In Yallop we trust

By: Melissa | January 15th, 2008

San Jose has the first and fifteenth pick for this Friday’s SuperDraft and TheFrank has made it very clear he will likely trade his picks for MLS veterans. Needless to say, I’m not getting overly excited about this event. A few journalists attended the recent MLS Combine and posted their own favorites. Most notably, Ives has a his own mock draft thats worth a quick perusal.

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.