Work in progress

By: Melissa | April 14th, 2008

If you look closely at that picture, you can see I am holding a beer in one hand and a mimosa in the other. And yes, I drank both of them at the same time.

The idea to start the San Jose The Offside blog came about after last year’s LA Galaxy/Hollywood United charity match. Frank Yallop announced he was leaving to move up north and countless blog comments followed. As the weeks went by, more rumors surfaced, yet no-one around here arrived to write about them. I think I emailed Bob a sort of “if no-one else wants to” type email. Next thing I knew, I had a wordpress login.

So I started this blog to collect all the news and rumors and silly bits I could find, which at the time, wasn’t very much. Now, with the MLS season in full swing, there’s lots of news and quite a few news sources. And I must say, these news sources do a fantastic job, so really, there’s no need for me to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I fully expect you, the reader, to check these news sources first. Then afterwards, you should stop by here, hang out, and leave a comment or two… preferably an amusing quip of some sort… a writ of wit if you will.

So what I’m getting at here is this: I feel this blog is in a bit of a transition phase so bear with me while I figure out my new plan.

In the meantime, if you aren’t already doing this, start getting into the habit of checking these sites for all your essential Earthquakes news:

Center Line Soccer – i.e. the motherlode. Jay Hipps does a regular “Quakes news articles wrap-up” on his blog while Jeff Carslile often reports breaking news on his. There’s also enough pictures and video to keep the rest of us content for days (my only gripe is, I can’t embed the video!). Oh, and former Quakes goalkeeper coach Tim Hainley does the game previews.

Soccer Spin – Often takes breaking news and presents it with that little bit extra to help put things in perspective. So new player announcements come with youtube clips and historical info. They’ve even started regular player ratings and weekly MLS power rankings. Also, every once in a while, player and coach interviews appear. I’d day this site is a work in progress as well, but hopefully it will collect an avid reader-base when it finally hits its stride.

The Bay Soccer – Their Earthquakes section is the de-facto spot to get excellent and thorough match reports. They also have great pre-season and in-season player stats charts. Their main page also plans to cover college, high school, and amateur leagues throughout the entire Bay Area.

The Quakes Section at Bigsoccer – Its like a bad boyfriend you just can’t seem to get rid of. You just keep hoping he’ll straighten himself out…

Well, I think thats it for now. Sit tight kids. I’ll be back shortly with my new plan of attack.