Real-ity bites; Quakes lose 3-1

Tony Beltran, John Cunliffe in the 1-3 RSL win at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 31, 2008. Photo by Julie Fizer/isiphotos.com

One month after being dumped out of the U.S. Open Cup by Real Salt Lake, the San Jose Earthquakes had hoped that Saturday’s rematch, which included more of their first-choice lineup, would see the expansion side turn the tables on the home team. But while the faces had changed, the result stayed the same, as RSL got second half goals from Robbie Findley, Javier Morales, and Dema Kovalenko to claim a deserved 3-1 win.

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Keepin’ it Real

It’s match day and, before we get to the various pre-game stories that are appearing in the media, we have a special feature in the blog today. We left the solar-powered blog penthouse on Thursday to attend the Quakes’ practice and took time to discuss some pertinent issues — specifically, the origins of the “Real” portion of “Real Salt Lake” — with Quakes ‘keeper Joe Cannon. We present them here, now, for your listening pleasure.

Although we make fun of their name, the fact is that RSL has been well-supported by their fans since the team’s founding. It’s only been a few years and we don’t know if the denizens of the Beehive State are in it for the long run, but we certainly hope that this is not a puppy love.

Now then, on to the day’s news:

- Elliott Almond of the Mercury News reports that the Quakes are talking to Norwich City defender Gary “Doc” Doherty, whose contract with the English Championship (AKA second division) side expires soon. Doherty is a central defender whose aerial skills also make him a competent target forward, and at least one Canaries fan doesn’t want him to leave Norwich City. The Quakes are undoubtedly talking to a lot of players these days, so we don’t know how serious this is just yet, but we will, as always, keep an eye on the situation.

- Almond also turns in a stellar piece on new Earthquake Jovan Kirovski, even managing to get quotes from NASL Quake Steve Zungul. Impressive!

- There are a ton of pre-game stories available online. Choose from the following:

• our own Jeff Carlisle for MLSnet.com
• John Coon of the RSL media relations staff for MLSnet.com
• James Edward of the Deseret News
• KNBC.com
• Reporter Jeff Mezydlo for the AP

We’ll pass along one observation from these pre-game reports. The quotes from several RSL players, including Chris Wingert and Dema Kovalenko, indicate that they see today’s match as a must win. We can only guess that RSL coach Jason Kreis is placing that emphasis on the match, and it seems like a big gamble on his part. RSL doesn’t exactly have a historical record of excellence, and painting any match as a must win this early in the season is going to put a lot more pressure on their players. The longer the game remains scoreless, the more that pressure will build, and if the Quakes get the first goal, a second may quickly follow. It will be interesting to see how Kreis’ risk-taking plays out.

“Soccer Tennis” skills are necessary to win at Rice-Eccles

If you’ve ever watched “soccer tennis,” you’ll understand some of my references about Rice Eccles. We touched on Real Salt Lake’s home pitch in my column prior to the San Jose-Real Open Cup match a month ago. The same rules apply: What can a team control with respect to the pitch and what effect can we establish by playing intelligent football? The Earthquakes ‘08 version spent the evening of April 30th getting drummed 4-0. Let’s hope in the four weeks since then, they have established an idea as to how one adjusts to what has to be the worst pitch in MLS. With a hard surface and thin air, the game seems to be played waist high! It’s soccer tennis on a really big court. Read more…

Gray pleased with return to San Jose

Center Line Soccer’s Jay Hipps spoke Thursday with prodigal son Kelly Gray, who rejoined the Earthquakes last week from the Colorado Rapids. Hipps spoke with Gray about his return to San Jose, what he hopes to bring to the team, and hanging out with David Beckham.

Quakes to shuffle lineup for RSL match

If San Jose coach Frank Yallop has an iPod, there’s a pretty good chance it’s set to “shuffle” this week. At least that’s true of the team’s lineup heading into tomorrow’s match against Real Salt Lake. Forward Kei Kamara and midfielder Ivan Guerrero are out due to commitments with their national teams, and Yallop told Center Line Soccer yesterday that Ronnie O’Brien will be spared playing on the artificial turf at Rice-Eccles Stadium, generally recognized as the worst surface in MLS. Read more…

Huckerby leaning towards MLS

The news out of the U.K. today is that former Norwich City star Darren Huckerby is leaning towards a move to North America, although it has still not been determined where he might land. “At the minute I’ve got quite a few offers from Championship clubs and a few higher but, like I’ve said, I don’t want to play against Norwich,” he told Norwich Evening News 24. “So it’s looking like I’m going to be looking further afield to be honest.”

One curious thing emerges in the article. It appears that Huckerby is not aware that he can voice his opinion regarding where in MLS he wants to play.

“I think Toronto own my rights at the minute, even though I haven’t spoken to anyone there or anything, so it’s very, very strange,” he said. “It’s one of the possibilities. I’m very lucky that I’ve had a pretty good career so far so hopefully those options will be open to me.

“It’s very different over there. Everything’s above board over there and everything has to be done by the letter. You can’t speak to anyone until things have been agreed, so it’s a very complicated process but we’ll see what happens.”

Mr. Huckerby, if we have one message for you, it’s this: You have more leverage than you think. If you’d prefer to play in sunny California rather than Toronto, have your agent convey your preference to Ivan Gazidis or whoever it is he’s talking to at MLS HQ. They’ll find a way to accommodate you for the good of the league; it’s in their best financial interests to do so. Specifically, the owner/operators of each MLS team also own a piece of the league as a whole, so when marquee players have expressed interest in joining MLS in the past, accommodations have been made to put them in the cities they prefer. Carlos Hermosillo and Luis Hernandez wanted to play in L.A.; guess where they played? Granted, now that the MLS Players’ Union has started releasing salary information, it may be harder for teams near the salary cap to sign you, but that won’t be a problem in San Jose since the Quakes have plenty of room under the cap.

The situation brings to mind one other question, however. Huckerby says that no one from Toronto has contacted him or his agent, despite the fact that the Canadian club was the first to file a Discovery Claim on the player with MLS headquarters. What happens if Toronto never follows up? More to the point, if Toronto decides they don’t need Huckerby, would they simply stall to keep him from signing with San Jose? As Huckerby notes, he’s getting lots of offers from other teams in other leagues already. Let’s hope MLS resolves this situation quickly so the opportunity to bring Huckerby to the league is not lost.

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The Deseret News has a preview of tomorrow’s match between the Earthquakes and Real Salt Lake. The MLSnet.com “just the facts, ma’am” preview is also available.

Johnson, Kirovski take crash course in chemistry

Jovan Kirovski is set to make his first start for San Jose on Saturday. Photo: John Todd, centerlinesoccer.com/isiphotos.com

Any forward tandem will tell you that chemistry takes time to develop. Hours are spent on the practice field divining what kinds of passes to which foot in a given situation will reap the greatest amount of success for a strike partner. Alas, time is a commodity which San Jose Earthquakes forwards Jovan Kirovski and Ryan Johnson have little of, yet they’ll still be expected to produce this weekend when the Quakes take on Real Salt Lake. Read more…

Thoughts on England, McBride, and Microsoft

The answers to the questions:

- That was a pretty lackluster performance from both sides at yesterday’s Wembley wrangle. One thing is clear, though: England, despite the big-name lineup, is just not that good. It’s no coincidence that they’ll all be enjoying summer holidays while the rest of Europe will be battling it out in Austria and Switzerland to determine the kings of UEFA.

Their problem is a one-dimensional attack where pace is emphasized over everything else. There’s no stealth, no guile, and no creativity. They do everything quickly and, if that doesn’t work, they try to go even faster. It worked once yesterday, on Steven Gerrard’s goal, but the team’s frustration was visibly growing until they scored off David Beckham’s free kick. (Demonstrating yet again, I might add, that Beckham’s service is enough to propel a mediocre team to victory, just as is so often seen at Home Depot Center.)

We’re a full-service blog, though, so we’ll provide a solution to the problem instead of just identifying it: More English players need to start playing outside England. The cross-pollination of ideas and playing styles that is transforming the game is vital to a team’s success now, and while the Premiership is among the strongest leagues in the world, teams usually rely on foreign talent to provide the spark to a team’s play. (That last point could be applied to MLS as well, actually.)

Unfortunately for England fans, their players aren’t likely to start leaving for more exotic pastures anytime soon. The Prem is the richest league on Earth right now, and players have no financial incentive to move to a different country, where they would have to acclimate to a new culture, language, and style of play, when they can remain at home. Even Championship players are paid pretty well. Until they learn to leave their island behind, at least mentally if not physically, the world is going to continue to leave them behind. (Hey, at least they’re not relying exclusively on English coaches anymore.)

- There has been some moaning and gnashing of teeth over Jeff Carlisle’s story on how acquiring (and now dropping) Peguero Jean Philippe cost the Quakes their top spot on the MLS priority list for players returning to the league, and therefore any chance of acquiring Brian McBride now that he’s leaving Fulham.

Let’s be clear, though: McBride will play wherever he chooses, and all indications are that he will either be joining Chicago, near his boyhood home of Arlington Heights, Ill., or returning to Columbus. The Quakes didn’t lose McBride by acquiring Jean Philippe; they lost the draft pick or some cash that would have been offered by either of those teams for San Jose’s spot in the pecking order. Again, McBride will play wherever he chooses, and he was never going to choose San Jose. Let’s cut Quakes GM John Doyle a little slack here.

- The news out of Seattle is that Microsoft has signed a $20 million deal to promote XBox Live on Seattle Sounders shirts for the first five years of the team’s MLS existence, and that news has to be music to the ears of the San Jose front office. Surely one of the Bay Area’s tech giants will want want a similar deal with the Quakes so that MLS is not conceded to Bill Gates and company?

MLS HQ: Jean Philippe deal cost Quakes their shot at McBride

When the news flashed across the internet this morning that Brian McBride was leaving Fulham and returning to the United States, I thought I’d double check with MLS to see if the Quakes had first dibs on the former Columbus forward, as San Jose G.M. John Doyle indicated on Tuesday. According to a league spokesman, the Quakes do not, costing them a shot at placing a claim on McBride.

The reason San Jose missed out on McBride was due to their decision to sign Haitian international forward Peguero Jean Philippe. When Jean Philippe put pen to paper, the Quakes automatically moved to the bottom of the allocation list that is used when former MLS players return to the league from overseas. But when Jean Philippe was put on the season-ending injury list earlier this week, I asked Doyle if the Quakes would move back to the top of the list. Doyle assured me that this was the case.

With MLS headquarters saying otherwise, I called up Doyle to clarify his remarks, at which point he apologized and admitted that what he told me on Tuesday was not correct. ”I misspoke a bit,” said Doyle. “No excuses.”

While Doyle’s mistake was relatively harmless (other than to raise the hopes of Quakes fans everywhere), the decision to sign Jean Philippe has come back to haunt them. While McBride’s stated preference is either to return to Columbus or sign with Chicago (he’s originally from the Chicago area), at the least San Jose would have been poised to get some form of compensation from either team. Now that honor falls to Toronto.

Wednesday at Wembley

The biggest game on the soccer radar today is the USA/England match at Wembley Stadium in London. The match, which will be televised on ESPN Classic, kicks off at noon, making for a great long lunch. If you haven’t told your boss about your, uh, “doctor’s appointment” or “teeth cleaning,” now is your chance. (There’s probably all sorts of cool stuff about the game on U.S. Soccer’s web site, but it appears to have crashed for the time being.)

Speaking of doctor’s appointments, as was first reported on Center Line Soccer yesterday, the Mercury News notes today that forward Peguero Jean Philippe is done for the season, thanks to continuing issues with his right knee.

What makes Jean Philippe’s loss even worse for the Quakes is the fact that Kei Kamara is off to Sierra Leone for a string of that nation’s World Cup qualifiers and, as Elliot Almond’s story in the Merc also mentions, Gavin Glinton is still recovering from his sports hernia surgery. CLS’s Jeff Carlisle notes that Ryan Johnson has been paired with newcomer Jovan Kirovski in finishing drills, so we can expect to see that pair on the field Saturday against Real Salt Lake. (Be sure to check out Jeff’s entry on Costa Rica legend Rolando Fonseca, who is on trial with the Quakes this week.)

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