The Start of Something Big?

Dar­ren Huckerby from MLSNET.com

Today’s last minute vic­tory over the hated Galaxy in Oak­land could be just the push the Earth­quakes needed to make a play­off run late in the MLS sea­son. The Quakes who have played solidly much of the sea­son but lacked a scor­ing punch have now made the type of moves in the inter­na­tional and domes­tic trans­fer mar­ket that solid­ify the club as poten­tially very dan­ger­ous in MLS. But why is an expan­sion team so eager to win now?

Let’s review how we got here:

• San Jose has a weak Expan­sion Draft, pass­ing on Dominic Oduro and Fran­cis Doe in favor of Clarence Good­son and Joe Vide among others.
• The Quakes then trade the first over­all pick in this years draft to obtain Nick Gar­cia, a good short term move but clearly a move with one or two sea­sons in mind. The same for the acqui­si­tions of Joe Can­non and Ron­nie O’Brien.
• Ramiro Cor­rales returns from Europe and signs to play with the Earth­quakes. The pres­ence of Cor­rales and O’Brien in the same mid­field gives the Quakes despite being typ­i­cally expan­sion team like at other spot on the pitch two very tech­ni­cal mid­field players.
• Peugero Jean Phillipe comes back to MLS on loan from Bronby and is assigned to San Jose. What would have been a solid pickup blows up in the Quakes face when after a few games he gets injured for the season.
• The Quakes sign two of the best for­eign play­ers this sea­son to come from Europe to the MLS: Dar­ren Huckerby and Fran­cisco Lima. Both have lots of top flight Euro­pean expe­ri­ence. San Jose then trades two inter­na­tion­als, Kei Kamara, and Ivan Guer­rero, both solid play­ers but also play­ers still part of their national team setup and who will suf­fer from MLS’ pol­icy of play­ing through inter­na­tional breaks.
• San Jose trades for the volatile Arturo Alvarez who played for the for­mer incar­na­tion of the Quakes for three years. Alvarez today scored a goal on his return to the Bay Area.

So with Dar­ren Huckerby, Arturo Alvarez, Fran­cisco Lima, Ramiro Cor­rales and Ron­nie O’Brien it would be dif­fi­cult to find a more tech­ni­cal and tal­ented mid­field which is also loaded with expe­ri­ence in MLS than the Quakes. Con­sid­er­ing how solid Joe Can­non and Nick Gar­cia have been all year and the re-emergence of Eric Den­ton as a solid left sided defender, the Quakes are a deadly fin­isher away from hav­ing as strong of a start­ing eleven as any­one in the league out­side of Hous­ton, New Eng­land and pos­si­bly Real Salt Lake.

Has my sea­son long opti­mism about the Quakes been mis­placed? All year long as I’ve artic­u­lated on the Amer­i­can Soc­cer Show and on this blog, I’ve seen what Frank Yal­lop and John Doyle were build­ing and have given them the ben­e­fit of the doubt about the long term goals. Now it appears all the wheel­ing and deal­ing has left the Quakes with one of the bet­ter teams on paper in the league. I’m anx­ious to hear from our read­ers what they think of the Quakes going forward.