The Monday morning midfielder

Suffice it to say, that San Jose’s 2-0 win over Columbus on Saturday didn’t come from the Fernando Lama School of Soccer; you know, “better to look good than to feel good.” The Quakes fought, scratched, and yes, kicked their way to victory. But when you’re an expansion team, sometimes that’s what it takes.

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Comcast to the rescue

I’m sure there are some of you who thought they’d never live to see those words, but it’s true. 

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Yallop denies Doherty link

It looks like San Jose head coach Frank Yallop is the proverbial last-to-know when it comes to the team’s interest in former Norwich City player Gary Doherty.

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The hits just keep on comin’

Think things can’t get any worse for the Earthquakes? Think again, as San Jose’s injury list may have gotten a bit longer at Tuesday’s training session.

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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.

Tuesday’s odds and ends

Yes, it’s been a busy day, with Peguero Jean Philippe being let go, and Rolando Fonseca participating in training, but here are some other tidbits from Tuesday’s practice.

– Fonseca may be 33 (he’ll be 34 in a couple of weeks), but his quality jumps right out at you. Granted, that was only in finishing drills, and I’ll wait until I’ve seen him a few more times before I give an opinion on whether he should be signed, but it was clear he was a cut above the other players out there in his movement and shooting. Whether he has the legs to last a 90 minute MLS game is another matter.

– Kei Kamara is leaving today for WC qualifying with Sierra Leone. True, it’s not a surprise, but Kamara had mentioned after last Thursday’s game with Houston that he wasn’t sure he was going. Doyle confirmed today that he is. That said, I was talking to Yallop afterward, and he mentioned that there was a chance Kamara could be back early. As it stands now, Sierra Leone will play four games in the next three weeks starting June 1, with the last match away to South Africa on June 21. That’s an absolute killer for the Quakes if Kamara is gone the whole time.

– Jovan Kirovski and Ryan Johnson are already being paired up in scrimmages and finishing drills, so it looks like Yallop is trying to establish as much chemistry as possible before this weekend’s game against Real Salt Lake.

– Wondering why Frank Yallop was in a suit on Thursday, instead of his usual windbreaker? Turns out Doyle swung a deal with a local haberdashery, and that the entire team has been outfitted. When I asked Yallop if it was his new good luck charm, he said, “It might be now.”

Rolando Fonseca training with San Jose

The latest player to wear the label of “San Jose trialist” is former Costa Rican international Rolando Fonseca, who trained with the Earthquakes on Tuesday and is expected to stay the rest of the week.

As is his custom, General Manager John Doyle used the words “trialist” and “training stint” interchangeably, and took a low-key approach to Fonseca’s presence.

“[Fonseca] wanted to come,” said Doyle. “He paid his own way [to San Jose], we’re putting him up in a hotel, we’re letting him train, and we’ll see how he does.”

Fonseca, 33, has spent most of his career ping-ponging back and forth between Costa Rican side LD Alajuelense and Guatamalan club Communicaciones. His fourth and latest stint with Communicaciones saw the club fall to Municipal 4-3 on aggregate in the final of the just-concluded Clausura championship, although Fonseca scored in the second leg, and is widely regarded as having performed well this season.

At international level, Fonseca represented Costa Rica at the 2002 World Cup, and is their all-time leading scorer with 47 goals in 108 appearances.

With the Costa Rican now out of contract, he appears set to cast his gaze northward under old adversary Frank Yallop, who has gone up against Fonseca as both a coach and a player.

“I’ve known [Fonseca] obviously for a long time with Canada,” said Yallop. “He’s in for a few days, and he wanted to have a look too. And we want to have a look at him, and see what we think.”

More on Jean Philippe’s end..

As CLS reported earlier on Tuesday, San Jose Earthquakes forward Peguero Jean Philippe is being placed on the season-ending injury list, meaning that his loan from Danish side Brondby is over.

The reason given by the Quakes for Jean Philippe’s ouster is that his right knee, which underwent reconstructive surgery back in 2006, could not withstand the rigors of MLS, with continued swelling preventing the Haitian from playing on a consistent basis.

“We had hoped that [Jean Philippe] was going to be what he was a few years ago with New York,” said Quakes’ General Manager John Doyle. “So we were willing to take a risk on that. It’s just unfortunate that his knee didn’t hold up.” 

It is thought that Jean Philippe reinjured his knee on May 10 against Columbus, but Doyle stated that the team knew the forward’s knee was suspect when he arrived, and he believes that the original injury was the root cause of the problem.

“I think [Jean Philippe’s] knee was never repaired correctly,” said Doyle. “Our doctors saw that when they did the MRI on his arrival; that it was shaky at best. But we were hoping that…he could manage it. Peguero thinks that he did something that made it a little worse, but we think the damage was already done.”

Of course, the move raises as many questions as it answers. How much of Jean Philippe’s salary are the Quakes on the hook for, and did they lose their place in line as it relates to signing former MLS players intent on returning to the league?

Doyle revealed few specifics as it related to Jean Philippe’s salary, other than to say the way the deal was constructed, it was a “no-lose situation” for San Jose. Doyle did add that San Jose did not lose their place in the pecking order for former MLS players wanting to return to the league. The Quakes had first dibs on Jean Philippe when he returned to MLS, and had the Haitian stuck around, they would have moved to the bottom of that list. Now that Jean Philippe is gone, that is no longer the case.

When pressed further about the financial impact of Jean Philippe’s departure, Doyle would only add, “We didn’t lose anything.”

Head coach Frank Yallop did confirm that last week’s deal that brought Jovan Kirovski and Kelly Gray to San Jose from Colorado in exchange for Preston Burpo and a 2009 fourth round pick, was precipitated by Jean Philippe’s injury as well as Kei Kamara’s impending absence with the Sierra Leone national team.

What Jean Philippe’s next move will be is unclear, with Yallop hinting that additional surgery might be necessary.

“[Jean Philippe] is just trying to figure everything out right now,” said Yallop.

Quakes vs. Dynamo bonus quotes

Quakes head coach Frank Yallop:

Extra satisfaction in beating Houston?

Not really no. You just want to get three points in this league. Obviously, we’re playing a good team in Houston, it’s always good to get a win against a team like that, but no, it wasn’t any different than any other game we were trying to get three points out of.

On the play of Ryan Johnson:

He was good. He’s raw and rough and a bit of a rough-and-tumbler, but he gets it done. He’s not afraid of getting in there. I think he was the difference tonight to be honest. I thought he helped us play like we kind of want to play. He’s not quite refined, as we say in the game, but his energy and his running and his heart, I think he showed a lot of commitment for the team.

On the Kamara/Guerrero play that hit the post, were you thinking ‘Here we go again?’:

Kind of. I thought we played well in the first half to be honest. I thought it was a good all-around performance. When we were 1-0 up against Columbus, I said, ‘Here we go, we’ve got to make sure we see this game out.’ I felt pretty good, but when chances went begging in the first half, and I wasn’t sure we could lift our game again. But we did, and that was good to see from our guys.

On the favorable bounce on the second goal:

Good bounce for us, which makes a change obviously. But Houston had a chance right at the end which was very close. We sat back too much in the last ten minutes which was…I think we put a lot of energy into the first 80 minutes. I don’t think we had the energy to see the game out correctly, but full credit to our guys. We stuck to it and in the end, we got the three points, which is important.

After Columbus, the end of the game must have made you nervous:

We’ve talked about Columbus a lot. We’ve watched a lot of DVDs, and we’ve talked and we’ve worked in practice, so it was nice to see that the work we’ve done has helped us. Our alertness and our willingness to put our foot and head on the ball in the dangerous areas was there tonight, and I just hope it continues and we can try to get obviously some more points in the next few games we have, which is going to be tough. We’re away from home a lot. In the next seven or eight games, I think we’ve got a lot of away games, but that’s the league and we’ve got to be ready for that.

Does Buck Shaw feel like home now?

Yeah. I felt comfortable tonight, and I think the players did actually. They looked comfortable in the locker room, comfortable in the warm-up, comfortable at the kickoff. We’ve been here now. It does take a little while…I felt like we belonged out there.

Did knowing Houston so well help?

The way Houston plays is no secret. They’re very good at what they do. You can scout, but I didn’t talk much about that in the team talk today. It was more about passion and desire and they are going to come at you. And they did. I think that was important, that we didn’t put our heads down and kept going.

How much confidence will this goal give Kei Kamara?

It helps him. He’s probably going to take off for his qualifying stuff now, which is never easy on a team that’s pretty light like us, but I think we found a pretty good replacement in Ryan Johnson up there. He’ll be playing next week. If [Kamara] does go away, we don’t know exactly yet, we’ll deal with it and hopefully he’ll be in form when comes back.

Houston head coach Dominic Kinnear:

Opening statement:

We didn’t play particularly well. But you can’t point to anything outside of your performance on the field, and we didn’t decide to start playing until after it was 2-0. Then we kind of started feeling the sense of urgency. But I don’t think coming back…the guys were ready and didn’t think too much about [coming back]. There was always going to be buildup, questions about returning, but I don’t think it was a distraction in any way to our preparation.

On the team’s sluggishness in the first half:

I agree with you. There’s really not too much to say. We were a little bit hesitant going for the first and second balls, and when we got it we weren’t clearing our lines quick enough. Therefore we didn’t play particularly well in that first half. Even in the second half, we came out, like I said, we didn’t really start pushing forward until the 70th minute or so…Overall, I don’t think we had a good game tonight.

Where they ready for the play of Ryan Johnson?

We knew it was coming. We talked about him and how he likes to attack the ball, and he’s physical. There were a lot of balls that were dropping. I think we were a little bit hesitant going for the second ball, and they were probably the agressor in that area. We had some breakdowns where we lost the ball and they were breaking forward on us. If we had our shape it wasn’t too bad, but he does attack the ball well and the ball was falling in areas where they were stepping first to it.

Status of Eddie Robinson:

He’s okay. He got elbowed in the hip and had a hard time moving. He walked to the locker room okay, but a little bit bothered by it, but nothing terrible.

On how the loss of Robinson impacted the game:

Any time you lose Eddie, you’re losing a good player first of all, and a good guy in the air. There was a little bit too much room [on the first goal] when the ball fell. And I think on that play we were a little hesitant going for the ball.

On whether the emotions of coming back affected Houston’s play:

No. I wanted to win, and losing this game hurts just like losing another game the week previous. The message before we came here was, ‘These plane rides are paid for for one reason: to come out and play.

The Monday morning midfielder - TGIF edition

As I departed Buck Shaw Stadium Thursday night, there was one thought dominating my mind. Was it the play of the Bull Elephant, Ryan Johnson? The sight of Kei Kamara finally scoring? The even rarer occurance of seeing Ivan Guerrero getting into the attack on a regular basis? Good candidates all, but what I couldn’t get out of my head was the fact that now that San Jose has notched their biggest win of the season, some of their most impressive performers on Thursday are going to be leaving for goodness knows how long.

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