A Busy Off-season: Ins, Outs, Home & Away

Smartphones overheating gorged on twitter feeds, laptops choking from horrendously congested bandwidth, unattended dinners burning and stacks of dishes toppling unwashed from the kitchen sink.  Hardly the end of the world (as we know it), but considering it’s the MLS offseason it’s been unexpectedly chaotic in our nerdy household keeping an eye on all of the soccer news this past few weeks.

Arrivals: To many fans delight, the Quakes signed the “Salinhart” partnership of Shea Salinas and Steven Lenhart to four year contracts (“…tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom stadium”).  Going into the 2012 season, the pace of Salinas and Baca means that San Jose photographers are already upgrading their lenses for the faster shutter speeds they will need to freeze the action.  The Quakes have also acquired a utility midfielder (as it were), Jean Alexandre, from Real Salt Lake.  Finally a player that has already started in so many slots that Frank Yallop cannot be accused of playing him ‘out of position’.  

Departures: Personally, I was disappointed to lose Bobby Burling in the expansion draft – I do appreciate players who play like they give a damn.  He was a strong physical presence and I wish him luck in Montreal (at least until kick off against San Jose).  Figuring that Convey was already long gone, I hadn’t anticipated that the club could parlay his departure into an international roster spot.  It would be great to convert that slot that into a position for Dawkins, and as we speak, Doyle and Yallop are stumbling over cockney rhyming slang trying to Captain Kirk a Jellied Eel with Tottenham Hotspurs.  Meanwhile, Quakes players available in next week’s re-entry Draft are Weber, Sealy, Andre Luiz, Leitch, and Peterson - watch this space.  

Stadium: It took only one minute for the Quakes to sell their first luxury suite at the new stadium for $350,000.  For the average Quakes fan however, holding a bake sale isn’t going to cut it to raise that kind of dough.  When the new stadium is built I’m already counting on sitting a shade farther back – on the centerline of course - among the same wisecracking fans; and my aching back is counting on that being in 2013.  The next public hearing on the stadium plan is on Wednesday December 14, and is a vital step on the journey to that new stadium.  In the meantime, I humbly put forth a request to the front office for a seat cushion give away for the final season at Buck Shaw.  

Euro 2012: It was just so disappointing that the Group of Debt (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Ireland) did not get drawn.  In Group D, my native England will face Sweden, France, and Ukraine.  While many in my family across the pond think that this is an easy group, I’m not so sure.  England has never beaten Sweden in meaningful competition, Ukraine will have home field advantage, and their first game will be against France.  Plans are already being made for breakfast banter during the June 11 game against France.  I note that Google translates ‘banter’ into ‘plaisanterie’ in French – let’s hope we are all still exchanging pleasantries at the end of the game.  

UEFA Champions League: as a Blackburn Rovers fan, I’m obviously not experienced enough to discuss this…

Wordle Association Football.

Get Your Fizz On...

Throughout my carefree, formative years skipping up and down the hills of Lancashire, many observed that I was a child with my head in the clouds.  I was easily distracted by shiny new conkers, fizzy flying-saucer sweets, and kids wearing new soccer shirts.  Even now, I am just as easily distracted (by shiny cars, food trucks and kids wearing new soccer shirts) and those observers would be shaking their heads at the equivalency of my adult life.

Today I found out what the cloud in my head looks like.  On this occasion I was distracted by Wordle, which generates word clouds from text that you enter into its web site. The more frequently a word is used in a piece of text, the bigger the word appears in the image that Wordle generates. Naturally, my first thought was to evaluate my Centerline and Mirthquakes blogs, and with just a few clicks of the mouse I tweaked my final image with a Quake-centric color scheme.  It’s been intriguing to visualize what the inside of my head looks like when it's transcribed onto the page.

http://www.wordle.net/

The biggest word, and therefore the word I’ve written down most is game; it’s right there in the middle where the centre line would be.  The size and location of the word pleases me.  The word game implies recreation - Wiktionary shows that the word originates from Old English gamen meaning: sport, joy, mirth, pastime - and I’m most definitely a fan of mirth.  The words Quakes and fans are just a tiny bit smaller, which also make me happy as my intent has always been to rattle on about the exploits of the Quakes fans, and I take the words' prominence as a sign I am on the right lines.  The words MLS, soccer, team and (of course) stadium are all generously sized - Quakes fans all want the word stadium to be the biggest word should I repeat this exercise in 2012.  It would be a truly successful season if stadium were accompanied by the equally sized words playoffs, cup, and winning, but preferable that injuries would be in a smaller font.  Finally, I noted with relief that Wondo is written larger than Beckham – even though it’s doubtful that the Castrol Index has been worked into the Wordle algorithm.

So, if there’s a take home message from this image: Quakes team and fans really want a new stadium for their MLS games - which about sums up what I want for Christmas this year.

I miss this...

...but not as much as I anticipate this!

2011: a Quakes fan’s summation.

I find myself aimlessly wandering about the house as the MLS season winds down and there is only the MLS Cup game left to watch.  The MLS playoff games have been well-played and closely fought - interesting to watch, but lacking the energy and excitement that comes when you’re rooting for your own team.  Of course, if the Quakes were in the final in Los Angeles, we would have forked over unseemly quantities of cash in exchange for a ticket, piled up the car with Cheetos for the six hour drive to the Home Depot Center and vied for the inaugural Esoteric Car Bingo Tournament title: cow (check), Hollywood sign (check), David Beckham (Bingo!).  The Ultras would have taken a bus, a keg and some ribald songs; they might even have given the bus back if the Quakes had won. 

It wasn’t to be, and my array of Quakes shirts has been laundered, carefully folded and put away until next March.  At the time on Saturday afternoon that I would usually be leaving for The Buck, the sun is already going down and I gaze out the window at our neighbor’s dog playing on the front lawn.  Soccer withdrawal has me hallucinating: the dog appears to have great pace and strong shepherding instincts that are perfect for the total football system its team is playing.  Somehow the ball never ends up in the back of the net, and the dog’s orange collar puts me in mind of the glorious defeats of the 1970’s Dutch national team.  The lack of canine success up top resonates with me - a shortage of goals and it’s the Quakes 2011 season all over again.  I sigh deeply and shake my head.  Obviously it’s time to address this soccer addiction of mine and I am resolved to go cold turkey in time for Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, I present here a summing up of the evidence I witnessed in 2011, during which the Quakes front office has been guilty of some dubious roster moves, and my own innocent optimism was quashed pretty early on. 

The Stadium:  Even before a ball had been kicked, many fans gathered together at the old FMC factory on Coleman Avenue on a sunny day in March to witness the powerful excavator rip into the aluminum siding, and drag out and crush file cabinets with a single blow.  It was a tangible celebration of the start of our journey toward the new Quakes stadium, and within weeks the demolition site quickly became a flat, bleak landscape, waiting on the final approval to begin construction.  It’s exciting to envisage how a new stadium will solidify the franchise, and contribute to expansion of soccer in the bay area.  Concerns about stadium noise, and distracting lights so close to the airport are being addressed, and the news for the go-ahead cannot come soon enough for diehard fans with four years of aluminum bleachers embossed on their backsides. 

The Roster:  How many grammatical constructions have you read this season comprising the two words ‘Zura’ and ‘debacle’?  In addition to not acquiring new talent, we lost players who had been seeing a considerable amount of playing time.  A second foot injury for Ike Opara couldn’t have come at a worse time, hot on the heels of the trade of Brandon McDonald to DC United.  Ryan Johnson was traded to Toronto FC in return for three broken players, none of whom saw significant action.  One high point for me was the impressive performance of two young players: Steven Beitashour stepped in with composure and growing confidence, and Rafa Baca finally got his visa resolved and contributed well as the season closed out; his greased lightning pace lit up our aspirations for next year. 

The Games:  Up in the bleachers, the fans welcomed the season at risk of serious water damage and double pneumonia in the game that came to be known as “The Great Deluge”.  The team promptly transitioned from deluge to drought (win-wise) and the most ignominious game was surely the scoreless home tie against the LA Galaxy, in which the Quakes could not score against a 5’9” forward Mike Magee in a 6’4” goalie jersey.  The biggest home game of the year was held at Stanford stadium, and 41,000 fans in an enclosed arena made for an exhilarating atmosphere, conclusively confirming the viability of soccer in the Bay Area.  One unexpected discovery this year was the excitement and intensity of the reserve squad games held at the Nutrilite training facility – if you want to get up close to soccer action then be sure to check out a game there next year. 

The Wins:  The season’s biggest wins were off the field. I consider the most significant one occurred before the season started when the Quakes hit the jackpot as they won the January lottery to land the Generation Adidas goalkeeper and Cal alum David Bingham.  Bingham recently made his debut with the U-23 US team, and he provided one of the most memorable moments for the home fans when he scored a goal in the mid-season friendly against West Bromwich Albion.  His offense didn’t stop there - in his MLS debut he augmented his offensive stats with an assist for Chris Wondolowski against the Revs in October.  Wondo himself added to his list of achievements and tied the nomadic Dwayne DeRosario for the most goals, finished with the highest ranking in the Castrol Index, made the MLS Best XI and was a finalist for MLS W.O.R.K.S. Humanitarian of the Year.  Kudos.

From my own standpoint, 2011 has been a virtual adventure as I explored social media, trading thoughts with Quakes fans on Twitter (Queeps?).  My own writing season started with an eighty-seven word blog-ette about the demolition day, at a point when I was overly concerned with fonts, templates and color scheme. I persevered with weekly entries in response to events or articles that caught my attention, made a brief foray into match reports for MLS UK and ended with a few fully fledged columns at Centerline Soccer.  So far, (and I realize I’m tempting fate here) the feedback has been so positive that I wonder who is intercepting the internet trolls. 

As far as 2012 goes, we already know that the Quakes will move forward without Convey, Luzunaris, and Weber.  The expansion draft is looming on November 23 so I speculate how many other players have kicked their last as a Quake and who will arrive on our doorstep in time for next season. So, absent any rebuttals of this season’s closing argument, my own jury deliberations will continue over a pint of Boddingtons.  I’ll need to find eleven good men and true, and I suppose the Quakes front office will too. 

There's always next year...

Never mess with a winning streak.

Damn, the Earthquakes played well last week – and we won, we actually won!  Despite some spectacular saves, Wondo and Corrales squeezed two goals past Chicago’s Sean Johnson, and we bade a not-so-fond farewell to that thirteen game losing streak. In a cathartic post-game ceremony, Wondo helped bury sundry losing streak mementos under an RIP marker in the dirt in front of Kara’s cup cake truck at Buck Shaw stadium.  In the excitement of last Saturday’s win, in an unfortunate malapropism, the San Jose Earthquakes’ hastily written Facebook entry read: “Now that the winless streak has been buried, it's on to the next one!”, to which I screamed “Noooo - let’s build a winning streak!”  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves: technically, one game does not constitute a winning streak, but we have at least taken this first step to start a new one.

Winning streaks are revered by players of many sports and many engage in a diverse range of pre-game rituals - superstitions even - to maintain them.  In the 1989 baseball movie Bull Durham veteran catcher Crash Davis tells rookie pitcher ‘Nuke’ Laloosh “never mess with a winning streak” and to respect the streak “because they don’t happen that often”.  When they do happen, many players develop obsessive pre-game routines; it's an integral part of their compulsion to win and they try everything possible to keep winning.  Even British anthropologist Desmond Morris weighed in on the subject when he wrote ‘The Soccer Tribe’: “[Players] seek additional aid of a kind their trainers and managers cannot give them – the supernatural aid of superstitious practices. They have no idea how such actions can help, but they perform them all the same, ‘just in case’. They frequently call them ridiculous and stupid, but they dare not omit them”.

Mwah!

I suspect that in the back of every player’s mind, as he’s pulling on his favorite unwashed shirt, is the most cited example of a successful pre-game ritual (if you believe in this kind of thing): the one that won the 1998 World Cup for France.  Les Bleus became superstitious about goalkeeper Fabien Barthez's dome when team captain Laurent Blanc kissed the keeper on his bald head and France went on to win the game.  After that first victory, the pre-game ritual was maintained, and Barthez was planted with kisses from his team mate before each subsequent game, all the way to the final.  Other notable superstitions include Chelsea captain John Terry, who always pees in one particular urinal at Stamford Bridge - if it’s taken then he waits, even when others are free.  Former England striker Gary Lineker didn't shoot at the goal during warm ups because he didn’t want to waste a goal, preferring to save them for the game.  My own favorite comment on the subject came from journeyman Adrian Mutu, who said “Curses cannot touch me because I wear my underwear inside out”.

Some of these rituals extend beyond eating the same pre-match meal or putting on your socks in a particular order.  England captain Bobby Moore insisted on being the last person in the dressing-room to put on his shorts before kick-off.  This did not go unnoticed by team mate Martin Peters, who was fascinated by the way Moore stood around holding his shorts, waiting for everyone else to finish dressing.  Peters would wait until Moore had put on his shorts, before taking off his own again.  At this point a frustrated Moore would feel compelled to take off his own shorts, and wait until Peters had re-dressed completely before he could put his own shorts back on.  This tends towards more obsessive compulsive behavior, a trait to which David Beckham has already confessed.  Beckham has such a thirst for symmetry that he will discard cans of soda to maintain an even number in his refrigerator, and their labels are all lined up and facing outward – not really a pre-game ritual, but I surmise that there's a comprehensive, three page, game day checklist (laminated) waiting before each game for the Galaxy club house manager.

Neigh Sayer?

Coaches have also been known to maintain their own superstitions.  In 2006, Manchester City was having a bad run of luck and manager Stuart Pearce could not say no to his seven year old daughter (curiously named Chelsea) who insisted that he took her toy horse Beanie as a good luck mascot to the touchline.  After City won the match, superstition took over and Beanie ended up alongside him in the technical area for several games until City were eventually defeated.  Beanie was considered so successful by the City fans that his (or her) name was chanted for many games during that successful run.  Meanwhile, superstitious French coach Raymond Domenech took players’ star signs into consideration before selecting his team, which drew criticism from the players who'd been left out simply because they were born on the 'wrong' date.  This French soccer superstition wasn’t nearly as successful as the Barthez smooches; we all remember what happened to the French team at the 2010 World Cup – no kisses from Anelka.

Turtle Power
(Kelley L Cox at CenterlineSoccer.com)

The Earthquakes are working on another streak – four consecutive sellouts - and I wonder how the fans’ hopes for a long and fruitful winning streak will be sustained in the remaining home games by superstitious pre-game rituals.  Perhaps we will notice that Frank Yallop has a lucky Wondo bobble-head tucked under his arm as he kisses Jon Busch’s new, clear, plastic mask.  Yes, I think Jon will be under peer pressure from his superstitious team mates to keep his teenage mutant ninja turtle mask on until we lose - it really works with his green shirt.  I will dress in my lucky socks (unwashed): left one first and the right sock inside out.  I will line up the labels on the beer bottles at the various vendors around Buck Shaw and consume any leftovers that might make up an odd number – a tough job but someone has to do it.  Pre-match fare will be a pulled pork sandwich and fries (no garlic; dipped in mayo - it’s a Euro-thing), and then I’ll continue directly to the cup cake truck, whereupon I will carefully eat all of the delicious lemon icing first in a counter-clockwise direction, and taking care not to spill on my lucky T-shirt (also unwashed).

Will any of this ‘stuff’ make a difference to the length of a potential winning streak?  Probably not, but I will participate in my own new rituals.  Just in case.

Is it safe to watch soccer?

The San Jose Earthquakes playoff hopes are in the ICU hanging on by a thread, technically still alive but still six points adrift of the final playoff spot.  These are tense times for Quakes fans as we pace up and down in the hospital waiting room fiddling nervously with our scarves.  The significance of each game increases with each passing weekend, and our adrenaline is kicking in at ever higher levels, energizing our nervous system and mediating our ‘fight or flight’ response; right now the team is fighting for its life in the postseason.

The September schedule contains two ‘six-pointer’ games with teams that lie between the Quakes and the playoffs: the September 10th home game against Chicago Fire and a challenging away game at JELD-WEN Stadium against Joey, his perilously sharp chainsaw and the Portland Timbers.  Five of the remaining six games are to be played against teams with better records; the sole exception is the New England Revolution.  If our adrenaline levels are high now, they’ll soar even higher for as long as we stay in the playoff mix and until our electronic calculators tell us we’re mathematically eliminated.

Going down the stretch, it will be necessary to keep the team healthy, and there’s an abundance of published scientific research into the care and feeding of soccer players, or in coaching parlance: physical conditioning, injury prevention and nutrition.  There are some interesting reads for nerds in the medical journals on the prevalence of soccer injuries – I was particularly fascinated reading one comprehensive review of injuries and illness that occurred during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.  Not surprisingly, the rate of injuries during a match is ten times higher than during training, but I also discovered that the rate of injury increases as the game progresses: 70% of injuries occur in the second half of a game, presumably as fatigue sets in.  Mysteriously the authors felt the need to include data that showed there were no player injuries during half time.  That might seem more than a little obvious, but during the match intervals I have to think there were at least some hurt pride among the players and severely strained vocal cords, historically the most frequent injury occurring in England football managers.

Hairdryer injuries are possible...

Meanwhile, up in the stands, how is the fans’ health and welfare?  I was surprised to find that there is also a lot of scientific data on the physiological effects of watching soccer games.  This research is published in erudite medical journals and has the unexpected appeal of conflict and controversy – not unlike the game of soccer itself.  A German study, published in the reputable New England Journal of Medicine no less, showed a 2-4 fold increase in the number of cardiovascular events requiring hospital treatment during the 2006 World Cup.  The graphs presented show spectacular spikes in the number of German cardiac patients admitted in the 12 hours immediately after games involving the German team.  In contrast, a subsequent Italian study determined that, after all, soccer is “just a game” - there was no elevated risk of heart attack in Italian patients during the same World Cup and two European Championships.  I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on the underlying reasons that the fans of these two great national soccer teams apparently responded so differently, but based on the data I am eating lots of pasta and avoiding bratwurst for the rest of the season.

My own favorite publication on the effect of watching soccer is “Haemodynamic response in soccer spectators: is Scottish football exciting?” - I like it best for the pointed question it raises in its title.  Stalwart Hibs and Rangers fans were sent off to their SPL matches hooked up to small blood pressure monitors, and the data they elicited were compared to match events collated by an independent observer.  The take home message was that the emotional stress evoked by Scottish football is associated with significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure.  The highest level of excitement, equivalent to light aerobic exercise, occurred immediately after a goal was scored by the team that they supported.  The most important conclusion drawn by the authors was that Scottish soccer was thus proved to be exciting – I suspect that Scottish soccer fans don’t need a physician to tell them this.

Chocolate boot from Thornton's.

Quakes fans can make the most of this medical research as we prepare ourselves to support the team going into the final stretch of the 2011 season.  This Labor Day weekend there’s no game and we have an extra day to relax and recuperate.  We can also focus on reducing our risk of cardiovascular injury by making heart healthy choices – go for a grilled chicken taco instead of the carnitas burrito at the Buck Shaw food truck.  Thankfully, since chocolate has protective effects on the cardiovascular system, and reduces heart attack and stroke, we don’t need to feel guilty about that extra square of Scharffen Berger. 

As far as maintaining our physical fitness with aerobic exercise, join the 1906 Ultras and Casbah as they clap their hands above their heads in unison and then jump in place in the bleachers – Buck Shaw’s flexible wooden floor boards are perfect for cushioning the impact and reduce knee injuries.  While some recommend tea with honey to keep vocal cords lubricated for chants and songs, this can surely be replaced with beer: Blue Moon brews a Summer Honey Wheat Ale – perfect.  Muscular injuries can be easily prevented with some gentle elbow stretches before picking up and drinking the beer, and is particularly important at viewing parties for away games where much heavier glass pitchers are filled.  Yoga stretches will help loosen hamstrings and back muscles for the arduous ninety minutes on the bleachers – watch and learn from the players as they participate in their pre-match warm ups (Brad Ring has particularly good form in the Downward Dog).  Finally, in my own experience, stretching the hamstrings greatly reduces muscle strain from the jumping jacks I perform in response to many referee’s decisions. 

So, yes indeed – it is safe to watch soccer, and a little care and preparation will reduce the chances that any player, or fan, will get hurt.  Embrace your body chemistry as the Quakes fight for their playoff spot - it’s the adrenaline that fuels the exhilaration of a win and the anguish of a loss.  As we lace up our boots, let’s keep it as safe as we can out at The Buck so that the only danger we face is that of not making the playoffs.

Also appearing at CenterlineSoccer.com here.   

Our Field of Dreams.

Last weekend’s 2-0 loss to Galaxy underlined that the San Jose Earthquakes 2011 season hasn’t quite turned out as we all had hoped.  Coming into this season everybody was expecting the Quakes team to make the playoffs: the fans came to the Great Deluge opener in an optimistic frame of mind after the 2010 playoffs, and the club had already printed a playoff ticket in our season ticket packs, the price of which would be refunded if we didn’t.  Now, the Quakes are mired in a twelve game winless streak, and the team is running out of games in which to achieve that goal.  The fans are disappointed and overwrought: some of us (not me you understand) are even starting to hear voices:  “Ease our pain”.


The fans’ support for the players remains as strong as ever.  Just couple of weeks ago, in the face of some questionable refereeing decisions, The Casbah supporters group stepped up with a raffle to pay the fines of Bobby Burling and Brad Ring.  However, recent surveys of the usual internet soccer sites indicates that support for the club’s financial game plan, and some of the coaching decisions are being increasingly questioned; some fans are becoming downright restless.  There is, however, one topic on which the fans, and their aching backs, are completely unified: the need for a new stadium - “If you build it, we will come”.

If the Earthquakes are to remain a financially viable MLS club, they’ll have to retain their fans, but many are losing patience as we close out the fourth season of Quakes 2.0 with no new stadium on the horizon.  In fact, all we have is a horizon – a big, gray, expanse of flat concrete horizon with sweeping views of Lowe’s and the In-N-Out Burger - and it’s been utterly dormant for the past six months.  From where I sit, I can see the club already has three of the four things we’ll need for a successful new stadium: a bunch of fans, a team and a design, the missing component being funding.

The Fans: Yes, I list the fans ahead of the team; it’s their participation that helped make San Jose soccer city USA after all.  Without the fan base, MLS would not have returned the team to San Jose in 2008 and the Quakes team already has two established supporters groups: the Casbah and the 1906 Ultras.  Over forty thousand vocal fans turned out for the New York Red Bulls game, and since most were wearing Earthquakes or Clash gear I have to assume they weren’t just there for the lavish post-game fireworks.  The fan base has now been proven at the relatively luxurious Stanford stadium, and perhaps the three consecutive sell outs at Buck Shaw since then is no coincidence.

The Team: The Quakes team has history – the first MLS game ever played was a 1-0 victory for the San Jose Clash over DC United in 1996.  The current team roster has local heroes in Wondolowski and Beitashour, wily veterans in Corrales and Convey, and a gaggle of promising youngsters.  I could get behind an inexperienced team if I thought that in a couple of years they would be settled and cohesive.  Wouldn’t it be fascinating to watch a talented team being assembled while we survey a new stadium rising from the ground?  It would be worth enduring these dry spells with the hope of successful seasons when the new stadium is inaugurated. 

The Design: The current stadium design has three sides, but I wish it were four – Stanford won me over to an enclosed stadium with its swirling atmospheric fan noise.  For the real dreamers among us, check out the Stadium Porn website (it’s not what you might think!) for a plethora of new football stadiums; it will implant huge ‘stadium-envy’ in your psyche.  At least the Quakes have already installed the Nutrilite Training Facility; the practice field has lush green turf, but in keeping with the immediate environment it has no facilities and is surrounded by a eight foot razor wire fence reminiscent of ‘Escape to Victory’ (I hear Lieutenant Burling has started a tunnel and should reach In-N-Out by Tuesday). 

The Funding: I wish I were extravagantly wealthy - and believe me if I were, the Nerd-O-Dome would already be built.  I’ve already posted my own wish list of stadium facilities should my California Mega Millions lottery numbers win...there’s that voice again: "If my numbers come up - I will build it", and I have an inexplicable urge to pull up some corn.   The current stadium cost estimates are $40-60M, conservative compared to the $200M for the fabulous lines of Livestrong Park, but seems to be in keeping with the small market frame of mind of the Earthquakes organization described by Robert Jonas earlier this week.  Pending my huge, but improbable, lottery win I often find myself pondering where I might find a spare couple of hundred million dollars.  If only we lived in a part of the country with some of the richest companies in the world who might sponsor such a stadium. 

But wait a minute…is this not Silicon Valley?  Doesn’t Apple have a bigger stash of cash ($75B) than the US Treasury?  The whole stadium would barely make a dent in their stash, and what can anyone possibly do with $75B that they couldn’t do with $74.8B?  I digress.  The stadium would be known as The Apple Core, The Big Apple, or if that’s a little to NY for our taste, The Bigger and Better Apple – heck, even The MacBuck Shaw (a nod to our heritage).  Alternatively we could consider Google:  the team would play in the Google-plex, and the fans would be androids (too nerdy?).  Then there’s Facebook or Twitter: the stadium would be catered by the Iz-It Hawaiian food truck, supplying hungry fans with their famous ‘Spammers’ spam musubi.  Finally: Yahooligans anyone?  Er, maybe not.

Clearly crazed by too much diet soda and cheesy Cheetos, I’m just throwing out some off-the-wall ideas to get the Quakes stadium built.  I’m writing as a fan whose (perhaps naive) priorities for building a new stadium are related to soccer and its diehard fans rather than bringing a hugely profitable real estate development deal to fruition.  If the Quakes pockets aren’t deep enough, then the fans would like them to open an additional wallet, and quickly.  In the short term, the continued and increasing interest in MLS will surely provide a return on immediate stadium investment, with profits generated by willing fans.  In the longer term, the success of the stadium will generate the momentum for the proposed real estate development, and the early investment will be paid back many times over. 

As we reach the end of this arduous season the fans could definitely use some light at the end of the players’ tunnel, as it were - it’s time to end this restless nightmare and build our own field of dreams.  “...they'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the lines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.  Oh... people 
will come, Lew. People will most definitely come”.


Also appearing at CenterlineSoccer.com here.

Warren Barton Decoder.

The Lads

Early night tonight – I’ve got to get up for the opening weekend of the English Premier League at 6:30 AM.  I’ll brew the coffee (extra strong espresso), butter the toasted bread (just one shade lighter than charcoal) and tune into Fox Soccer Channel to watch Warren Barton and Christian Miles present their EPL preview show. 

I realize that it’s early in the season, and my ear still won’t be tuned in yet to decipher Barton’s cockney accent.  Typical of many of his ilk (English ex-player turned pundit) there will also be an almost complete lack of adverbs (“The lad’s done brilliant”) and any word that begins with an ‘h’ will have said letter dropped.  

Easing our way into the EPL season, here’s a handy guide to make sense of a few of the key words Barton will use throughout the opening show:

Bow                      Ball                       “Drogba needed to do a better job weave the bow”

Chew/See             Chelsea                “Chew sees ‘ome opener at the Bridge”

Done                     Did                      “The lad’s done brilliant”

Fervor                   Further                “(H)'olden should ‘ave been fervor down the field”

Fick                      Thick                    “'Lamps is really in the fick of it”

Fings                     Things                  “Fings aren't going well for the youngster”

Free                      Three                   “Free goals to nil in the season opener”

Frou                     Through                “A luvverly pass frou to the forward”     

Furred                  Third                     “That’s his furred shot on gow”            

Gow                     Goal                      “Another shot went wide of the gow”
Veer                      Their/They're        “Veer wide open on the back line”

Weave                  With                     “Wenger’s going weave a Four-Free-Free today”

Weaver                 Whether               “I dunno weaver he saw it”
Weld                     World                   “Vuvuzelas really spoiled the Weld Cup for me”

Just by listening for a few key words in the home opener, more complex constructions will quickly be mastered by the end of the month:
   “Chew see scored free times in veer ‘ome win; Lamps done brilliant, always in the fick
    of things, weave the bow in the back of the net twice”.

Now, if we could just get subtitles for Kenny Dalglish’s post-match press conferences...

Managing Expectations

I screwed up at work this week.  I screwed up badly.  I had limited resources and in the ensuing hustle to get my task done a couple of reagents were switched in the research samples I was preparing; the QC failed, and the data I got was meaningless.  I scrambled to schedule the repeat in a timely fashion, which kept my manager happy, and to my utmost relief no-one screamed “Fire that nerd!” 

I thought back to Saturday’s game against DC United, after which I heard “Fire Yallop”, “Yallop sucks” and “Hire Bradley”.  Given the fans’ proximity to the field, I had no doubt that Frank, the coaches and the players all heard the calls hurled in his direction after the 2-0 loss. Given the limited resources Yallop had available on Saturday, going into the DC game I wasn't expecting much from the team in terms of cohesiveness.  So when the team took a 2-0 loss, I accepted it much more easily than the late equalizers and meltdowns I’d seen earlier in the season.  My acceptance of this game’s result really came down to the team’s performance matching my pre-defined expectations.

So what are my expectations for the 2011 San Jose Earthquakes?  After my failure at work I found myself without any numbers to crunch, and worked my mad data analysis skills on another metric: MLS team salary. On the ESPN web site I found my data set: the list of average MLS team salaries.  I fired up the spreadsheet and sorted out the eighteen teams into the order of their average salary.  My working hypothesis was that teams’ performance (points) is directly related to their average salary ($).  Forgive me – Nerdy by name, nerdy by nature. 

Extremely dodgy statistical data.

Leading the pack are New York and LA, with their average salary skewed by the number of highly paid DPs on their squads, and both of these teams are well on their way to the playoffs – so far so good with my hypothesis.  Sorting the list based on salary (in blue) the Quakes would be expected to be the third worst team in the league: 16^th of 18 teams.  In fact, if the teams are ranked by points obtained (08/02/2011; in pink) then the Quakes rank 13^th out of the 18 teams – so they’re playing somewhat better than might be expected based on their salary.   

My “$$$=points” hypothesis really took a beating when I looked at the under- and over-performing MLS teams.  I can only imagine how unfulfilled the Chicago and Toronto fans must be feeling, paying their players the 3^rd and 4^th highest average wage, and yet only ranking 16^th and 17^th in points order.  FC Dallas and Colorado are by far the best value for money, and as MLS Champions I now feel compelled to do further research to discover how the Rapids achieve such success with an average salary budget only $5K more than that of the Quakes.  But isn’t that the nature of true research?  The scientist sets out on the quest for an answer, only to raise several more questions along the way.   

Dodgy salary statistics aside, going into the season everybody was expecting the Quakes team to make the playoffs: the fans came to the Great Deluge opener in an optimistic frame of mind after the 2010 playoffs, and the club had already printed a playoff ticket in our season ticket packs, the price of which would be refunded if we didn’t.  With the loss to DC our playoff chances diminished, and the team is running out of games to achieve that goal.  This week I heard the fans warming up their vocal chords to let the manager and the organization know that our expectations are not being met.  

Bar Dives: Fighting the Flop with the Casbah.

The Quakes have back to back games against teams with two of the most accomplished divers in MLS.  Last week we saw a well-executed, albeit a relatively low degree of difficulty dive by Alvaro Saborio.  On Saturday, Charlie Davies arrives with DC United, preceded by his reputation as one of the nation’s more gifted divers.  I’m anticipating a polished display, given the proximity of the USC’s Sullivan Aquatic center for his pre-game preparations. 

Saborio's dive has huge impact for the Quakes this week, with Bobby Burling and Brad Ring suspended.  Burling was red carded having been implicated in the ‘foul’ of Saborio and is due a $250 fine.  In the spirit of fighting the flop, The Casbah will be selling raffle tickets at their tailgate on Saturday to raise money to pay the fines of Burling, Ring (fined $250 for his fifth yellow card) and Jon Busch (fined $500 for showing Saborio his new one-fingered goalkeeper glove).  Please consider helping this worthy cause and join the increasingly popular movement among soccer fans to “Fight the flop”.

http://www.sjcasbah.com/

In the meantime, I wonder if with a little background knowledge of this esoteric sport, we might learn to appreciate the skill involved in diving.  Since Quakes fans are unaccustomed to watching diving, here are a few pointers to enhance our appreciation of its complex techniques.

In competition, divers perform a number of dives consisting of somersaults, pikes and twists etc. Judges consider the approach, the flight, and the entry of the entire dive, with the following factors taken into consideration:

http://www.fighttheflop.com/

• The height of the diver at the apex of the dive, with extra height resulting in a higher score.
• Properly defined body position of the diver, including pointed toes and feet touching at all times.
• The proper amounts of rotation and revolution upon completion of the dive.
• Angle of entry – a diver should enter the water with minimal splash.

A possible score out of ten for technique is multiplied by the degree of difficulty (DD) factor, which is derived from the number and combination of movements attempted. The most commonly performed dive in soccer has a DD of 1.2 (a forward dive in tuck position).  The maximum degree of difficulty (4.8) is awarded for a reverse 4½ somersaults in pike, and is considered by many as the unattainable holy grail in soccer (it requires a three-meter springboard).  Naturally the diver with the highest total score after a sequence of dives is declared the winner. Reviewing recent dives from Davies and Saborio using these criteria, it's possible to determine which diver has thus far achieved the greatest reputation: 

Charlie Davies: Davies’s diving performance against DC had a much higher degree of difficulty than that against RSL.  In this case, the increased distance between Davies’s feet and those of the defender, makes it a much harder sell on the referee, so warrants a DD of 1.9.  Notice, in the slow motion replay the pointed toes, neatly tucked arms during the 1½ somersault flight and minimal splash on the grass; consider also the elegant revolution and good height.  His final score was adjudged at 7.3, and multiplied by the DD of 1.9, his final score was 13.9.

Alvaro Saborio:  Saborio’s positioning in the box was key here: he used two Quakes defenders to block the view of both the referee and the assistant.  Although this was a relatively simple dive (pike with a 1½ twist) the difficulty of this approach earns a higher degree of difficulty – 2.4.  His overall execution was, however, not quite as refined as Davies: entry into the box was slow and his body position was compromised by a trailing left arm and dropped toes that gouged the grass.   However, the lower technical score was overcome by the greater DD, giving Saborio a final score of 16.8.

Saborio has thrown down the gauntlet – will Davies rise (or plummet gracefully) to the challenge to reclaim the diving championship in this weekend’s game against the Earthquakes?  I have to think that Davies's stock with the USMNT has risen significantly this week with the appointment of Jurgen Klinsmann as coach.

Go Quakes!

ABCs of MLS officiating - LOL

Appalling, Atrocious, Apoplectic. Referees have rarely had the respect of fans, but increasingly the current state of refereeing affairs in MLS is so appalling that they no longer have the respect of the players or the coaches.  This week’s result after the road trip to RSL was a tough one for Quakes fans to swallow after referee David Ganter awarded an atrocious game changing penalty for a dive, and initially red carded the wrong player (Brad Ring) for the ‘tackle’.  Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski went apoplectic, arguing the case for his men, but after consultation with his assistant after the initial call, Ganter then red carded Bobby Burling.  At this point replays had shown conclusively that neither Burling nor Ring had touched Saborio, and even the home newspaper agrees it was a dive, which opened the floodgates for the 4-0 victory to RSL. Sure, I would rather win than lose, but I’d much rather lose to RSL than to the referee.   

Believability, Burling, Blind (these are words with a B this time; kudos if you know which song this comes from).   This was David Ganter’s seventh game as an MLS referee; in the first six he had already awarded two red cards, so now he is three for seven – I guess we shouldn’t have been too surprised then.  His believability will surely be under scrutiny, and we can only hope that the MLS mentor program will show him how to improve his field positioning to make such crucial calls.  The assistant was in no position to make the call in this situation as Burling was hidden from his view by Saborio, and Ganter himself was blinded by Ring.  This is the sort of ineffectual officiating that recently led RSL’s coach, Jason Kreis, to propose to his Revs counterpart Stevie Nichol that they walk out of their game in protest at the officiating. 

Credibility, Consistency, Confidence. The biggest hurdle to credibility of MLS referees is consistency.  Not only does a referee need to apply the rules consistently throughout a game (absolutely my biggest exasperation) but I also perceive a lack of consistency from game to game.  MLS has the reputation among players who have played in Europe as a free for all, with only egregious fouls being called.  This results in a physical game and only serves to promote overly dramatic writhing on the grass in order to draw the call.  I also believe it might have been one reason the USMNT suffered a spate of red cards once they got to the Confederations and World Cups, where the international FIFA referees were more fastidious.  MLS will only become a truly professional league, when everyone's confident that the players don’t have to re-calibrate their game each time they play. 

So there you have the ABC of this week’s MLS game in RSL where the Quakes were SOL - not much LOL for this fan.  In the coming week we’ll see how the league addresses the letter D - for diving.  Bring your game jerseys next week Quakes fans, there might be a few spaces on the bench. I’ll bet Busch’s run in with Jason Kreis after the game, and his friendly wave to the referee after the penalty (not all fingers extended), will be rewarded with a day off.  

Bad ideas for soccer promotions.

Last night the San Jose Earthquakes celebrated David Bingham’s 90-yard wonder goal against West Bromwich Albion with its daring season ticket holders.  About 250 lined up to try their hand, or foot, at replicating Bingham’s goal for which they would be rewarded with free season tickets for the 2012 season.

Efforts were as varied as the fans that kicked them: some focused on accuracy, kicking low with the hope of trundling it in to the net; others booted high arcing powerful punts, and even one who picked up the ball, ran to the opposite 18 yard box and still missed (“you can still play for the Galaxy” sang the Ultras).  Everyone left happy and smiling – even those that overreached their ability and ended up on their backsides - and all got the chance to shake the hand of the Wonder Goalie himself. 

The Quakes front office has worked hard to reward the endurance of the fans while we wait for the new stadium.  The stadium isn’t likely to be ready for a season or two, so I’m sure there will be other similar events in the coming seasons.  If they are as much as fun as last night then the fans will be happy, but here are some ideas for promotions that would surely be rejected early in the planning process.

Running of the bulls: Here’s an obvious Pamplona tie in for the New York home game.  The 1906 Ultras are spirited enough to participate, though they would insist on wearing blue scarves instead of red neckerchiefs. OSHA regulations would permit the Ultras to participate with the necessary paperwork, but the SPCA considers that running with the Ultras might be dangerous for the bulls. 

Vuvuzela night:  I met a season ticket holder who had his vuvuzela confiscated on his way into Buck Shaw stadium; we tried to appear sympathetic but were secretly relieved.  This promotion only works if it’s “brought to you by Tylenol” or comes with a set of noise canceling ear phones.

Ampaipitakwong spelling bee: There's a small window of opportunity for this one. Once Joel the super-mini-fan learns to read everyone else is toast. Right now, the Quakes littlest season ticket holder is really good with numbers, but once he’s mastered letters and spelling then it's all over for the rest of us.

Steven Lenhart Wig night: Big blond wigs would be uncomfortable on hot summer nights and the copious curls would restrict view of fans behind (and I know my own complexion looks washed out as a blond).  A springtime promotion would result in Hitchcock-like flocks of starlings that would swoop down on the fans in spring as the birds search for nesting material – the dry cleaning bills would be astronomical, but a good opportunity for a tie-in with a local laundry service. 

And bring up the rear (ahem): “These bleachers brought to you by Preparation H”. Just a pain in the Buck…