Thursday afternoon update

Yes, it’s another post for the blog today. And we thought two-a-days only happened in pre-season!

- Before we get to anything else, we want to let everyone know that the 1906 Ultras are sponsoring a road trip to the Earthquakes/Chivas USA match at Home Depot Center on August 23. The group has chartered a bus as well as discount seats in section 138, and total cost including game tickets and transportation is $70. If you’d like to have the 1906 Ultras experience but want to make your own transportation arrangements, you can do that, too. Full details are here. Make your reservations early — space is limited!

- We have confirmed with the Quakes that the trade of Ivan Guerrero was required in part to get the team down to the MLS mandated senior roster limit of 18 players, as we noted this morning. When the team acquired Arturo Alvarez, that pushed the number to 19, and with the sudden glut of left-sided players — Darren Huckerby, Alvarez, Ryan Johnson, and Guerrero all play left mid — Guerrero was the odd man out. It’s unfortunate, because he was universally admired as a model professional among the players and staff, but this was deemed to be the team’s best option at this time. (It did not help Guerrero’s cause that he was making so much money — $147,000, according to the MLS Players Union. That’s more than any MLS side can afford to pay a player who’s not in their starting eleven.)

- We mentioned last week that video from the Gary Radnich interview with Huckerby had garnered over 60,000 views on YouTube. Today, after a few days in the London Guardian newspaper’s list of “Our favourite things this week,” that total has nearly doubled and now stands at 118,380, due almost entirely to Radnich’s good-natured banter which was, sadly, also almost completely ignorant of anything factual about soccer.

Looking at the YouTube page now, most of the comments on the video criticize Radnich for his lack of knowledge and/or research. It’s too bad, then, that so few people will hear the following interview on KNBR from Brian Murphy of the Murph & Mac show. Our compliments to Murphy for conducting an informative, well-researched interview.

Kudos to Huckerby, too, for immediately recognizing the importance of Sunday’s match: “It’s a local derby, or as local as you’re going to get, so  I expect it’s going to be pretty intense.” That’s the spirit!

- There’s still no official comment from the Quakes about the potential acquisition of St. Vincent & the Grenadines international Marlon James. We’re hoping to have more information tomorrow — no promises, though.