now you're confusing Jebo with Rick Astley who I imagine is sipping a daiquiri on St Croix or something.
Not confused at all. You have still have not explained the supposed 2023-2024 roster delta in a way that would remotely account for the massive 2023-2024 drop-off. For example, you can't just say "Judd didn't pan out!" w/o explaining why Judd is a big drop-off from 2023's Judd equivalent - Ayo Akinola, or prior to that, um, nobody. But it's fine!
Completely agree that the team is mentally weak. Mental strength is one of the criteria of being a professional athlete. It's just not up to the coach to provide an environment, but for the players to be able to respond on the field. No, it would not have carried forward. Luchi would still have been the coach and Beason would still be scoring own goals.
As I said, we started out poor. But, even then we often took the lead in games, only to lose them late on. Then, after signing Hernan we were on the cusp of a three game winning streak, (4 unbeaten) only to have the debacle in Portland. Our losses since then have been more brutal, with some games marked with poor play start to finish. So, I do see the game in Portland as a turning point.
Honestly, I doubt it matters much whom we hire as GM because there is no commitment/budget for developing a competitive team top to bottom. Fisher is a bottom-feeder, pure and simple. He does not want to commit the resources to build a juggernaut, rather he is OK if we have a moderately successful season every so often and can watch the value of his investment grow as more ambitious owners lift the entire league.
Then let's hope that he soon decides he has made his boatload of money on this investment and it is time to sell.
Honestly, it's only fair that CL should be on the hot seat. I was a CL proponent, but, scoreboard, "it's a results business" as CL himself says, and the results this year have been beyond abysmal. We can't blame it all on Fish either because while our spending is probably in the lower 3rd of the league, there are probably 8-10 team with lower spending, with exactly all of them doing better than us. That said, I'm not sure another change is the best course of action at this point. "Change" doesn't necessarily mean better, as we have seen, and so sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for. Plus we had a decent year last year. If you consider 2022 to be a wasted Almeyda transition year, CL's had one decent year and one horrible year. 2025 can be the "rubber game". One more year to get us back on track or he's out? Another factor is that CL has hired Vassili Cremanzidis to help manage the roster and scouting, player acquisition, etc. Is he any good? I don't know but he was around when we signed a bunch of intl players in 2017, none of them great but good enough to get us into the playoffs. And finally, I would hope that CL has learned something in his 2 and 1/2 years or whatever on the job. If you bring in an outsider he will have to "learn MLS", and that always doesn't go well (see Fioranelli, Jesse). If you bring in an MLS guy, does he have the chops to make good intl acquisitions, etc.
I'd say one good season. One below avg season. And now a sh*t season. Not only is he not consistent but he's been digressing pretty bad from season to season. We need to do much better at the #9.
I should back to find all my quotes saying his one good season was such a fluke, that it would never happen again, and I was right. I also was the advocate that he was a shit soccer player when a good majority whined he didn't get his USMNT shot. Ebobisse sucked in Portland, and he REALLY sucks here.
MLS has an article on every team’s top goal scorer in 2023. Espinoza led Quakes with 13. But ten teams (including Miami) didn’t have one with as many as the 10 Jebo scored. Three other teams had a top poacher with only 10 goals. That’s 13 of 28 teams (nearly half the league) without any goalscorer of better quality than Jebo last season, his supposed subpar full year for us.
Don't confuse last year's Miami with this year's Miami. They were are work in progress. This year's Miami is a finished product. Just like we're a finished product except that their's is crafted from the best materials available whereas ours is slapped together from whatever shit stuck...
I never said anything about this year’s Miami. My point is that Quakes fans are confusing this year’s Jebo (crap) with last year’s Jebo (pretty good).
Lost in the shuffle about Jebo’s drop in goal productivity is Espinoza’s drop in goal productivity. Last year he had 13 goals, this year he has 3? And it’s not because he isn’t getting chances. He’s blown a lot of chances that he put away last year. That’s not a general criticism of Espinoza. He’s still getting lots of assists and he always plays hard and plays well. He had a career year in goal scoring last year. I mean like 3x or 4x his usual amount. Now he’s come back down to earth. Among the list of reasons why we’re so much worse this year, I think there’s another one. He carried us last year especially earlier in the year when we were doing pretty well.
Espinoza is not a Leitch signing, though, so it makes it harder for the lynch mob to hang him around Leitch's neck.
True. I'm still trying to get at why we're so much worse with largely the same (and arguably improved) roster. I think Espinoza no longer being the SuperEspinoza of 2023 is one of the probably several reasons. He was in the conversation about MVP at least around midseason last year. This year, not exactly.
The main reason we are "worse" has been in the early part of the season was/is our inability to hold a lead see out games, as to why that is is what needs to be figured out.
Needs to be amended: "I'm passionate about the team I've been a part of since 2009 and 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 seasons didn't end how we wanted...so, um...yeah, I'm going to go ahead and hide under my desk for as long as possible."