Waiting on a stadium - 'til the cows come home.

The Quakes didn’t play this weekend in MLS, but did have a much needed win over the Portland Timbers last Tuesday night in the US Open Cup.  This should have been a home game, but our regular pitch at the University of Santa Clara was unavailable, and no other suitable venue could be found in the Bay Area.  The single biggest gripe of the average Quakes fan is that, in our fourth season, it’s more than time to vacate the austere aluminum bleachers and put our new stadium in place. Our plight was only magnified by the extraordinary atmosphere of Jeld Wen Field, though thankfully we kept the flannelled lumberjack Timber Joey and his chainsaw idle for a few hours.   

Significantly, once again, local hero Chris Wondolowski led the team out as skipper over the usual Ramiro Corrales; no one at the club appears to have mentioned this.  While local blogger Robert Jonas has also noticed the switch, his co-host at Center Line Soccer’s Quakescast Kelly Gray tweeted that he would be following it up.  I have no word on whether Wondo was made captain as a result of the players-only meeting immediately after the Chivas game, but the move is consistent with that timeline.   

Other club pundits have played up the cup victory over the Timbers as a turning point for the team whose offense has been underperforming since the away win in Dallas all the way back in week 2.  I’m not so convinced – the Quakes goal eventually came off defender Ike Opara’s head on a corner in the 120^th minute against a Timbers team comprising mainly reserve players.  This didn’t do anything to restore my faith in the current Quakes midfield set up:  Wondo is being heavily marked, and is not getting the kind of service that helped him to the Golden Boot in 2010. 

To further complicate the Quakes’ situation, news came through on Thursday that Spurs midfielder Simon Dawkins would be out for two months after surgery.  It turns out Dawksy has freakishly big calves and the bilateral fasciotomy he underwent was essentially a “letting out” of the muscle sheath, to allow the muscle compartment to expand.  He is the target of some leg pulling (groan) from his team mates being the only player to wear long pants at training in sunny California – looks like it’s time to switch to Capri pants at least. 

Lionel Moossi - outstanding in his field. 

This week will be a busy one for coach Yallop: he will have to rearrange the midfield (again) for the away game on Wednesday in Vancouver.  I just hope they will remember to pack their metric boots, eh?  Just three days later the Quakes will play their next home game against Columbus Crew on Saturday evening.  There’s no word yet on when or where our ‘home’ game against the Chicago Fire in the next round of the US Open Cup will be staged – the game has to be completed by May 28^th.  Perhaps there’s a local dairy farmer who has a pasture we can use – the players can warm up running drills around the cow pats, and there’s all the milk you can drink at half time.  

Full match report on the Timbers cup game at the new look Center Line Soccer here. 
This blog is also posted at MLS_UK in the Eurosnob-free blog at www.majorleaguesocceruk.com

Two free radicals that revolutionized the team’s chemistry.

One topic that comes up over a teardrop-diluted pint when your team’s not doing so well is team chemistry.  In the off-season, the San Jose Earthquakes lost two players in the expansion draft: veteran goalkeeper Joe Cannon and attacking midfielder Arturo Alvarez. Both had played with the previous incarnation of the Quakes (v1.0) that went on to become the Houston Dynamo in 2004.  Both had their own unique personality that I wonder how much they are being missed in the dressing room. 

Joe Cannon (@JoeCannon1love): 

Joe greets the 1906 Ultras

Even though Joe came back from the LA Galaxy to the Quakes 2.0 in 2008, the fans loved him anyway.  During the 2008 season he wrote a ‘renaissance man’ blog, sometimes about life as a soccer player, but also on a wide range of topics from that year’s election to an encounter with a guy who had fallen on hard times – totally eclectic.  If you ever doubt the exuberance of MLS players in the preseason, or on road-trips, follow Joe’s banter with Jay Demerit or Landon Donovan (or both) on Twitter.  Always the joker on Facebook, after a spectacularly bad performance by the whole team in the season opener in 2009, Joe wrote a series of posts that became increasingly pessimistic throughout the night.  I came across them early the following morning, only to find a few hours later his whole page was gone.  I guess he (or someone else) thought better of his soul-searching, but it was indicative of how competitive a guy he is and that he wears his heart on his jersey sleeve.  All goalies are crazy, and Joe was always on the field early before each game practicing his yoga and stretching before taking some ground balls. After spending much of the 2010 season injured after breaking his ankle in practice, Joe was left unprotected on the roster and was picked up by the Vancouver Whitecaps in the expansion draft.

Arturo Alvarez (@artieart10):

A moment of indecision while 
Artie considers a right footed shot

My first recollection of watching Artie play the last three seasons is that he was always cheerful, and had one of the broadest smiles in MLS – the second of course was his left foot.  There were spells where his famous left foot scored for the Quakes – he was not always consistent, but he could occasionally be brilliant; there was always an air of anticipation in the bleachers when he got the ball. It’s hard to believe that he’s still only 25, since he’s been with both iterations of the Quakes, who drafted him as an 18 year old in 2003.  Alvarez was picked up in the expansion draft by the Portland Timbers, but before he found out how handsome he looked in green, he was traded on later the same day to RSL.  Things worked out pretty well for Artie – he played in the CONCACAF Champions League final this month – and he’s still smiling. 

Perhaps these two free radicals revolutionized the team’s chemistry.   

From deluge to drought in six games.

I’m a pretty light hearted person, and when I started my soccer blog this season, it was my intent to keep things upbeat and look at the lighter side of the San Jose Earthquakes season as viewed from the bleachers among the fans at Buck Shaw stadium.  The Quakes were coming off a glorious comeback playoff win against the New York Red Bulls and a narrow defeat in the conference championship game to the eventual champions, the Colorado Rapids. 

The fans started in an optimistic frame of mind, and despite a loss to RSL in the opener under apocalyptical rain, we felt the team played well.  We’ve gone from deluge to drought in just six games and, after a loss to a ten-man Philadelphia Union it’s getting ever more difficult to find anything positive to say about the team’s fortunes. 

Frank Yallop rolled out a drastically new line up: Philadelphia native Bobby Convey was out, along with team captain Ramiro Corrales, Khari Stephenson, Ryan Johnson and Sam Cronin. In last week’s diary entry I highlighted how the leadership and commitment of Bay Area native and Quakes forward Chris Wondolowski might one day earn him the captain’s armband.  Well, it happened much sooner that I thought and he was awarded the captaincy over Jason Hernandez, who is the usual back up to Corrales. I don’t know how last minute this decision was, but the front office tweeted it would be Hernandez as skipper just minutes before the game. 

Up front Yallop stuck with Sealy (at which I continued to shake my head) and added new signing Steven Lenhart up front for his first start.  I was hoping that Lenhart’s mustache had been cursed and its removal this week would end the drought. To complete the new look Ampaipitakwong, Burling and Morrow, who all had good outings for the reserve squad last week, were included at midfield and defense respectively.    

For neutral viewers the game will be most memorable for the two questionable decisions by the referee: the red card in the 41st minute and the penalty decision in the 75th minute.  The red card came in the 41st minute when Jordan Harvey stamped on Chris Leitch’s stomach, and Leitch was lucky not to get a card himself when he retaliated.  After this, and the tetchiness between McDonald and the Philly goalkeeper Mondragon, the game had become chippy enough for me to consider battering some fish for my half time snack. 

The Quakes went into the second half with the man advantage and should have been able to capitalize offensively against ten men.  To Philadelphia’s credit they continued to push forward, but it was (in my opinion) a soft penalty awarded to the Union for the winning goal – Hernandez was defending and adjudged to have handled the ball; it was more like ball to hand and completely unintentional and unavoidable.

Although the Quakes effort was much improved over last week’s loss to Chivas, the level of possession and accurate passing is still not as high as I know it can be; I saw it in the home opener, and I just hope they can remember where they left their shooting boots.  I am hopeful that today’s more effective defensive efforts will be maintained – Morrow, in his first MLS start particularly impressed; he played solidly and wasn’t outpaced. 

As I write, Timber Joey is just firing up his chainsaw after Kenny Cooper’s goal for the Timbers tonight against RSL.  I’m a little more hopeful that this week’s Quakes qualifier at Portland in the US Open Cup won’t reduce the log to a pile of sawdust.  Whether or not the Quakes will be offensive enough (as it were) to carry them to the next round remains to be seen.  

Full match report at the new look Center Line Soccer here. 
This blog is also posted at MLS_UK in the Eurosnob-free blog at www.majorleaguesocceruk.com