Funny: earlier this morning I was saying to myself, "why can't we just get a decent, contributing player on loan." Nice...
If this is Almeyda's team, then IMHO the near term future looks bright. Imagine loosening the purse strings for him!
YES!! We should have translators on call to help folks who don't speak English very well. We should have people on tap who can help players find housing, schools for their kids, language schools for the players and their spousal units, help with navigating the public transit system (which is fractured), help with finding appropriate ex-pat communities (if any), and so on. Making the move to a country that speaks a different language is tough, we should help with that. I'm also reminded of the Travis Mulraine/Adrian Narine signings. So I hope that Alanís (assuming that we sign him) turns out to be really good. I'd be happy with "solid MLS starting quality." And yeah, I have my reservations about signing older players. I fear that they will wear out with Almeyda's frenetic style of play. I also worry about signing older guys to three-year contracts and then being stuck paying for guys who can't play. ALM anyone? Also, I want him to be better than Kashia. I don't fault Kashia's effort or attitude. But he's too slow to do what we need, and he's too easily pulled out of position. OK, enough of that. Go Quakes!! Fisher OUT!! - Mark
De Guadalajara a Cancún. ¡@os_alanis ha llegado! 🇲🇽📰 https://t.co/u68pdA2hft pic.twitter.com/OMNIf43w45— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) January 28, 2020
Some of my Mexican friends just coined a new nickname for the quakes: chivas USA that one stings, lol
it does because of the disaster that was the last Chivas USA, of course. Personally, if we were tapping the best of Chivas who, from what I understand, signs only Mexican players, I wouldn’t mind. Just give me a team that can win us a title, I don’t care where players come from. But the one Chivas player who might’ve had an impact, Pulido, we were never in the running, not really. So all this focus on C. D. Guadalajara could backfire much like we saw in LA where Chivas USA were never really embraced by local fans.
Just to add, I’m completely unfamiliar with Oswaldo Alanis and hope he feels welcome here, and thrives and can strengthen our D. If he can score the occasional goal too that would be a huge bonus. Besides Wondo, I’m having a hard time seeing where our goals are coming from in 2020.
Almeyda did not, could not figure out how to move Godoy for MLS funny money. Fioranelli’s job is about understanding MLS salary cap, funny money, international slots, green cards, which players can and cannot qualify for off budget rosters. When it comes to understanding how to function as an MLS team, this is Fioranelli’s team. Furthermore, I think you’re underestimating how much of the scouting is multi-year. Unless they are lying, Godoy, Bernardez, and Cummings were multi-year pursuits. Even Alanís was brought up as a Quakes’ target at the time he came back from Spain to Mexico, but that Chivas outbid the Quakes. So I think Fioranelli has dozens irons in the fire spanning many months to years. It’s Almeyda’s team to manage. He may well have a lot too say about which irons from the fire he’d like Fioranelli to concentrate on. He probably also has major input on striking, yes or no, when an iron is hot. But I don’t think in any way is it one guy’s team more than the other’s. They have equally essential, very different, but interconnected jobs.
Vako had 8 last year, Eriksson 6, Salinas 6, Hoesen 5, Yueill 3, and Espinoza only 2. Espinoza definitely needs to up his goal production, as well as Hoesen, who dropped off considerably from the year before, (his minutes dropped as well). Playing centrally Magnus needs to do better than 6 goals, but, was double digits, (10) in assists. Salinas was a surprise with 6 goals, but, I think it wll be hard for him to match that. Rios and Fierro will also need to contribute. Wondo was also our leader by a wide margin in goals per 90 at .68. For players with over 1000 minutes Salinas was 2nd with .40. Vako 3rd at .34, and Hoesen .31.
Vako looked great for awhile there last season but then his production dropped off sharply. Magnus I thought was good too for much of last year. Salinas and Wondo are fighting for iron man bragging rights and I wouldn’t count either one of them out for scoring 6-10 this season, so I have to agree there’s some scoring potential amongst those four. Danny for me rarely looks threatening. He holds down a key role and if he’s not cracking 10+ goals, it’s another long season. I would love it if he could all of a sudden catch fire and become a goal scoring monster.
I certainly hope you're right. I am not trying to discount the difficulty in actually getting players signed. This certainly seems to be where Fioranelli has put most of his effort. I just want to see more than that. Not sure it really matters, but Godoy was originally brought in under Doyle, as was Bernardez. They don't reflect much upon Fioranelli's performance as a GM, unless you count the re-signing of Godoy, which was a mistake.
I have little doubt that if a central/south American player is having some trouble making a decision about what offer he might accept when the Quakes are involved, Almeyda giving the player a call, especially if they know each other at all, is a great asset.
True, they don’t reflect on Fioranelli—it’s just regarding what a GM’s job is and the watching of players over time, which I believe they still do even if they are trying to get more from the academy. I didn’t mean to imply Fiorinelli’s “hit rate” for signings is anything special either...more just good enough. I think at the time Godoy was re-signed, it was seen as a good thing because the Quakes should get a payday if he went to Europe; and that was being speculated might well happen if his World Cup was good, which it wasn’t. His trajectory didn’t keep going up, so it was bad in that sense. But it turned out okay given what they got from the Nashville deal. I’m not a salary capologist at all, but if those dollars went to buying Judson, with some left over to put into this loan deal today, it seems pretty good to me even with a Euro sale of Godoy. It seems to me, Fioranelli’s next big test is Yueill, because they need to re-sign him this year or he can go on a free after the season.
I'm sure it is, and it wasn't my point at all. There's a difference between Almeyda being involved in discussions about which players to sign/helping convince those players to sign and Almeyda being primarily responsible for identifying which players to sign. I'm very hopeful that it's more the former than it seems.
We have what, two former Chivas players, Alanis and Fierro, who played a combined 205 games for Chivas, and Matias who coached there for 3 1/2 years? That hardlymakes us Chivas USA. Kashia and Vako played a combined 348 games for Vitesse, I guess we are Vitesse USA as well? And both Vega and Rios played for River Plate, where Almeyda also managed. I guess we are also River Plate USA?
We are the San Jose Earthquakes. I welcome all players, coaches who want to be here and help the team excel. Go Quakes. Needing some live soccer soon.
We had a team president who went to Stanford Business School, and how many Stanford defenders now? Stanford USA.
Welcome to the family, @os_alanis! 🖤💙 #VamosSJ pic.twitter.com/vR2koBcNlg— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) January 29, 2020
OK, we keep wandering from the topic at hand. First, we needed another CB and we went out and got another CB. So that's good. Second, we have to wonder if this new guy - Oswaldo - is as good or better than Kashia. (I sure as hell hope so.) Third, we still need a starting left-back, unless either Lima or Lopez can step up and become a quality player at that spot. As to who is doing the picking of players, I think Almeyda is telling Jesse who he wants, probably a list of guys, and Jesse is working on getting those guys. We've been after Oswaldo since last May or June? It's been a while in the getting. Jesse told me he was trying to sign a new center-back months before we signed Kashia. And he was trying to get some other guys in the winter transfer window when he and I spoke in April. So I think it takes a long time to get a player unless you can just throw huge amounts of money at them. I'm sure it's a group effort. My complaints, and arguments that we should raid some Central American rosters and just that I think there are players in those leagues who would fit with what we're doing. And Almeyda's approach is different, so getting guys that he knows is probably a good idea. We're not trying to find someone who plays in a 4-5-1 and can just step into whatever role they've been playing, we need players who get the man-marking scheme as implemented by Almeyda. (And there are other elements to his system which make it more complicated than just man-marking.) And I'm concerned about Oswaldo's age. How many years of top-level starter are left in him? And will our youngsters be able to step into his shoes in '21 or '22? Because they may have to. Go Quakes!! Fisher OUT!! - Mark
This is exaclty right, Jesse checks with the guy in charge to see if he will pony up the pesos and then does the paperwork. Anyone here could do Jesse’s job. I wish I had Jesse’s job!
Those are good points. Alanis is an interesting pick, and he might just be for the next few years, or just this year since we have him on loan. We don't need him to be mister right at this point, we needed a mister today. I just updated the roster thread, and we have all of our spots filled, with two unsigned draftees in camp. It turns out Beason was pre-signed by the league, so he goes right on to the roster. We can loan some youth to Reno and make a couple of spots, but this also means we are paying 20 players on our roster in terms of the cap. This is a little speculation (and it has to be since MLS is so opaque), but maybe after using a bunch of allocation money we now we may have very little flexibility. In addition to this Yueill no longer has the GA designation on the website, and we need to re-sign him this season. We make need to move players in order to make space for the signings we need, and I think most of us agree that's at least one more starter-level defender (probably an LB), and a striker. This may be more cap game than an unwillingness to fill the right positions. I don't know that there would be many takers for any of our highly paid, under-performing players.
I would just qualify that by saying it’s true for starting caliber players but not developmental players (homegrowns, draft picks). Since we don’t spend very much on starting class players I don’t think Almeyda is getting his top picks. I would say Almeyda’s discoveries are: Espinoza, Rios, Fierro, Vega, Alanis I’m not certain about Judson and Lopez. I kinda don’t think Almeyda initially sought these guys. So on a 30 man roster Almeyda is directly responsible for 5 signings. Two of which have clearly raised the quality of the team (Espinoza and Vega). The jury is still out on the other 3. My guess is that Alanis will eventually be a starter. Rios and Fierro will be subs.
Maybe the process is collaborative instead of pursuant to a strictly-adhered to organizational chart. I know that may trigger some folks.