The Earthquakes and Columbus Crew combined for 25 corner kicks Saturday night at Buck Shaw Stadium, setting a club record for combined corner kicks in a regular season game. The previous Quakes record for combined corner kicks was 21, set on Aug. 5, 1998 in a match against the New England Revolution. Columbus also set an opponent’s record for corner kicks in a game and a half against San Jose. The Crew had 18 corner kicks with 11 of them coming in the second half.

Congratulations us! I think we should next focus on breaking the record for longest allowed stoppage time or perhaps the most throw-ins?

Anyways, here are some quick links of note:

* Jay Hipps reported on his blog a few days ago, “there are already discussions underway between supporters of the [Quakes and Seattle] for a special cup competition between the two sides every year.” Now, I’ve mentioned this before on this blog but I think it’s worth repeating, if Drew Carey really puts together his marching band, then I think the Quakes need to retaliate by hiring Oakland’s own, Extra Action Marching Band, to blow Seattle out of the, err, stadium. And I also think it’s worthwhile to add here that I realized a few months ago I am in no way the demographic the Quakes are marketing to. So I know my brilliant ideas will never ever see the light of day but I’m still going to suggest them whenever I can.

* Jeff Carslisle reports the Quakes will be trialling “a parade of players until the transfer window reopens in July.” Already come and gone are two Brazilians, Morelia duo Marcinho and Wanderson. Both recently played in Mexico’s second division.

* The San Jose City Council meeting to vote on the proposed sale of the old FMC site has been postponed to May 20th.

* If you are stuck in San Fransisco on May 21, there will be people at The Chieftan – 198 Fifth Street (5th & Howard) starting @ 11:30am to watch the Champions League final.

* The EPL is over, the Euros start soonish, the Champions League final is next week, the Quakes are away… what is left for this weekend? USL-2 bitches! The SF Seals home opener is Saturday night starting at 7pm at The University of San Francisco. Your Saturday is already set – watch the Quakes game then stumble up to USF for the soccer and some music. See everyone there!

Getting back to San Jose, our Quakes have a little contest going on right now. Submit an essay to soccerintern@sjearthquakes.com and explain why YOU are the biggest Quakes fan in the whole wide world. The winner gets to participate in Saturday’s coin toss. On a personal note, if I wasn’t completely burning the candle at both ends with all the projects I’ve got going on right now, I’d think up a completely ridonkulous story to submit just for laughs. Anyone else want to give it a shot?

It looks like I’m out for the rest of the day. I’m still waiting impatiently for the official “weekly update” to see who may be injured for Saturday. In the meantime, congrats go out to the Quakes who smoked Stanford University last night 3-2. No idea who scored the goals but as I understand it, the squad was made up of mostly reserves. And here are some upcoming dates to remember:

* May 13. The San Jose City Council will vote on Wolff’s plan to purchase the old FMC property. Soccer Silicon Valley is asking fans to attend the meeting to show their support.

* Memorial Day Weekend (May 24-25). Carnival Soccerfest takes place in San Francisco’s Mission District (mmmmmmm, El Farlito). It’s an interactive event to help promote soccer and athleticism for kids. There will be a free soccer clinic and a bunch of guys from our National Beach Soccer team will be in attendance.

The big news of the day is part “I don’t know what” of the “I don’t know how many parts” deal to secure a stadium in San Jose just got a little bit closer to completion. The Merc reports the city and the Quakes ownership group accepted a $132 million agreement to purchase the land left behind by defense contractors FMC. Lew Wolff and Co. want to use that land to add retail stores, hotels, and (ding! ding! ding!) a soccer specific stadium for the Earthquakes. The city council still needs to approve the terms next month and I fully expect to hear a call to arms from supporters groups to attend that council meeting. So stay tuned South Bay-ers. Your services will be required soon enough.

While this is great news for Earthquakes fans, what is still up in the air is Wolff’s plan to rezone an area he owns, called Edenvale, from commercial to residential. The rezoning will allow him to build and sell new homes, with the profits paying for the construction of the stadium. According to the article, Wolff has received no guarantees the city will approve the rezoning and the decision won’t be made for at least another year. So yeah, yay on getting the FMC land but this in no way means the stadium is in the bag.

And one last thing before I go completely mental, track down my missing Accountant, and f*cking beat her with a stick (I keed people, I keed), Soccer Spin has a nice encompassing post on our new rumored playmaker-signing: Antonio Naelson Matias. But I’m refusing to allow myself to get worked up over it since I understand the transfer window closes today and I haven’t’ heard much on the topic since the announcement was made during Saturday’s game.

Hmmmm, what do you guys think about me adding a regular “Good Gnews with Gary Gnu” weekly news wrap-up post?

* According to the economic impact summary for the proposed SSS (and my fandom certainly DOES NOT extend to reading that thing) the new stadium will include a concert stage. Personally, I don’t have an opinion about this one way or the other. The stage design might not be as bad as some pundits are predicting. And a few outdoor concerts could wind up being a great revenue stream for the Quakes.

* The reserves schedule was released. Great news. Can’t wait until we have a reserves squad.

* The Mind of Scads wrote a little feature on the 1906/Ultras supporters group. You need to scroll down a bit on that link to read it.

* I’ve got zero information on who made it on the plane to South Carolina. And to the trialists who did not, a guy named Richard Lee is offering classes here in Oakland to train people how to work in the medical marijuana industry. Don’t laugh. Its actually a thriving niche business here in this State.

And I think that wraps it up for today. I’d personally like to give a little shout out to two friends who got a write-up in a local magazine I’ve never heard of for their monthly DJ nights. I also implore everyone to click here to check out an amazing collection of graffiti art from all over the world. Lastly, congrats to our womens Nats for p0wning at the Algarve Cup.

Here’s today’s song. I’m a huge John Legend fan and I’m a huge fan of the Colbert Report so this video has been on constant repeat on my laptop all week. The last time John Legend had a concert here, I wrapped up an insane 12 hour work project then hiked my tired ass up to the hill behind Berkeley’s Greek Theater to listen to the man sing live. It was totally worth it.

* On May 6th, the Quakes will play Stanford University.

* The Bay Soccer’s Earthquakes page is worth bookmarking. They’ve been posting excellent match reports for every pre-season friendly (check out their write-up on Friday’s Berkeley scrimmage) and they’ve got a great player pre-season stats chart. Pretty amazing stuff.

* Last night, the San Jose City Council approved the cost/benefit analysis of the potential new Quakes’ SSS. The report says the stadium will pump $62.3 million a year into San Jose. Wolff and his partners want retail land rezoned to allow housing construction. The profit from the new homes will pay for the SSS. More details on the report are here. And SSV has a little breakdown on the numbers. They also say the next step is an additional study on the site earmarked for the stadium. My guess is its an environmental study to determine the details on cleaning up the damage left by FMC.

* The team leaves for South Carolina on Thursday (or maybe today… not sure).

And… thats today’s news. Thats it. The end. No more news. Ok.

 


 


 


 


 


 

Aw sh*t, I can’t resist. Last week, a friend of mine left her work in Hayward just in time to catch a huge truck topple over from the weight of a ginormous crane on top of it. She managed to take a few photos. Enjoy!

So the draft is kind of meh. What I am interested in, is figuring out just who Our Gang may try to trade the draft picks for. I spent some time last night pondering this (I really should’ve taken my friend’s offer to go out drinking with her instead) and I’m going to throw some names out. The deal is, Yallop specifically wants MLS veterans and proven strikers. While he could certainly try to get an Altidore or a Galindo, I’m pretty sure there’s no way their clubs would give guys of that caliber up. Instead, some other names popped up of guys who may not be their club’s stars, but who had good season(s) and racked up a few goals in the process. And I certainly don’t have the benefit of the statistical research at Match Analysis to help me make my decisions here so I’m emphasizing the speculation part:

* Nate Jaqua – I haven’t given up on my wish he’ll come play for us and he obviously proved his abilities when he moved over to Houston. Also, TheFrank really likes this guy (anyone remember that interview after Jaqua missed a bunch of goals for LA and Frank said all he needs to do is quit being so nervous? – brilliant).

* Robbie Findley – Can you tell I didn’t think Frank had anything to do with the Galaxy’s “Great 2007 Player Purge?” Again, the guy left LA, went on a huge tear at Salt Lake, and then got himself a call up to the Nats squad. Pretty impressive.

* Chris Rolfe – I’m just throwing the name out. I doubt Chicago will let him go. I do think he’d be good for San Jose though.

* Alejandro Moreno – Despite being bumped around a bit, he’s been a pretty consistent goal scorer for whichever club he landed at. Also, the guy may just want to come back to California.

* Arturo Alvarez – Another former San Jose player. I think he spent more time on the bench when he played for us. But now that he’s got experience and a U-23 call up, we may try to get him back (yeah yeah, the guy’s a midfielder but we need those too).

Anyone else I missed? Or am I completely off-base here? Thoughts? Oh and I intentionally left off the list any former San Jose strikers currently at Houston. But I will say that my tingly SpideySense does go off whenever the name Brian Ching comes up. And dwsharks just posted a comment that with the Ruiz move to LA, whether Landon Donovan might be interested in moving up north. Hmmm… I have to admit I’m warming up to the idea. More on this later (if I remember).

Moving on… there have been a few new articles about the club. Sports Illustrated has a story on the ownership group that describes the events leading to Lew Wolff’s interest in purchasing the team. It also goes into a little bit more detail on just how the owners plan to fund the construction of our SSS. Interestingly enough, pending the city council’s approval to rezone land owned by Wolff from commercial to residential status, Wolff intends to build and sell new homes, with the profits funneled into a non-profit organization to avoid the capital gains tax. Those profits will then be used to build the stadium. Wow. I don’t know if I should applaud the plan or complain about this obvious massive tax loophole of dubious morals.

Embele Awipi, in his regular column for the Salinas Californian, interviews Yallop and confirms that he really does not have a “master plan to secretly raid the Galaxy’s closet one-by-one ahead of the game on April 3.” Instead Yallop says:

The game’s important to us to have a good start to the season. We’re aiming for the playoffs. Every team is and we’re no different. It’s hard for us but not impossible. You have to make sure you don’t be defeated before you start.

I think a little bit of that Yallop positivity will go a long way for us this season.

In other news, former Quake Jimmy Conrad has a new blog that he promises to update regularly. The introductory post is up and is excellent as always. He also says he plans to answer any questions in the comments and already there are some great ones so I’m looking forward to finding out how I can finally become a member of his posse and whether he told Landon Donovan that Donovan can only be “cool” if he also has a blog. (Thanks to Alex_M commenting on the KC Wizards offside blog for this info.)

Aaaand one last thing, this year marks the 50 anniversary of The Smurfs! The cartoon was created in 1958 by a Belgium dude who I’m guessing had no idea the name would eventually get co-opted by Quakes fans. Well, it seems fitting this year that we welcome back our team and celebrate the birth of The Smurfs at the same time.

Right… moving on. Anyone who is following the 2008 schedule, knows the Quakes are still trying to sort out that first game for the first week of the season. The New York opener fell through because The Shaw won’t be ready in time and The A’s have dibs on The Oakland Coliseum. There is the possibility the Quakes will sit out the first week (making the *gulp* Galaxy match at the HDC their first game of the season) but I hope they come to terms on an away game against New York at the Meadowlands for March 29th. Also, Lew Wolff recently made the rounds to talk to the press about stadium progress. He says The Shaw will be the official stadium for the next three seasons because the fancypants SSS won’t be ready until 2011. He also says he is open to the possibility of partnering with the 49ers to use their future Santa Clara stadium for the more popular soccer games. So after 2010 its buh bye Oaktown. Oh well, I’m certainly going to appreciate the current situation while it lasts.

Alright, I’ve got my former boss on IM trying to figure out how to set up an ssh tunnel so I need to go help him. But before I take off, I want to update you all on the Scoobies and what they’re up to. In an interview in the Merc, Lew let us all know their travel plans in the coming weeks to check out foreign players. Doyle is off to England, Yallop to Mexico, and Russell to Costa Rica. I’d love to come up with a cool Justice League analogy here or something similar but I’m multitasking so its not going to happen. Either way, its time to remind Our Gang to save those receipts in order to get reimbursed on their return. Oh pragmatism, you are one hell of a party pooper.

(And congrats to the Bay Area college students invited to the MLS Combine! I’d like to add that my former school is not represented on that list but, well, we weren’t really known for sports so I’m not surprised.)

Me: So what is the deal with the A’s leaving Oakland?

JC Money: The A’s have been actively pursuing a move to a baseball only facility for just under a decade as a means of generating renewed interest in corporate sponsorship and ticket sales to boost the organizations revenue. Since the debacle that was the Raiders return to Oakland, and the stadium renovation that followed, the rift between the city government and the A’s succession of owners has grown. The city and it’s residents are wary of pouring scare public funding into a sports franchise, especially since they are still paying for the renovation that lured the Raiders back to town.

Me: That’s weird, cause the Quakes deal has Wolff paying for the entire stadium out of his own funds.

JC Money: Well the Quakes have three things going for them: it’s going to be a smaller and cheaper facility to build, there is already land available, and the finances of baseball are a little different. The bigger problem with baseball as a business these days is that ticket sales aren’t generating enough revenue to run a team, despite attendance being as high as it has been since the strike-shortened season in 1996. The teams that are making money are making the real money off of corporate sponsorships and suite sales, as well as TV and radio deals

Me: Is there no land available in Oakland?

JC Money: That’s complicated. There were a few places available. and to make part of the answer short the team and the city couldn’t get together to talk about a reasonable plan before Wolff and the ownership group bought the team. Partly because Mayor (at the time) Jerry Brown had no interest in the team and possibly because the previous owners wanted to sell the team and move on.

Me: Makes sense. So how does Wolff fit into all this?

JC Money: While Brown was Mayor he began development projects downtown and along the waterfront that would have been prime locations for a ball park. Wolff bought the team with the idea of building a village around the ball park that would provide housing and commercial space, using the revenue from the village to pay for the stadium and the stadium itself to draw people to the neighborhood.

Me: Oh he’s really into that. He’s planning on doing that with the Quakes.

JC Money: It’s actually a pretty brilliant plan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes the standard way of funding stadiums soon.

Me: So how did it all backfire into this mess we’ve got now?

JC Money: Well there isn’t anywhere in Oakland to build that kinda village (LARGE ASTERISK here). The places getting serious consideration were the Army Base (a little far from public transit, and difficult to get anything approved there, plus toxic waste clean up), downtown/Uptown/Fox Theater area (Mayor brown lures developers to build condos, and retrofit the fox theater and turn it into a charter school), the Colisseum parking lot (no upgrade in local, the A’s aren’t interested, the Raiders and Warriors would be pissed), and the current location of the Oak to 9th project (this is where the asterisk plays out: the land has been promised to contractors but the project may never actually break ground).

Me: So none of these are a go? Wolff just up and decided to get out of town?

JC Money: Yes. They have for years been considering other places in Alameda and Contra Costa County (the other 7 bay area counties are legally the Giants Territory) and a year and a half ago Wolff announced a deal with Cisco systems to purchase the Pacific Commons site basically in exchange for the naming rights to a new A’s stadium to be built there. That site was going to be the site of a Cisco expansion that never happened.

Me: I hate it when corporations name stadiums. Where is that site?

JC Money: Fremont.

Me: Oh right the Fremont thing… but that died, yes?

JC Money: No it hasn’t. they filed paperwork with the city of Fremont a couple days ago.

Me: So you think it may be a go? what’s your reaction to that?

JC Money: I think it won’t happen. At this point I’d put money on the A’s having to extend their lease at the Coliseum (which I think is up in 2011). I was angry to hear that Oakland is not on the table if Fremont doesn’t work out though. I’m hoping that Fremont falls through and Oak to 9th Falls through so the city and team eat crow and start real talks. But Oak to 9th needs some serious money put into waste removal, and the current contractors agreed to pay for the cleanup. so it would be kinda sad if that doesn’t happen.

Me: Thats weird, ’cause the site for the soccer stadium also has damage that needs cleaning up. Are you personally mad at Wolff for attempting to take the As out of Oakland?

JC Money: Yes and No. I’m seriously considering boycotting the team beginning as soon as this season (as a result of the comment about Oakland being off the table). If they break ground in Fremont I will stop going to games.

Me: So, with Wolff’s attitude and frustrations with the city of Oakland, is that going to sway any interest in attending Quakes games? Or do you just generally have a disinterest in soccer?

JC Money: Generally disinterested in soccer. Its not worth the drive to SJ and the cost of tickets to me.

Me: Yeah, that’s the opinion I’m hearing the most.

JC Money: Especially since many don’t consider MLS the best product one can put out there.

Me: Yup, its not. But its what we have here so I’m not ready to totally knock it.

So there you have it. Not exactly Earthquakes news but informative nonetheless. I was actually polling a few A’s fans today to find out if the Wolff connection to the Quakes might sway their interest in attending MLS games (the answer was an unanimous no). As a long-time Oakland resident, I know I’ll be crushed if the A’s leave (Wolff giveth back to SJ yet taketh away from Oakland?). But I’m not really a baseball fan so I don’t think I can properly express the grief many many fans will experience. I’ll let Ben and Nate do that for me: