The Official 2023/2024 Off Season Thread

Could be but I don't remember hearing it from anyone but myself .

 

It's also possible that he was experiencing some burnout, coming over in the middle of the Bundesliga season and having to jump right into Quakes training and into the MLS season, having also played WC and doing other intl duty. I looked at some of his numbers from his Dallas days and compared - things like interceptions and tackles, key passes, etc. and seemed like everything was something on the order of 30% down from those days. Could also be that he's lost a step. Lots of miles - he's been playing pro soccer since 2011, though it does not look like he was a really regular starter for Augsburg and certainly not for Stuttgart. Also, the league's gotten a bit better since 2018. Those are probably the main factors - lost a step, a bit of burnout, the league's gotten better, and maybe he wasn't as good as Luchi remembered in the 1st place.

Maybe it's a bit comparable to the Simon Dawkins situation. He was so good in 2012 for us. You have those memories, you give him a nice contract (I think he was a DP in 2016). You think you're getting your stellar lead guitar player back, but when he came back in 2016 he just wasn't the same player. You think you're getting Jeff Beck, but instead you got Nick Jonas.

 

Yeah I think most of the main guys from that NYRB era are quite intelligent and would make good coaches (McCarty, Robles, Kljestan, BWP, even Adams one day)... same with RSL from a few years before that (Rimando, Morales, Olave, Beckerman, etc.).

 

Finally, the first step towards climbing out of the depts of mediocracy...this is huge.

 

Re: Steffen....Man, that's a big drop...definitely about playing time, but he's been so injury prone...his form and fall down the nats keeper depth chart has been shockingly fast...

 

Speaking of GK's, on the Aftershock podcast about roster moves they mentioned Drake Callendar, and that there are people still in the FO that are not happy we didn't sign him to an HG. Drake graduated from Cal in 2019. By that time I think the Quakes (Jesse I think) had signed JT and Emi Ochoa was kind of next in line, and I guess decided those were going to be the guys we were going to go with.

The context of that conversation is that they believe that CL does not seem to hold onto guys for sentimental reasons - e.g. Tingey and Cilley both gone after a year, whereas Jesse maybe hung onto his guys longer. They framed it as "sentiment". I think it was more that Jesse didn't want to admit a mistake, and believed that they just needed more time. They were going to teach the guys to be "cognitively dominant" or whatever it was he talked about. So when Drake Callendar was available I guess it was - well we have JT, and Emi is coming along after him so we're going to stick with our guys.

Hopefully I related that conversation accurately. It came up sort of in passing and they kind of blew thru it quickly, not necessarily connecting all the dots.

 

Yeah, though I think more than "sentiment" it was more of a kind of stubborness to admit you may not have made the best choice, plus Jesse had this philosophy about developing players to have "cognitive dominance" or something. IOW, now that he's one of ours, we're going to teach him and he'll be great because we are so good at teaching. He'll have "cognitive dominance"! He once emailed me in response to a question and actually used Jacob Akanyirige as an example, how he was learning to do the right thing in the right situations, etc.

 

I think the choice was more about sticking with JT rather than an Ochoa vs Callender decision. JT and Drake are the same age and would have been duplicative, so it made sense to pick one. (Not saying they picked the right one!) Ochoa was 14, eight years younger and multiple seasons away from being even an occasional backup keeper, so that was always a long-term project.

 

Yeah, I just threw Ochoa's name in there because they may have figured they've got 2 in the pipeline and so they're good, they don't need any more. But sure, JT would be more the direct competitor to Drake. To be fair it's pretty hindsight 20/20 to say now that they should have grabbed Callendar and let go of JT. Neither of them had any MLS experience at that time I don't think - 2019. And JT had represented the US nats at multiple levels and Drake hadn't. But IIRC on the podcast they were claiming that some people still in the front office from the Jesse days thought they should have gone after Drake (possibly Chris Leitch is one of those people).

 

Just before WC 2022 I heard stories that Zack Steffen had done some terrible thing and would never play for the USMNT again. Maybe that dovetails with his fall down the depth charts overseas.

 

I sure hope that CL and cohorts are hard at work finding us some great players.

That creeping feeling of dred is nagging at my spine.

Shit.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

I'm always leary when I see the words "state of the art". That's what they said about Levi's Stadium when they were building it. I've been to a few Quakes games there and I'm not impressed. I guess I was wrong to expect something like Oracle Park. IMHO it looks like a cleaner Candlestick Park; steel and concrete. So I assume since the Quakes are building this new facility, the team will now be playing "state of the art" soccer??

• “NEWS: Santa Clara County and the San Jose Earthquakes Plan to Partner With City of San Jose To Build State-Of-The-Art Public Soccer Fields & Quakes Training Facility At The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds” (SJEarthquakes.com - Wednesday, 12/6/23)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!!


-G[/QUOTE]

 

100% the Quakes will continue to play “on our dime” soccer = the best soccer they can play on our dime.That’s the art of John Fisher’s organization.

 

With the Quakes it’s “StateOfTheArt x 0.4 or so, which means it will be OK and functional but far from best in league. But certainly way better than nothing. It represents a renewed commitment to the franchise in the South Bay.

 

Is that the problem? We are only providing Fisher with dimes??

 

The old rule of venture investing = spend other people’s money, not your own.