Rapids - San Jose

The easiest way to sum up the Rapids trip to San Jose last Saturday is as follows :
a) The Colorado Rapids were pathetic
b) The San Jose Earthquakes were pathetic.
c) The league should subtract a point from each team

This was a game the Rapids were easily capable of winning. They not only did not win it but failed to at least show that they wanted to win it. They travel to FC Dallas next weekend. The Super Skirts have only managed to win twice in their last 12 league games. Again, another game the Rapids can win. Will they even try this time?

Rapids - San Jose : The Aftermath

What a terrible game by the Rapids last night. It was a painful example of the cliche about a team not showing up to play. They didn't last night and instead of getting 3 realitvely easy points at home, they gave San Jose their first franchise win. Nick at We Want Rapids Man was right about confusion in the Rapids back line. Keel and Erpen struggled to get things right quite a few times. It cost the Rapids their first goal. And it could've been another one or two in the first half if not for Bouna. The real stinker last night for defense was Jose Burciaga. Jose's off night was compounded at half-time when Clavijo opted for a a 3-5-2. When the Rapids traded for the Burciaga we all knew there would be times when he was a defensive liability. Seeing him with 3 in the was horrifying. He was being constantly beat. With 3 in the back he wasn't able to get some extra cover other than Colin Clark coming back. That in turn made it difficult for Colin to get forward. Which brings me to Clavijo. Rumor had it going into the game he was going to tinker with tactics and the lineup. After the New England game we could see why. The team did nothing offensively in the 2nd half other than LaBrocca's goal (off a nice cross from Burciage? Or was it Clark?). In their first 3 games they didn't make much use of Christian Gomez. The tinkering though didn't appear to result in an improvement. The Rapids were still playing too many long balls out of the back, Gomez was still not getting the ball and seeing Burciaga in a 3-5-2 left me wondering if Clavijo's actually paid attention to Burciaga's previous 7 years in the MLS. Is Clavijo actually capable of coaching well in the MLS? His history says no. Last night has many of us wondering why we should have hope that this year is going to be any different than the last 3 with Clavijo in charge. Is this making too much from one off night from the team?

Welcome Back, John Cunliffe

Durango, Colorado's Ft. Lewis College has one alum playing in Major League Soccer, John Cunliffe. Cunliffe will be making his return to Colorado tonight with expansion team San Jose Earthquakes. He played his first season in the MLS with Chivas USA, scoring thrice in 17 appearances. At the end of this past March, right before the MLS season began, he was traded to San Jose with Chris Pozniak heading the other way.

John Cunliffe

Regular Season Stats

YEAR	TEAM	GP	GS	MIN	G	A	SHT	SOG	FC	FS	C	EJ
2008	San Jose	2	0	26	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
2007	Chivas USA	15	5	494	3	1	16	8	8	5	0	0
Career		17	5	520	3	1	16	8	9	5	0	0

Playoff Stats

YEAR	TEAM	GP	GS	MIN	G	A	SHT	SOG	FC	FS	C	EJ
2007	Chivas USA	2	0	49	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	0
Career		2	0	49	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	0

Rapids News & Upcoming San Jose Match

The San Jose Earthquakes are coming to Dicks Sporting Goods Park (aka The Dick) for the first time in franchise history. Yes, I know that's going to get some Bay Area fans worked up to phrase it that way but it's true. Other than taking the old name, this is a brand new team. If you're looking for their stats on the MLS' web site, you won't find them in the team-by-team drop down on the stats page. Apparently such a minor addition to the user interface has been too much work to bother with for the MLS. Fortunately the way their web site is configured you can trick it into giving what you want in some cases. In this case the key is recognizing that you just need the right URL variable of club=t100 for San Jose. The link ends up looking something like this : http://web.mlsnet.com/t120/stats/index.jsp?club=t110&year=2008

I don't expect much from San Jose's offense. They're an expansion team and in their first 2 games have looked to be on the same path set by recent expansion teams like Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake. Last year Toronto FC managed only 25 goals in 30 goals. Real Salt Lake managed 30 goals in 32 games in their first season. Kei Kamara and Gavin Glinton aren't exactly names that get MLS defenses worried. Even with the recent loan addition of ex-Rapid Jean-Philippe Peguero it's unlikely San Jose's offense will provide the Rapids defense many problems. That's why I chuckled a bit when Nick over at We Want Rapidman wrote "They may be new, they may be winless but those strikers are dangerous." Maybe it was meant to be tongue in cheek?

Bouna Time! If you didn't catch it, Brian Forbes has a nice interview with Rapids goalkeeper Bouna Coundoul for the Rocky Mountain News. You can check out the interview here. Seeing the questions about Bouna's dancing makes me with Bouna would do a little dance for us every time he gets a clean sheet (a shutout). What do you say Bouna? A jig for keeping the ball out of the net? Anything less than that against San Jose Saturday will be a bit of a disappointment in my book.

Rapids Get Burciagia

The Kansas City Wizards are looking to further rebuild their team beyond today's trade of Nick Garcia to expansion San Jose Earthquakes for their 1st pick (1st overall in the draft). That gives KC the 1st pick overall and the 11th overall picks in the draft. The conventional thinking is that KC is positioning themselves to take promising striker Patrick Nyarko with their new pick. Why would they do that? Eddie Johnson looks set to move to Europe during the winter window with Fulham being strongly linked with him today.

Did you catch that Garcia's not the only defender KC is looking to trade? That's right, KC is looking to also trade Jose Burciaga Jr. This time to the Colorado Rapids. No word on what the Rapids will give up in return. It's not official but every now and then the little birdy comes through for me on a rumor that's about to be true. Like last year when some folks were shocked that then New York Red Bulls coach Bruce Arena was willing to trade for Clint Mathis {post here]. This trade wouldn't be as shocking but it would be more interesting in that KC would then be unloading 2 starting defenders. If the rumor holds true, we should see the announcement Wednesday or Thursday.

If the Rapids are trading for Burciaga, I can see some folks being confused. They'll be pointing out that the Rapids had the 3rd best defense in the league last year. 2 things on that :

1. In my opinion, the Rapids GA numbers for 2007 were better than they looked defensively
2. Burciaga stands to help the Rapids offensively.

In 2007 the Rapids average offense became anemic. Burciaga in the past has shown he can get forward and score (8 goals in 2006). But when we're talking about the decisions that Fernado Clavijo makes, well, there very well may be no rationale behind them. Afterall it wasn't much more than a year ago that Ferndando was saying he finally had the team he wanted and yet managed to play musical chairs with the 2007 roster.

Another interesting development is that the rumored is that beyond Burciaga the Colorado Rapids are on the verge of signing a young American defender from abroad? Who might that be? We don't know. The little birdy did rule out Ramiro Corrales. That doesn't surprise me as I feel the MLS's standard of play has passed up Corrales since his days in the league. It does add to emphasizing the young part of the rumor. I would assume it's not Tighe Dombrowski as he wasn't good enough to get much of a sniff at play in the MLS in the first place. DeMerit? It would be a wet dream for Rapids fans but he's not young and recently was made captain for Watford who are in the midst of battling for an automatic promotion spot to return to England's Premiership. Corey Gibbs? Again, not young even by MLS standards. Plus how would the Rapids afford him?

So who could it be? Ian Joy has been linked with a move to the MLS. It's been in the form of a move to Real Salt Lake. But there is nothing concrete yet. Could the Rapids be about to beat their rivals to the punch?

If it's not Ian Joy then it's pretty much Russian roulette in guessing who it may be. Maybe it's Charles Kazlauskas who has actually been spending time as a striker with Topp Oss in Holland. We all know the Rapids could use some offensive help. It's probably not Steve Purdy. Los Angeles still holds his rights after drafting him in 2007. And he's recently signed a pro contract with 1860 Munich. Zac Whitbread? No, he just signed a new 2 1/2 year deal with Milwall. Frank Simek? There was no indication of a move in his interview today or anywhere else. It doesn't seem likely with him only being 23, over 100 appearances for Wednesday and plenty of time to play in the Premiership.

Beyond that, who knows who it could be. Maybe Aston Villa and their American owner are willing to loan out young Eric Lichaj. Maybe it's Chase Hilgenbrinck returning from South America? Or could it actually be someone no so young like Danny Califf? Or maybe someone who, IIRC, is available on a free like Josh Grenier? We'll have to wait and see. For now my money would be on Ian Joy.

Furthermore, it makes one wonder if a Rapids defender like Prideaux (note: If it is the chicken hawk it would be a return to KC after stints with DC United and the Colorado Rapids) or Mike Petke will be headed to KC to replace the newly traded Garcia. We don't know what the Rapids are willing to give up for Burciaga. We do know that the Kansas City Wizards having a defensive hole to fill now that Nick Garcia has left for San Jose.

And if you didn't already here, Carlos Ruiz has returned to Los Angeles. How much did LA give up for what they were badly missing in 2007, a natural goal scorer? They gave up allocation money and a 2nd round pick. How much allocation money did they give up? We don't know. One would have to think the amount would depend on how badly FC Dallas was looking to get rid of El Pescadito.

More on the Garcia trade :
The Offside Rules
Kansas City Star
Steven Goff

More on Eddie Johnson to Fulham
The Offside Rules
Caught Offside

More on the Ruiz trade :
FC Dallas' official blog
Steven Goff
Offical Press Release from FC Dallas
Official press release from LA

Expansion Draft Guesses & List

Today Major League Soccer is holding it's expansion draft for the new San Jose Earthquakes. The new eQuakes will have 10 rounds to choose a player from the 13 existing teams. They can only choose one from each team. 3 teams will get through the expansion draft without loosing any players. A list of the players they've left exposed is below.

The question is, who will they pick? It's hard to say who Frank Yallop will go for. Is he being pressured to get results the first year? Or is the team looking at other recent expansion teams, going for 7 - 8 wins, and looking to make sure a good team is in place for a making the play-offs in their second year?

Just for fun, I bolded and highlighted some players I'd pick today if I were Yallop.

Note : The new San Jose Earthquakes is not to be confused with the old San Jose Earthquakes. The old San Jose Earthquakes moved to Houston after the 2005 season and became the Houston Dynamo.
[Below list from MLS's web site]

Chivas USA Arvizu, David Brooks, Desmond Burling, Bobby Burpo, Preston Cunliffe, John Flores, Jorge Guevara, Amado Hamilton, Anthony Llamosa, Carlos Lopez, Rodrigo Hernandez, Jason Merlin, Laurent Myers, Justin Nunez, Ramon Perez, Orlando Robles, Eder Solorzano, Erasmo Zotinca, Alex

Chicago Fire Busch, Jon Banner, Michael Curtin, Jeff Curtin, Jim Franks, Floyd Guerrero, Ivan Gutierrez, Diego Marques, Bruno Noble, Nick Plotkin, Brian Russolillo, Jordan Telesford, Osei Thorrington, John Woolard, Daniel

Colorado Rapids Cancela, Jose Casey, Conor DiRaimondo, John Gargan, Dan Harvey, Jordan Hernandez, Nicolas Hughes, Justin Keel, Stephen Kirovski, Jovan LaBrocca, Nick Petke, Mike Prideaux, Brandon Sanneh, Tony Thornton, Zach Wilmes, Clifton

Columbus Crew Garey, Jason Gaudette, Bill Grabavoy, Ned Griffin, Leonard Gruenebaum, Andy Herron, Andy Hunter, Ben Junge, Ryan Miglioranzi, Stefani Moffat, Adam Moss, Brandon Pacheco, Andrei Peterson, Andrew Pierce, Rusty Thomas, Jacob Virtuoso, Ricardo

FC Dallas De Oliveira, Denilson Botero, Juan Daniels, Andrew Dello-Russo, Michael Gbandi, Chris Gbandi, Sandy Goodson, Clarence Jones, Scott Mina, Roberto Oduro, Dominic Pitchkolan, Aaron Rhine, Bobby Sala, Dario (GK) Thompson, Abe Wagenfuhr, David Wileman, Chase Yi, Alex

D.C. United Addlery, Nicholas Carroll, Brian Carroll, Jeff Crowe, Shawn Deroux, Stephen Dyachenko, Rod Gros, Joshua Kpene, Guy Mediate, Domenic Monteiro, Jerson Moose, Justin Mupier, Mira Nolly, Jay (GK) North, Brad Vanney, Greg Walker, Jamil

Houston Dynamo Ashe, Corey Chabala, Mike Cochrane, Ryan Dalglish, Paul Ebert, Eric Hatzke, Nick Hayden, John Michael Hoerner, Kenneth James, Jordan Onstad, Pat Ustruck, Erik Waibel, Craig Wells, Zach Wondolowski, Chris Wondolowski, Stephen

Kansas City Wizards Burciaga, Jose Colombano, Eloy Elcock, Edson Godbolt, AJ Guadarrama, Willy Hartman, Kevin Hohlbein, Aaron John, Will Konopka, Chris Kraus, Michael Kronberg, Eric Lowery, Amir McMahen, Ryan Pore, Ryan Raybould, Ryan Wahl, Tyson Watson, Lance

LA Galaxy Cronin, Steve Caso, Mike Friesz, Lance Glinton, Gavin Gordon, Alan Gray, Kelly Harmse, Kevin Martino, Kyle Mathis, Clint Tudela, Josh Vagenas, Peter Veris, Kyle Xavier, Abel

New England Revolution Byrne, Bryan Dorman, Andy Flood, Gary Franchino, Joe Gonzalez, Miguel Helton, Kyle John, Avery Knighton, Brad Leonard, Marshall Loftus, Chris Mansally, Abdoulie Nyassi, Sainey Riley, James Sims, Willie Warren, Doug

New York Red Bulls Doe, Francis Caccavale, Sal Camp, Blake Cepero, Danny Goldthwaite, Kevin Ikangu, Elie Karcz, Chris Laventure, Jerrod Leitch, Chris Magee, Mike Patterson, Randi Quaranta, Santino Schopp, Markus Ubiparipovic, Sinisa Vide, Joseph Wolyniec, John

Real Salt Lake Brown, Chris Brown, Kyle Curfman, Steven Cutler, Kenny Forko, Willis Hashimoto, Duke Jimenez, Christian Kipre, Jean-Martial Kirby, Dustin Kotschau, Ritchie Lancos, Chris Reynish, Kyle Stewart, Jack Watson, Jamie Williams, Andy

Toronto FC Boyens, Andrew Attakora-Gyan, Nana Braz, Adam Canizalez, Maycoll Djekanovic, Srdjan Gala, Gabe Guzman, David Hemming, Tyler Lombardo, Andrea Lumley, Stephen Melo, Joey Nunez, Cristian Pozniak, Chris Reda, Marco Stamatopolous, Kenny

Landon DonovanTo San Jose?

"As a person, I'm glad [FrankYallop] got away from this" Landon Donovan

Previously I didn't think much of the rumors of Yallop and / or Landon to the San Jose Earthquakes. There wasn't much behind them. But Yallop's left LA and joined San Jose. And now Lannycakes is publicly saying things like this. Will he be leaving Los Angeles soon, too?

Chivas USA With Best MLS Home Record Ever?

The 2007 Major League Soccer season is almost over. Beside playoff significance, the upcoming Chivas USA - Colorado game is important in that Chivas USA could be on the way to set the MLS record for the best unbeaten home record. The 2005 San Jose Earthquakes, since then having relocated to Houston, own the unbeaten record having gone 9-0-7 for 34 Points in 16 games (2.125 points / game). As long as they don't lose either of their last 2 home games, Chivas USA will best San Jose's 2005 record.

Even if Chivas USA win out they'll come up short in 2 other measurements. The 2000 Chicago Fire have the most points overall at home, 40 in 16 games. The 2002 San Jose Earthquakes have the best points per game with 37 points in 14 games for 2.6429 points per game.

Current Record
2007 Chivas USA 10-0-3 : 33 points - 13 games (2.5385 points / game)

Below are the possible home records that Chivas USA could end up with in 2007. They have Colorado and Dallas at home to close the season out. Neither of those teams have been doing anything to show that Chivas isn't quite capable of winning both of them.

Possible final home records for Chivas USA :
10-2-3 : 33 points - 15 games (2.2 points / game )
10-1-4 : 34 points - 15 games (2.2667 points / game )
10-0-5 : 35 points - 15 games (2.3333 points / game )
11-1-3 : 36 points - 15 games (2.4 points / game )
11-0-4 : 37 points - 15 games (2.4667 points / game )
12-0-3 : 39 points - 15 games (2.6 points / game )

Previous MLS season best home records by points :
2006 Houston 12-3-1 : 37 Points - 16 games (2.3125 points / game)
2005 New England 11-2-3 : 36 Points - 16 games (2.25 points / game)
2004 DC United 9-2-4 : 31 Points - 15 games (2.0667 points / game)
2003 Chicago 10-1-4 : 34 Points - 15 games (2.2667 points / game )
2002 San Jose 12-1-1 : 37 Points - 14 games (2.6429 points / game)
2001 Miami 10-2-2 : 32 Points - 14 games (2.2857 points / game)
2000 Chicago 13-2-1 : 40 Points - 16 games (2.5 points / game)
1999 Dallas 13-3 1SOW : 37 Points - 16 games (2.3125 points / game)
1998 Chicago 13-3 : 39 Points - 16 games (2.4375 points / game)
1997 Tampa Bay12-4 : 36 Points - 16 games (2.25 points / game)
1996 Tampa Bay 12-4 : 36 Points - 16 games (2.25 points / game)