The Earthquakes face the New York Red Bulls tonight at 8:00 at the recently re-sodded Buck Shaw Stadium. San Jose is having a run of good form right now, as Center Line Soccer's Jeff Carlisle writes for MLSnet.com. New York, on the other hand, haven't won on the road since May 10, 2008, an ongoing streak of 23 games. Big Apple Soccer notes that tonight's visitors are currently on pace to post one of the worst dozen or so records in MLS history. Quakes fans should not feel overconfident, though — one of New York's four wins this season came at the expense of San Jose, in a 4-1 rout on May 8.
For your pre-game listening, check out the latest Center Line Soccer podcast, with interviews from San Jose's Frank Yallop, Andrew Weber, Chris Leitch, and Ryan Johnson, as well as an interview with Jack Bell of the New York Times. Elliott Almond of the Mercury News also talks with Johnson.
The "just the facts, ma'am" preview, with head-to-head comparisons, the injury list, and so forth, is here.
In other news:
- Ramón Sánchez and Arturo Alvarez have been called up for El Salvador's World Cup qualifying matches next week against Mexico and Honduras. While that country's chances of a South Africa berth are slim, Simon Elliott's New Zealand side faces a home-and-home playoff with Bahrain to determine which of those two countries will get a trip to the finals. Center Line Soccer's Jeff Carlisle, writing for MLSnet.com, talks with Elliott about the All-White's October 10 match in Bahrain.
- FC Gold Pride have re-signed Brandi Chastain, Nicole Barnhart, Tina DiMartino, Eriko Arakawa, Alison Whitworth, and Kim Yokers, and bid adieu to Adriane.
- Ismael Ibarra, who scored twice as a guest player in San Jose's recent exhibition against El Sueño de tu Vida Bay Area All Stars, is training with the Earthquakes regularly now, reports the Salinas Californian.
- In USA Today, Beau Dure takes a look at former Earthquake Landon Donovan, who appears to be engaging in a public feud with another former San Jose star, Eric Wynalda:
Hall of Famer Eric Wynalda recently said on the TV show Fox Football Fone-In, referring to Donovan's performance in the qualifier in Mexico, that Donovan tends to play well when the games are easy.
"I guess if Spain in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup is easy and Brazil in the final of the Confederations Cup is easy, and all the goals he scored in MLS — if that's easy, then a lot of those critics are right," (Donovan's Galaxy teammate Chris) Klein says. "A guy of his caliber is always going to have his critics. For someone to criticize him for his play this year is a little bit mind-boggling."
Donovan was more direct, though soft-spoken, in responding to Wynalda, whose national team scoring record Donovan broke. Donovan has 41 goals.
"I think everybody in the soccer world knows the jealousy issues that Eric carries," Donovan says. "I don't think two seconds about what Eric has to say."