Sign Fabrice (dot com)

By: Melissa | February 17th, 2008

I feel it may be a little premature to start making sweeping predictions for a team that’s only been practicing together for ten days. Coupled with the fact that the roster is still not complete, I think I’m just going to focus on who left the best impressions and, of course, how much fun I had last night.

And did I mention how hooptie it all was? And I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. Perhaps the positive spin for this is to use the word “intimate” to describe 4,000+ people braving the freezing cold to watch a sports team who doesn’t yet have uniforms with names on them. One of my favorite moments was when an extra bench got brought out to fit all the guys on the San Jose side. And there were a lot of guys on that bench and it was hard to keep track – especially when we were doing it by clutching a piece of paper listing player names and numbers.

I wasn’t really paying attention to things like where to sit and any other small details. Our group decided to sit close to the supporters’ section which to my pleasant surprise placed us directly behind the San Jose bench. So when the team walked out and sat down, my friend and I immediately assumed (and assumed correctly) if we yelled loud enough, the guys on the bench would hear us. After we yelled “Hey Earthquakes” a few times, we got waves from Ryan Cochrane and Ian Russell (awesome). And that pretty much set the tone of our evening. Whenever we were impressed by a player on the pitch and he got subbed out, we yelled his name until he turned around and waved back at us.

So who impressed? Number one for me was James Riley followed closely by Shea Salinas. I loved those two because they hustled their effin’ asses off and weren’t afraid to move forward (Riley) or back on defense (Salinas). In fact it was a nice combo for those two together on the right side. And there was much love and appreciation from our group for our boy Fabrice Noel who really tried to take our struggling offense to a new level. In fact, we quickly nicknamed him “saucy” and came up with the idea of creating the website: signfabrice.com as a hilarious and feeble attempt to convince Management to offer this guy a contract. Also, late in the second half, Adam Smarte came on (and I immediately informed everyone around me he went to Santa Cruz) and really performed. Both he and Salinas had some fantastic break aways that never converted into real offensive attacks - either because no-one else was in position or our their runs resulted in poor passes. But both Salinas and Smarte were fast as hell and we immediately nicknamed Smarte “crazy legs.” Here’s a great video from bigsoccer user spejic thats very “shape of things to come”; Garcia to Noel to Salinas who blazes past the Houston defense and almost makes a good pass across the box.

The real highlights of the game boiled down to Brian Ching getting ejected for yellow card accumulations (I think) and a small confrontation between Adam Smarte and Pat Onstad which maybe was the result of Smarte running full speed into and kind of bouncing off of Eddie Robinson’s ass. Also, Cannon saved us from losing the game with a nice save towards the end of the second half. Again, spejic captures it but unfortunately it’s from a distance where its hard to see the real action.

Afterwards, we went back to Kezar Pub to wind down and drink loads of water (my throat is still killing me). We wound up standing at the bar right next to the front door so when Jay Hernandez, Shea Salinas, and James Riley walked in, I magically happened to be in the perfect position to nudge Jay with my elbow and say hi. I shook everyone’s hands and told Riley he’s “f*cking awesome” (my exact words to him). Later on, I wandered to the back of the bar and had a slightly longer chat with Salinas. I told him he did a great job and that I hope he makes it on the team. He said he hopes so too and that I should put a good word in to Frank for him (HEY FRANK – ARE YOU READING THIS?!?!?!).

There’s probably more stuff but I’ve forgotten it right now. I completely spaced on taking any pictures with my new, piece of sh*t camera and despite heading over to San Francisco early, I never wound up helping the Ultras make their signs (I just drank their beer instead – sorry guys, I’ll make it up you somehow). And despite the hooptie aspect of the whole experience, I had a great time and couldn’t stop smiling the entire night.

One last thing before I head out and enjoy the rest of this sunshine. It seems we signed a new forward: Federico Arias. He comes to us from Argentina. Here’s the info from the Quakes website:

After the game, general manager John Doyle disclosed that the Quakes are close to signing Argentinean forward Federico Arias. The 28-year-old has played with Rosario Central and Velez Sarsfield in Argentina, and also endured a forgettable five-month stint in 2003 with then-English Premier League side Southampton in which he failed to make a first-team appearance. Arias is expected to sign once he successfully passes a physical.

Great news. As shaky as the team was tonight and on Wednesday, one can’t help but feel confident its all going to come together nicely sooner than we expect. And - no pressure or anything - but I hope that happens around about the time we play LA in April.