forward a ridiculous proposal, but it's one more proposal than anyone else has come up with.