Seattle paper previews season for Quakes; Quakes gear to arrive Monday?

As the Quakes look to wrap up play tonight in the Carolina Challenge Cup (5:15 p.m. on USLLive.com), the Seattle Post-Intelligencer checks in with their San Jose Earthquakes season preview. Reporter Pat Martin speaks with Coach Frank Yallop and defender Nick Garcia in evaluating the team’s chances for success in 2008.

“I think there is pressure on all of us because we want to start the season off well and make the playoffs like every other team in this league,” said Yallop… “We don’t want to just sit here and settle for second best. We are trying to prepare the team to win every match we play.”

Ah! That’s the Earthquakes attitude we’ve been missing for two seasons. Anyway, despite the reporter’s misspelling of Ryan Cochrane’s last name, it’s a good read.

We have two other stories to pass along today. First, MLSnet.com’s Steve Davis looks at San Jose’s midfield in his “Five-a-side” column. (Someone needs to tell him that Ramiro Corrales spent plenty of time in central midfield during his previous tenure with the Quakes. It’s not really much of an experiment playing him there now.) Also, the Pocono Record includes a quote from Frank Yallop in their article on soccer tennis.

Finally, we hear that the Soccer Pro stores in San Jose, Dublin, Pleasant Hill and Modesto expect to receive their first shipment of home and away replica Earthquakes jerseys sometime on Monday. Tell them the blog sent you…