Quakes/Gals Preview

By: Sean | June 13th, 2008

To start, lets take a sneak peek inside Gals practice this week (click to enlarge)…

Say… who’s that portly older gentleman on the left?

Yes, Clint Mathis, Conyers, Georgia’s finest, is in camp with the Gals. Since 2004, he has played 103 games, and scored 17 goals. Call me crazy, somehow I doubt they are going to find lightning in a bottle with him.

Speaking of probably washed-up players, Steve Marlet is in town trialling with the team this week. He got a pretty heavy look from Chicago in pre-season, but it never panned out there. Now 34, it will be interesting to see if he can bring anything to the table. I’m 100x times happier to see him in our camp than Mathis though.

OK. Tomorrow’s the big day. I think I read somewhere that 37,000 is the capacity for soccer, and it sounds like we are going to get pretty close to that, with almost 30k sold already. The atmosphere should be lively, though perhaps in some part for all the wrong reasons (I’ll save that rant for another post).

Expect more of the same in terms of the Quakes’ lineup, with the only change being someone replacing Red-Card Riley at right back. I fear that person will be Kelly Gray, which is unfortunate, because he was rock solid at the holding midfield spot last week. That will most likely put Joe Vide in the middle of the park with Grabavoy, and Corrales man-marking Beckman out on the left. To be fair, this could be the best thing to happen to us, as this forces Ramiro to stay back and not attack as much (I hope). In a perfect world, RJ and Cunliffe would get the nod up top again, but it would not surprise me to see Kirovski get the nod with “Cool Running” Johnson.

The Gals are without Alan Gordon (suspended), Pescadito (Guatemala), and Mr. Bianca Kajlich (USA). That leaves the goal-scoring duties to Edson Buddle, who can be dangerous, or can be completely invisible. All-in-all, nothing that should worry The Best Defense In The West too much.

As always, my preview is more or less worthless as long as Tim Hanley is around. Make sure to check out his (as always) excellent preview over at CenterLineSoccer.

If you are interested in catching a double header tomorrow, the San Francisco Seals are playing the San Fernando Valley Quakes at Negoesco Stadium on campus at USF. If you bring your ticket to the Quakes match, you can get in for $4! Pretty cool promotion. Unfortunately, I won’t be there, as I’ll be watching the homeland España take down Sweden, and then heading to the Ultras tailgate at 3:30.

Prediction: I’m feeling particularly zesty today, perhaps due to the fact that the sun decided to finally pay a visit to the Pacific Northwest. 1-0 to the good guys. Another goal from Cool Running.

Go Quakes. LA sucks. Etc.