Un tempranero gol de las Chivas derrocó a los Quakes 1-0

Santa Clara, Calif. - Hace un par de jornadas atrás los Earthquakes estaban dando la impresión de que lo que paso al comienzo de este equipo de expansión fue eso de re-agruparse y contratar jugadores que tuvieran talento, experiencia y sobre todo técnica y táctica para sacar adelante y poder estar en la liguilla final. Los cambios de jugadores y las nuevas contrataciones dieron un giro fenomenal al grupo dirigido por Frank Yallop. Tal positivo fue el cambio que no conocieron la derrota en nueve juegos consecutivos, pero en las ultimas tres jornadas a sido totalmente diferente incluyendo este ultimo descalabro contra las Chivas USA de un pobre 1-0 frente a un lleno total de 10,502 aficionados en el estadio Buck Shaw de Santa Clara. Read more

Huckerby assesses MLS for the English press

We haven’t spoken about Darren Huckerby much here in the Solar-Powered Soccer Blog recently, but today we’ve got almost a pure Huckerby program.

We’ll start with a great article on Hucks’ American adventure in the London Times, a publication often cited as the newspaper of record for the U.K. (The publication was founded in 1785 and was the first newspaper anywhere to be called “The Times.”) Headlined “Darren Huckerby relishes life as American idol in the MLS,” writer Simon Veness tells of Huckerby’s great enjoyment of both San Jose and American soccer. “Playing here is a completely different experience and has been a lot better than my expectations,” Huckerby told the paper. In fact, Hucks is having such a good time here that the story practically reads like a recruiting piece for MLS.

For example, here’s his assessment of the quality of our young league:

“The style of play is very pass-orientated and a lot more attack-minded, which suits me down to the ground. I am really enjoying my football and I think it’s showing in what I’ve achieved so far. The standard is probably on a par with the Championship, but there isn’t the strength in depth to compare it directly. The top 25 [players] in the league could easily hold their own in the Premiership, though.”

That’s high praise, but it sounds like a pretty accurate assessment to us. A number of players who’ve starred in MLS have gone on to succeed in the Premiership (Brian McBride, Clint Dempsey, and Tim Howard, for example), which lends credence to his assertion about the potential of the league’s top players. And if anyone is qualified to gauge the level of competition in the Championship, it’s Huckerby, who spent several years there with Norwich and won the, uh, championship of the Championship twice.

All in all, he’s having a great time with the Quakes:

“It’s also a beautiful area to live in and much more laid-back than England. After training, we can sit around the pool, go swimming and use the gym. We train at the university and the facilities are probably on a par with Premiership clubs. The style is not as strict, either. When we travel we are not locked up in a hotel room for days at a time, so we can actually see some of the cities we visit.

“It is a completely different environment after games, too, more to do with going out for a meal and socialising, not just going out drinking. There is no one going on all-day benders. Recently, our game with Houston was called off so we had a pool party, got the barbecue going and had a good American evening of it. The lads still have a few beers, but that’s where it ends.”

The article ends with Huckerby’s recommendation of MLS to other players in England, once they’ve set themselves up financially. “I would definitely recommend the experience to other players – but make as much money as you can in England first… But this is definitely the place to be. It is so much more enjoyable.”

• • •

Huckerby may be having a good time in California, but he hasn’t forgotten Norwich, either. An Earthquakes shirt that he autographed and donated is being auctioned off on eBay to benefit Friends of Norwich City Youth, or “F.O.N.C.Y.” The current high bid is £151 (about $250) and shipping to the U.S. is free.

• • •

In other news:

- Our own Embele Awipi, writing for the Salinas Californian, takes a look at Huckerby and San Jose’s growing network of connections to England in this week’s column.

- The Houston Chronicle reports that Brian Ching, who played in Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Cuba, has been released by U.S. men’s national team coach Bob Bradley and will be available to play against San Jose on Wednesday. Kei Kamara will also be available after playing for Sierra Leone on Saturday. Dwayne De Rosario may also be available since Canada was eliminated from qualifying after losing 3-1 on Saturday to Honduras.

Not good enough

Fellow CLS writer Pete Ratajczak visited Liverpool last year to see his beloved ‘Pool play at Anfield. The match ended in a 2-2 draw and Pete recalls that everyone he spoke to had a three-word review of the game: “Not good enough.” Any other comment he made about the match, including compliments to Fernando Torres for his heroic, stoppage-time equalizer, was immediately met with those same three words: “Not good enough.” That phrase trumped everything.

And so we come to last night’s 1-0 home loss for the Earthquakes against the best team in Los Angeles, Chivas USA. No matter how lopsided the scoresheet — 13 shots for the Quakes, 8 for Chivas, or 10 corners for the Quakes to only 3 for Chivas — the result was simply not good enough. As Ronnie O’Brien told us last night, “it’s one of those things — statistics don’t win you games. Goals do.”

San Jose hasn’t been mathematically eliminated from the playoff hunt, but they’ll need to win their three remaining matches and have some other results go their way if they’re going to get in. So, despite all the Quakes have accomplished this year — their record as an expansion team is much better than Toronto, Salt Lake, or Chivas in their first seasons — when it comes to the playoffs, it may be that they’re just not good enough.

• • •

Here’s the post-game news wrap:

-  MLSnet.com has a match report, post-game story, and video highlights.

-  From the newspapers, we have match reports from the Mercury News and the L.A. Times.

Saturday’s pre-game press

Today, we have the latest in the series of matches that can be called, “the biggest game of the year so far.” In fact, combined with Wednesday night’s match in Houston, we’ll go so far as to say this is the biggest week of the year so far, and it’s going to be the last big week of the year unless the Earthquakes find their way into the playoffs.

We won’t try to reiterate anything Tim Hanley wrote in his expert pre-game analysis, but  we will note that Chivas will be missing both Sacha Kljestan and Shavar Thomas due to international call-ups and that first-choice forwards Maykel Galindo and Ante Razov are both listed as questionable for the match due to various ailments. While it’s true that the Quakes have injury problems of their own — whether Darren Huckerby plays is a game-time decision — San Jose probably doesn’t deserve a playoff berth if they can’t pull down all three points tonight at Buck Shaw.

Here’s the pre-game press wrap:

- In the Mercury News, Elliott Almond turns in a great profile of Ryan Johnson, who’s been a real surprise for the Quakes this year.  Not only does Almond talk with Johnson’s wife, Donna, but he actually tracked down his mother, Ingrid, for a couple quotes. Nice to see the Merc hitting the human interest angle here.

- Writing for MLSnet.com, our own Jeff Carlisle takes a look at the match, talking with Quakes manager Frank Yallop and former Chivas defender Jason Hernandez.

- Online, we have previews from Goal.com and  Yahoo! Sports.

Quakes hope to be Spurred to new heights

Weddings are always full of hope and good intentions, and so it was yesterday at the Earthquakes/Tottenham nuptials. (Our story is here.) The Fairmont Hotel setting was grand, there were party favors for all attendees in the form of new, custom t-shirts with the Quakes and Spurs logos, and everyone was smiling at the potential of the new partnership.

As with any marriage, time will tell how fruitful the union will be, but it looks from here like the potential is great. Bay Area friendlies on both the senior and youth levels are already on the to-do list for Spurs, San Jose’s coaching staff will be visiting London at some point during the off season, and the business development gurus of both front offices will undoubtedly be putting their heads together as well. Combine these elements with the fact that Tottenham’s revenues for the 2006-07 season placed them as the 11th richest club on Earth, between Serie A sides Roma and Juventus, and the fifth richest club in England behind the “big four” of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool, and you can start to understand that this could be a very big deal for both sides.

Yesterday’s press conference has elicited some strong press coverage from both sides of the pond. Both the Earthquakes and Spurs issued press releases, MLSnet.com has a story from our own Jeff Carlisle, and the press is hot on the story as well. Media outlets covering the story include the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, KLIV radio, SportsTicker, and Goal.com in the U.S., and Sky Sports, the Press Association, and the Guardian newspapers in the U.K., as well as the international ESPN Soccernet.  (Only the British press, with “Spurs show the way to San Jose” and “Spurs cause an Earthquake in America,” go for the clever headline, so we indulged ourselves with today’s banner to help the apparent U.S. trade imbalance.)

In other news:

- The Merc’s Elliott Almond takes a look at this weekend’s match against Chivas USA. The “just the facts, ma’am” preview is available on MLSnet.com.

-  The Salt Lake Royals opened their new stadium last night, and the Salt Lake Tribune has published a photo gallery.

- U.S. Soccer has published the Week 28 “Referee Week in Review,” and there is no mention anywhere of the bad calls in the Dallas/San Jose match. Let’s hope someone spoke with Abby Okulaja personally, then, about what constitutes a red card handball.

Corrales trains, but Huckerby, Cochrane ailing

Normally, the news that Ramiro Corrales returned to full training would have warmed the hearts of San Jose fans everywhere, but this was tempered by the sight of Darren Huckerby sitting out most of Thursday’s session.

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Futbolista Honda del Año 18va Edición será anunciado en Los Ángeles
Dempsey, Donovan y Howard Finalistas

Fútbol de Primera la única y exclusiva organización a través de los Estados Unidos que otorga al ganador del “Futbolista Honda del Año”. En su 18va Edición de este Galardón de Mayor Prestigio y Reconocimiento al Futbolista Estadounidense fundado por Fútbol de Primera desde 1991.

La ceremonia de dicho reconocimiento se llevará a cabo el próximo 11 de noviembre de este presente año en el Hotel Baltimore en la ciudad de Los Ángeles a partir de las 11:30 de la mañana. Read more

It’s Tottenham

Just got confirmation that the team the Quakes are partnering with is indeed English club Tottenham Hotspur.

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Quakes set to announce partnership with European club

The Quakes have scheduled a press conference for Thursday at 2PM, where they will announce a partnership with a European club.

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Quakes finish FAS; plus, a few more items

We’ll put FAS things first: The Quakes, fielding a team composed largely of players outside the typical starting 11, downed Club Deportivo FAS of El Salvador 2-1 last night at Buck Shaw. San Jose’s goals were scored by Spaniard Mikel Arce and Jovan Kirovski, with the assists coming from Davide Somma and Shea Salinas, respectively. You can find our photo gallery, courtesy of ace shooter Joe Nuxoll, over here.

We’re pleased to see another point from Salinas in an exhibition match — he scored a goal against the Honduran Olympic Team — but we’re still waiting for him to score during an MLS match so the Casbah can break out with a song that Mrs. Solar-Powered Soccer Blog came up with. To the tune of KC & the Sunshine Band’s “Shake Your Booty”: “Shea Shea Shea/Shea Shea Shea/Shea Salinas/Shea Salinas.”

Our own Jeff Carlisle provides a match report and post-game story over at MLSnet.com.

• • •

In other news, we’ve been making fun of the Salt Lake Royals because of their Spanish-for-no-logical-reason name, and now it turns out that the naming rights sponsor for their new stadium, which will debut on ESPN2 tomorrow night, is a mining company called “Rio Tinto” — “Red River” in, yup, Spanish.

OK, Utah and mining go together, but Utah is a desert state mostly devoid of rivers, so the whole “rio” part doesn’t make a lot of sense. Plus, upon further examination, this particular river doesn’t sound too inviting. The Rio Tinto from which the mining company took its name is in Spain, and its water “is red-colored because of highly acidic pollution from acid mine drainage.” The river reportedly has a pH of 2, which puts it on a scale somewhere between lemon juice and stomach acid.  Mmm, lovely.

(OK, we’ll admit it — we’re just giving them a hard time because we’re jealous that an upstart team like RSL  has a stadium before the Quakes do. The team logo in the seats is pretty cool, too.)

• • •

Only a couple other items in the news to pass along today:

- Our own Embele Awipi, writing for the Salinas Californian, takes a look at the Earthquakes’ progress this year and the importance of Saturday night’s showdown with Chivas USA.

- Finally, the NCAA is sponsoring voting on the College Cup 50th anniversary team, and USF coaching legend Steve Negoesco is among those on the ballot.

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