Wrapping up a Wednesday

Now that the UEFA Champions League final is over with — we won’t reveal the result, but we will say that nothing anywhere nearly as spectacular as Zinedine Zidane’s strike in the 2002 final occurred — we’ll get on with Wednesday’s news.

We’ll start with the big picture. As we reported yesterday, the San Jose City Council has set the stage for the sale of the Airport West property to a team of investors led by John Fisher and Lew Wolff, owners of the Earthquakes. This 74.8 acre site, located at 1125 Coleman Avenue in San Jose, includes a 13.5 acre portion which has been designated for the construction of a stadium for the Quakes and the parking lots that go with it. The story is covered in the Mercury News as well as the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

In case you’re not excited about this — granted, bureaucracy in action is not likely to become the latest hit reality show — you should be. Over the course of the next six weeks, Wolff’s team of investors will almost certainly complete the agreements that were outlined yesterday and hand over a check for $3 million to San Jose, securing an option to purchase the property which they’ve chosen to serve as a permanent home for soccer in the Bay Area. While Quakes fans know that nothing is done until it is done, it’s important to recognize the commitment that those dollars represent.

Speaking of the Champions League, as Jeff Carlisle reported yesterday, the Quakes have just acquired the only American to ever win that competition, Jovan Kirovski. Kirovski was with Borussia Dortmund in 1997 when they lifted the famous cup, and now he and prodigal son Kelly Gray have joined the Earthquakes. He’s also remembered among U.S. fans for scoring a spectacular goal against Germany in a 1999 friendly, which you can see here and here, in a view from inside Oliver Kahn’s goal (note: QuickTime files). The team’s press release notes that the Quakes also sent a fourth round pick in the 2009 SuperDraft to Colorado in the deal, and we expect to have even more details to report in the coming days.

Kelly Gray’s return is also good news, and it also sets up some sort of a weird mega-reunion on Thursday night. Gray was born in Palo Alto and attended Leigh High School in San Jose before he left to seek his fortune, first at the University of Portland and then with the Chicago Fire. He returned to San Jose to play with the Quakes in 2005 and has since played in Houston, L.A., and Colorado. Now, he’s headed back to the Bay Area and both he and Kirovski will be available to play Thursday against a Houston team that features 11 former Quakes.

Speaking of pre-game stories, we’ve got a bunch:

- ESPN SoccerNet, by our own Jeff Carlisle
- USA Today, by friend of the blog Beau Dure
- MLSnet.com, by the ubiquitous Carlisle
- the “just the facts, ma’am” preview from MLSnet.com.

Finally, we have a brief update on the Darren Huckerby watch. At the end of this story in the Toronto Globe & Mail, reporter Larry Millson notes the following:

…winger Darren Huckerby is still a possibility for TFC. There is a feeling that a deal could be close although he has yet to reveal his intentions. The feeling is it might be a family decision.

“There is a feeling”? Did Millson interview someone or conduct a seance? In any case, we hope that there is a feeling among Huckerby and his family that California is a much better place to live than Ontario.