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.