"Oakland Roots Sign Veteran Attacker Quincy Amarikwa" (OaklandRootsSC.com - Wednesday, 8/11/21) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Great! I thought Quincy's career might be done. He's 33, and I don't think he played much for Las Vegas. Now he's back in the bay, and besides the soccer, it's a good place for him to continue to probe around with his entrepenurial instincts..
Hmmm. This may explain why I never got the Juneteenth shirt I ordered. Good for Quincy tho that he’s still fighting to play
Well, they finally sent a long explanation on why the Juneteenth shirts are going to end up being Labor Day or Pumpkin festival shirts. Sigh. https://app.getresponse.com/view.html?x=a62b&m=BSR8Xb&mc=Iw&s=BwxH9cL&u=Bi93&z=EVk2MhK&
Michael Emenalo in the news again. Nice career retrospective on his influence on the current Chelsea team. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...enal-amid-scrutiny-Edu.html?ito=rss-flipboard
A legend calls time on an incredible career. Nothing but love for our guy @justmorrow ❤️— Toronto FC (@TorontoFC) September 16, 2021
Forever a Quakes legend.A class act on and off the pitch.Congrats on an incredible career, @justmorrow 💙 pic.twitter.com/w7ctml58GJ— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) September 16, 2021
Watching the US v. Panama game (with Godoy and Cummings), I looked on Wikipedia for information about the current Panama coach, Thomas Christiansen (Danish by birth, but played for Spain). I found this little tidbit: "Christiansen signed a four-year contract with Barcelona in July 1991, when Johan Cruyff was team manager, with a dream of playing alongside their Danish playmaker Michael Laudrup. He started competing as a senior with the reserves, where he soon was joined by compatriot Ronnie Ekelund..."
You are right, I did. But at least based on performances in a Quakes’ shirt, I thought Godoy was by far the best of the bunch.
I agree. Quintero was OK but not that impactful I didn’t think. Scored 3 goals as an attacking wide mid, which doesn’t sound all that bad in retrospect, on the “Espinoza scale”.
Pat Onstad Houston GM: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/new-...-end-talent-as-dynamo-plan-increased-spending Pat visited my classroom once to read with the kids. When he entered the room we played "O Canada!".
After excelling in interviews and presenting the club with a comprehensive plan, the Dynamo officially appointed Onstad GM on Monday. Apart from the grammatical error (I don't want to keep being that person, but really?) was there ever any indication that Jesse came in with "a comprehensive plan?" Or that our club expects that now? And “There will be a materially higher spend. Pat and I have talked about that objective," majority owner Ted Segal said. "I think when you see the salaries released at this time next season, it will be significantly different than [note: he means "from"] today. It will be fitting for a city of this size and the support Houston gives.” Added Onstad: “This is a gentleman who believes in the city and is willing to support the club. I’m excited to have an opportunity from a budget standpoint to build this club and make it successful. I wouldn’t have taken this opportunity if I felt I didn’t have the support of ownership.” Suppose our owner read this, and if so, what was his reaction? "Ted Segal sounds pretty clueless!"
Easy to talk big (remember Kaval saying we'd be in the top half of spending in MLS)? We'll see how it goes when it's time to walk the walk.
I don't know what he told Kaval or the ownership in terms of a plan. However, when he spoke with SSV he talked about some things which sounded like they were part of a plan. Many of those ideas reflected some of the elements in a paper he wrote. If you google this you can read it online. Why Invest in Italian Football - FIGC https://www.figc.it
Jesse was kind enough to send me a fairly lengthy document with some of his ideas in it, in response to a long email I wrote him once. So my sense was that he was a kind of strategic thinker. But then there's where the rubber meets the road - that's where it gets hard. Maybe not fair, but I look at Jesse and Doyle as sort of opposites. Jesse was a strategic thinker but the execution of that plan didn't always come through. Doyle executed stuff, but w/o a plan .
I never understood these cliches. Just curious but which GM doesn't want to seek or sign "top-end talent"? Its kind of like, 'oh I'm sure the coach wants to win'. Who doesn't want these things for their club?
Wanting to sign top-tier talent, sure. Having the owner say he'll write the checks, that's a level of commitment that we certainly have never heard. Not to suggest that anyone should spend foolishly, but a budget-centric strategy is going to backfire.
When Wolff and Fisher took over the team in ‘08, Lew explicitly said that the salaries for soccer players were lower than for baseball players, and therefore, they would have no problem signing some big time players. Of course, they never spent serious money on a player. Maybe after shelling out serious dollars for Huckerby, and then having his career end, they felt a bit gun-shy about signing more players for high dollar amounts? It’s hard to say what exactly was or is up with our owners, other than that they were and are cheap. And Jesse had a plan when he came in as GM. I think he changed his plan at least twice, but he pitched Kaval and Fisher a plan. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
Seemed to me that when Jesse Fioranelli first came in with Dom and then Stahre, he had plan to go for more of an European look. Danny Hoesen, Florian Jungwirth, Valeri Qazaishvili, Jahmir Hyka Magnus Eriksson Joel Qwiberg and François Affolter. When Almeyda came in, he went with a Latin look signing South American, and Mexican players. Looks like both methods failed miserably.
Contrary to popular belief, to date I don't know if any correlation has been shown between spending and results in MLS. This is the last set of data that I have seen. You can see the data points plotted - SS ranking (essentially finish in an overall standings) vs. payroll ranking from 2007 to 2018. It's just a bunch of dots assembled randomly - no correlation whatsoever. If anything I see a greater concentration of higher finishes for lower payroll rankings! So I continue to believe strongly that the most important factor in obtaining good results in MLS is "smarts". If you're smart you can be successful, even at lower payrolls. If you're dumb you will fail, even at high payrolls. We haven't been smart in a very long time. The new GM gives us a new opportunity, if we don't blow it. https://www.epluribusloonum.com/201...or-league-soccer-payroll-performance-analysis