What "dark arts" are Latin American players engaging in that non-Latin American players don't? Voodoo? Mark was correct to signal the implicit racism that I missed because I was still smarting from being called consciously scruffy earlier in the idiotic article.
I think the polite word for it is "gamesmanship", a more common one would be "embellishment". However, these are now univerasl behaviors in the soccer world, with every country having adept practitioners.
When Klinsmanns was the USA coach he complained that the USA players needed more "embellishment" and were to nice.....guess the writer of that piece drew the short straw that day when it came to assignments from his editor....
Thanks Don!! I thought some would think I was being too sensitive. No nationality, or even league, has a monopoly on dirty playing (or diving as the case may be). I was offended, and yeah, contacting this guy, or commenting on the article might be appropriate. And you don’t look as scruffy as I do! And thanks @Scott Rohde too! Go Quakes!! Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
This is not to excuse the idiot writer, but maybe he has a thing about Rafa Marquez? Even I thought that article was total trash. MLSSoccer digital seems to have had some changes for 2020, and even ExtraTime so far is quite awful.
Need to add this to your collection.We'll be giving away 7,000 @peladoalmeyda bobbleheads at our home Home Opener on Feb. 29! Make sure to arrive early! 🎟: https://t.co/DxfbRCNrtX | #VamosSJ pic.twitter.com/gdDqJLklRK— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) February 11, 2020
Chivas would like to have Almeyda back. https://onefootball.com/en/news/jos...eturn-to-chivas-en-29100385?variable=20200211
From Tommie Smith's autobiography, mention of his apartment back in the 1960s on North 11th Street in my San Jose 'hood: https://books.google.com/books?id=0-1kfxbGTikC&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=tommie+smith+north+eleventh+street&source=bl&ots=P_9BKLyWO1&sig=ACfU3U160tAkz9hUOk0oQTGFXmcCtmQ3IA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQn7r86cznAhWzHjQIHUyXCTEQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=tommie smith north eleventh street&f=false The reason Smith lived on North 11th was that redlining prevented black San Jose State students from living south of Santa Clara Street (where the campus is). Consequently, my Northside neighborhood is the historical locus of San Jose's African-American community, and the African-American community center is on North 6th across Julian from an historically-black church. Smith's bungalow still stands at 55 North 11th Street. I would love someday for it to be a museum of local black history. Its location alone speaks volumes. (But I was told it's too far from "downtown" for tourists to seek it out.)
Gosh that's too bad. I'm sure all the thousands of tourists thronging downtown San Jose, waiting for a chance to ride on the fabled light rail and ooh and aah at the sight of the magnificent 101/280 intersection are dreadfully disappointed.
A Tommie Smith house museum would likely attract more tourists to town. So, too, would the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame, which San Jose could also have had. It's not like the weather is dissuading tourism. It's a conscious discounting of cultural amenities -- the same philistinism that accounts for the design of the municipal flag -- and, by extension, the Quakes' new kits.
I had this game: https://www.sfchronicle.com/busines...-was-a-board-game-12739819.php#photo-15196199 The linked article is frustrating... The photo of the box cover cropped the best part. Then I found another place where the game is depicted: The unfinished 280/680/101 junction (bottom right corner on the cover) was awesome as a symbol CalTrans "vision".
Historically, San Jose actively fought against anything that would have altered the city's status as a residential city. You had whole areas of town dedicated to companies like Cisco, but, for the most part, it was designed to be a place where people lived, not where they worked or did anything else. That's why I find it funny when people complain about it being culturally irrelevant next to San Francisco despite being a larger city, as if the people who designed it hadn't specifically done everything in their power to keep it from being like San Francisco. That's had its pluses and minuses, certainly. It does have a performing arts center, hosts several conventions, has sports, so it's hardly a wasteland devoid of any and all cultural relevance. It certainly has issues with who gets represented, and how they're represented, as you pointed out, and those problems seem to be getting worse instead of better. I'll try to bring this back on track and say that it's been argued that the Quakes haven't been doing enough to entice high level coaches and players to join the Quakes. I do think Almeyda's arrival has changed that perception to some degree. I don't foresee a time when players choose San Jose over Los Angeles or New York (or even Montreal and Toronto) if their primary concern is being in a high profile city. However, if you can get some big name folks on board and then ultimately achieve something with those folks, suddenly you become a destination for those who want to win. So long as San Jose fails on the field, there's only so much that a guy like Almeyda can do to convince good players to come on board, but Almeyda's hire is easily the most positive thing that's happened to the Quakes in the Fisher era outside of getting Wondolowski. It will be a real shame if they (very likely) waste that time and have to start all over again at square one.
It really will. I feel like Matias got a lot more from essentially the same team last year. That was really saying something considering our four wins / last place finish the year before. This season is probably make or break with Chivas expressing their great interest in having him return. It's unfathomable to me that we wouldn't build on Matias' progress last year by giving him some new players to work with and adding some star power to signal good faith and intent to anyone left paying attention. I'm trying to tone down my honest reflections on this off season but truth is, under the current roster we're going to need a Matias miracle to make the playoffs. And, if we have another season like the last one, seem almost inevitable that Chivas will find a way to bring him back, the whole exercise of bringing in a great coach will have been for nothing. A real shame for sure.
The messaging around this whole thing is that it's a multi-year effort, and a lot of the focus has been on integrating academy players into the first team to where they are actually contributing on a regular basis. I recall Almeyda specifically talking about wanting to see that through as that building process was what motivated him. I would hope his contract with the Quakes is such that he can't just walk away in some fashion, but I'd guess that doesn't mean Chivas couldn't buy out that contract or some deal could be worked out if they wanted Almeyda bad enough. You just never know with these things. I agree that it's disappointing there weren't more player acquisitions in the off season to bolster the roster, but we should have expected it. If you plan to use more academy players, you're probably doing so at the expense of signing players that are outside your org. There are only so many roster spots available, and you can only manipulate who occupies those spots so much. If we go off last year, Wondolowski will again have to score a great deal of goals for the team to get wins. That's always worrying to me, since relying so heavily on one goal scoring threat has been a major reason the Quakes have been so bad for so long. Wondolowski has continued to provide goals at a high rate, but not 30 or more goals, and that's what we're starting to see in the league now. Even at 30 goals, when no one else scores in the double digits, wins will be hard to get. Almeyda has done a lot to improve the performances of some players, but do we believe any of the other offensive players are going to make the big and necessary jump in quality? Hoesen was seriously disappointing, as was Vako. Fierro was basically a non-factor. Eriksson was drastically better, but he was also pretty much the only one who was better. I get the feeling that even if Almeyda stays for the entire duration of his contract, the team will only ever be an average team simply because the player acquisition side of things hasn't been good enough, both on the talent evaluation side and the willingness to acquire good talent.
agree with your whole post, but the point you make that probably jumps out the most is how disappointing Hoesen has been. For the Quakes to have any chance we're going to need him to be scoring far more often, which seems unlikely.
I think some of Hoesen's issues were caused by misuse of him from Almeyda, actually. The blame doesn't entirely rest on Almeyda, though, so I'm hoping that the two of them have a better understanding of one another after a year and they can find a way to increase his effectiveness. Not holding my breath, but we'll see.