Quakes closing in on Tchani
By Jeff Carlisle · January 13, 2010
First it was Corben Bone who was supposedly going to be the San Jose Earthquakes’ top pick. Then it was Teal Bunbury. Now it’s looking like the Quakes are hoping to take Virginia midfielder Tony Tchani with the third overall selection in Thursday’s MLS SuperDraft.
So are the Quakes a lock to land Tchani? No. With Oregon State forward Danny Mwanga set to be selected by Philadelphia, everything depends on what New York does, and they could do far worse than beating the Quakes to the punch and taking Tchani for themselves. The Red Bulls were thought to leaning towards taking Wake Forest defender Ike Opara, but he is reportedly staying in school until May, which complicates matters. Now there are rumblings that they will take Akron forward Teal Bunbury.
On the surface this would be a strange pick, but the possibility for trades always exists, and if the Red Bulls do take Bunbury then a deal seems likely, especially given the multitude of holes that exist in New York’s lineup.
If the Quakes do select Tchani, it’s a case of them taking the best player available as opposed to addressing glaring needs. The Quakes may have some relative depth in the center of midfield with Ramon Sanchez, Andre Luiz, Brad Ring, and Simon Elliott. But at 6-foot-4, 185 lbs., Tchani is being touted as “the next Shalrie Joseph” and with Andre Luiz struggling with injuries last season, manager Frank Yallop may find a player of his caliber too good to pass up.
If San Jose misses out on Tchani, then they’ll gladly settle for Opara or Bunbury, with the latter performer the likely pick.
So what of the Quakes’ other glaring needs, namely shoring up the flank midfield and defender positions? San Jose does have three second round picks, giving them plenty of opportunities to reinforce that part of the field.
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“The Quakes may have some relative depth in the center of midfield with Ramon Sanchez, Andre Luiz, Brad Ring, and Simon Elliott. ”
Out of these 4 Sanchez stands alone as the best we have.
Andre’ Luiz=older and injury prone
Brad Ring=untested
Simon Elliott= old, slow, useless
We desperately need an attacking midfielder and Tchani would fit the bill nicely but I suspect we’ll end up with Opara in May.
Tchani would be a great selection, although from what I have read Tchani was a monster at the Combine. So i assume he will be gone by pick #2. But I don’t think Opara is a back pick at all. I think he would be a great pick to have. Too bad it isn’t until May : /
I will be surprised if Tchani is still available to the quakes at #3. I just hope that we get quality players and not trade all are picks away. ( i.e. #1 pick for Nick Garcia).
i hope we take opara or tchani, for some reason i don’t see bunbury being all that great. lots of hype. i rather we go out on the international curcuit for a forward. BUT we’ve already seen our coaching and gm staff make some horrible decisions on players so i’m not getting to excited on who we end up with.no bunbury tho’ , didn’t do anything in the college cup and i don’t think he’ll do much in the pro level. avg. forward at best.
Who we take, and whether that choice is good, depends on who we are getting from overseas. If we’re taking a forward or an attacking midfielder (please!) from overseas, then drafting Opara, even if we have to wait until June to get him is fine. We should not be counting on rookies to start in any case.
That said, my hope is that we take Bone or Tchani. As Tom above said, André Luiz is older and injury prone, Ring is untested, Elliott is slower than a one-legged centipede, Sanchez rocks, and then we’re looking at Ribeiro, Corrales, and um … McD, but then we need another central defender. Yeah, drafting a central mid is not a bad idea at all.
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we should take Tchani and put him in for Corrales, since he getting old and slow
thanks for the article jeff!
i think tchani, opara, bunbury, and mwanga should be just as good as last year’s top rookies pontius, gonzalez, barnes, etc. its hard to know who FY & JD will take at #3 between opara or bunbury (can’t see how any team doesn’t take tchani, many are trying to trade up)- but hopefully when we find out we’ll hear news about an int’l signing in a different direction.
man i hope NY don’t take him, he would be a beast for us.
D’oh! … NY took Tony Tchani … and Philly took Danny Mwanga
Quakes take Ike Opara
so the coaching staff looks even dumber for giving up salinas when we ended up w/ a defender, after keeping def. braum(sp?) as cover?!