Draft Picks For The New Season: We're Spoiled For Choice.

Going into the preseason I was wondering which pairings were likely to be the most successful for the Earthquakes offense in 2012 – Salinas to Wondo, Chavez to Lenhart, or Dawkins to Güvenışık.  I got part way to my answer in the final preseason game in the Portland tournament against Chivas USA - the team produced five goals from five different players.  A donut fuelled cross from Shea Salinas, was neatly converted to Chris Wondolowski for the first goal in the 27^th minute.  In the second half, Ramiro Corrales redirected a corner kick onto the head of Justin Morrow for the second goal.  Ramiro, for his second assist, picked out Tressor Moreno for the 80^th minute third goal, and just four minutes later, Moreno forwarded the favor giving Sercan Güvenışık his first goal as an Earthquake.  Another inaugural goal, this time for rookie Sam Garza was then passed forward by Sercan Güvenışık to close out the game with the fifth and final goal of the afternoon.

While each of these goals was a pleasure to see, I got much more satisfaction from the breadth of effort across the team – goal scorers were also logging assist statistics and vice versa – and the well-stocked midfield of the current roster certainly paid off that day.  My only remaining question going into the season is the shallower depth in the defence - especially with preseason injuries to Hernandez and Bernardez, and the prospect of Opara being called away on under-23 duty qualifying for (and hopefully playing in) the 2012 Olympic finals in London.

Meanwhile, off the field, new acquisitions will also enhance the game experience for the rested and ready Quakes fans.  On paper, the depth of menu items from the gourmet food trucks in the Epicenter has vastly expanded over last season – and not unlike the Earthquakes roster, there are some experienced veterans and new arrivals to tempt our taste buds.  I wonder which gastronomic pairings are likely to be the most successful for the fans as we navigate through the new food and adult beverage choices at Buck Shaw this season.

• Boddingtons Pub Ale – known as Boddingtons Draught Bitter in its British homeland (wistful sigh), is a bitter beer with a smooth, creamy head reminiscent of that on Guinness; it'll give you a beer mustache - "got Boddys?".  Boddingtons recommends pairing this beer with “spicy, charred and aromatic dishes”, so paired with the spicy tacos at El Tonayense, it provides an alternative, if more avant garde pairing than the usual Corona.
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale – the flagship of the brewery – is defined as a delightful interpretation of a classic amber style, and is a full-bodied, complex ale.  Heavily hopped, its fragrant bouquet and spicy flavor, pairs particularly well with seafood – an ideal accompaniment to the fish and chips of Sam’s Chowdermobile.
• Stella Artois – given the 9 step (count ‘em) ‘pouring ritual’ for the draught version of this light, crisp and refreshing Belgian pilsner, it’s perhaps as well that we can buy the instant gratification of  the bottles supplied at The Buck.  Feel free to let out your inner-Brando, and yell “Steelllaaaaa” at the Gourmet Truck Named Desire – for me that’s Chairman Bao, with its richly filled fragrant pork buns.
• Gordon Biersch Hefeweizen - is a true, unfiltered, Bavarian-style wheat (Weizen) beer with the yeast (Hefe) still present.  According to the GB web site, this beer is traditionally consumed Sunday morning in Bavaria after church (and sometimes before as well as during) alongside Weisswurst (white veal sausages) and freshly baked Brez'n (pretzels). Why wait until Sunday? Get an early start this Saturday night with a Polish Dog and pretzels for the Buck Shaw concessions stand.

Of course, these are my own current best pairings – myriad combinations are possible, some of which I haven’t even considered yet – let me know your own;  we've got the whole season to figure it out.  See you all on March 10th for the first kick of the season - I believe Frank Yallop and I are both looking forward to a better depth of choice and fewer injuries.

Player Numbers: Does 2 x 10 - a better 11?

Geoff Lepper recently wrote that the Quakes have finally found their ‘first legitimate number ten’ with their new signing Colombian Tressor Moreno – let’s welcome Tressor. The San Jose Earthquakes spent their off season searching for a midfield replacement in the event that Simon Dawkins wouldn’t return to the squad in 2012. In actual fact, Dawkins, is returning to the Quakes, so if he keeps his jersey number (ten), there may be a conundrum when the Quakes will venture forth an ‘actual’ number ten and a ‘classic’ number ten (who’s actually wearing #27).

In the article, Frank Yallop was quoted as saying “Simon Dawkins is a good soccer player, but more of a forward. This guy [Moreno] looks to pass the ball. … It’s the first time we’ve got [a player] who looks to do what number tens do”. His quote prompted a fellow season ticket holder to ask me about the origin of the phrase “classic number ten”. I knew, roughly, that it referred to a midfielder, probably of the attacking variety, but that was based on a distant (and therefore fuzzy) memory of old-fashioned shirt numbers. I grew up watching teams play with the original jersey numbering of one through eleven on the backs of  whichever players trotted out for each game; the goal keeper was number one, and the remaining numbers were designated from the back line, through the midfield to the forwards. Logically then, number ten would belong to someone who was positioned up near the front – that meager knowledge was all I could offer in response.

Obviously, it was time for me to settle down at my laptop with a mug of coffee and hit the Google-verse to fill in my memory gaps (aside: when will there be an MLS Google doodle?). It turns out that the original one through eleven number designation arose from English association football as far back as 1923. Back then, the standard formation from back to front was 2-3-5; I could warm to that offensively-minded formation. Although 2-3-5 seems staggeringly unbalanced, it was conservative compared to England’s 1-1-8 lineup in their first official game against Scotland who employed a more offensively parsimonious 1-2-7. Ironically, perhaps inevitably, that game finished 0-0 – but I digress. In the original 2-3-5 formation there was a squad full of esoteric positions: ‘backs’ and ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ forwards (what I used to call a ‘winger’), with each position numbered as follows: 1 – Goalkeeper, 2 – Right full back, 3 – Left full back, 4 – Right half back, 5 – Center half back, 6 – Left half back, 7 – Outside right, 8 – Inside right, 9 – Center forward, 10 – Inside left, 11 – Outside left.

Gradually, with the evolution of twentieth century soccer, new formations were intelligently designed from the 2-3-5 that involved moving specific positions to different areas of the field. As the formations changed and the players lined up in their new positions, their jersey numbers went with them. For example, the half back was pushed back to become a defender, and so central defenders wearing number five were remnants of the original 2-3-5 system. Historically, when the England national squad played the 4-4-2 formation, they typically lined up four defenders – #2, #5, #6, #3; four midfielders – #7, #4, #10, #11; two forwards – #8, #9. Comparing the two formations in the diagram below, you can see that the half backs, wingers (and the #10) were pulled back from the 2-3-5 to create the 4-4-2. Those attack-minded 19th century English and Scottish forwards would have been shocked and confused – perhaps even a little lonely.

There are myriad other formations some of which are evocatively named: The Danubian Formation (a modified 2-3-5 popular in central Europe in the 1930s), the Christmas Tree formation (4-3-2-1; with its obvious shape), and the Magic Rectangle (4-2-2-2; used, to no avail, by Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final, and which has since been termed ‘suicidal’). The continued designation of  a player’s starting position by his jersey number appears to have gradually become redundant (or perhaps too difficult) with the increasingly esoteric soccer formations. Starting with the 1954 World Cup, each player in a country’s 22-man squad wore a specific number for the duration of the tournament. Despite the early success of the approach at the international level, fixed squad numbers didn’t become standard in the FA Premier League until the 1993-94 season, and in the rest of Europe shortly thereafter. While the US Men’s National Team is still subject to this mandated squad numbering system in official tournament play, the new head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann has reverted to the original one through eleven numbering system in friendly games. His reasoning is that identifying each position by its number will inspire competition for starting places on the international squad.  What goes around comes around.

Getting back to that classic number ten – an attacking midfielder sometimes called a trequartista (Italian for three-quarters, denoting his field position), enganche (Spanish for “to hook’; intriguingly also a term used in tango dancing) , or playmaker. His role is to play just behind the forwards, or ‘in the hole’, and create goal scoring opportunities for his team’s strikers, or even himself. The playmaker came into his own with the popularity of 4-4-2, which peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s. All four semi-finalists in Euro 2000 played ‘classic’ number tens in the hole between the opposition defense and midfield: Zidane (France), Totti (Italy), Costa (Portugal) and Bergkamp (Holland); England and Germany did not and they perished early in the tournament. Lately however, the folks at Zonal Marking effectively argue that as the 4-4-2 becomes outdated in Europe, the days of the classic ten are numbered: “Lionel Messi started as a classic Argentine number ten in a central play making position, then became established as a wide forward, now occasionally plays up top.” Furthermore, they argue, as most players arerequired to become more versatile (playing as strikers, wingers or in the hole), their current role has become more difficult to define; perhaps eventually top players won’t even have favoured positions.

Fortunately for Quakes fans, Simon Dawkins will be playing soccer once again in the blue and black, and the 4-4-2 has not (yet) fallen out of favor. So, if Moreno is the ‘classic’ number ten, and Dawksy stays at the ‘actual’ number ten, I’m concerned about the ramifications for the space-time continuum within the 4-4-2. Will Frank Yallop need to roll out a novel formation to prevent the imminent collapse of the universe? How many (perhaps  all) of the players be out of position if he tries out an old-school, Scottish 1-2-7 (the “Graeme Souness Perm” or “Lenhart” formation – lots going on up top)? As my friend Nigel points out: Most teams only play one number ten, but where can you go from there? When you need that extra push to the playoffs, where is there to go? It looks like the Quakes have gone one better, and their best eleven might have two tens.

Build It Now

I am in favor of the planned stadium development permit.  

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In my mirthquakes blog it’s been all to easy to make light of the plight of the Quakes fans over the past four years– but I felt the need to stay cheerful, even when the seat numbers on the aluminum bleachers are eighteen inches apart and the width of my hips (on a good day) is nineteen inches.  

The upside of that scenario is that I’ve made close friends with the people around me in Section 103.  When I look around the bleachers there’s a diversity of gender, ethnicity, and professions.  It’s a big, often rambunctious family comprising parents, siblings and eccentric great-aunts, with diverse personalities: vocal and energetic; cynical and phlegmatic, analytical and judgmental.  Our common ground is down below on the pitch and the San Jose Earthquakes players on its cool, grass surface - we are all united in our support of them.  

The players on our team are equally diverse - scan the roster and you will see local heroes, Europeans, Central and South Americans, even a Texan with a Thai surname.  Their personalities range from quiet leaders, to crazy goalkeepers and vocal players who black out when they argue their team mate’s case with the officials.  There are young rookies with meagre salaries working hard to get their chance and veterans working just as hard to keep their slot.  All are engaged in the action on the field, and off the field they engage frequently within the community and the fans in front of whom they play each week.  

As we cross the rail road tracks to our new stadium, we’ll need to get along with our new neighbors.  The reason for Wednesday’s planning meeting is to revisit the concerns they have raised, and I hope the changes to the stadium design and the proposal as a whole, will address those concerns to their satisfaction.  For my own part, as a fan, I cannot promise that I won’t noisily vocalize my support inside the stadium while the game is in progress – in fact I hope there will be many opportunities for us all to celebrate.  Outside of the stadium, as a fellow citizen, I will promise to be cognizant of my surrounding neighbors, my potential impact on their lives and respect their interests and concerns.  

There are many players who make the San Jose Earthquakes work as an organization – not just the guys who kick and dribble the ball.  It’s a conglomeration of fans, players, coaches, trainers, front office, stadium staff, grounds keepers, vendors, and media.  All are valued members of this diverse Earthquakes family - a family that truly reflects the community it serves.  


After four years of patience doesn’t this family deserve their own home?