- Robert Jonas | Center Line Soccer

Just a week ago, national teams across the globe congregated briefly for a set of matches. some of these games were meaningful qualifiers for this or that, while others were of the friendly variety. In CONCACAF, countries in action during that period took the opportunity to prepare their teams for the upcoming Gold Cup tournament starting in June with a series of high-profile matches featuring quality opponents from South America. While the less than impressive exploits of Team USA have been well chronicled, the other regional power Mexico also failed to shed doubts about their preparation for this summer. Given a chance to see El Tri play in person against Paraguay and on television against Venezuela, it is safe to see that there is no clear leader between the top two teams in CONCACAF at this stage.

- Robert Jonas | Center Line Soccer

While the city of San Jose recently was awarded the title of “Soccer City USA” by none other than Portland’s daily newspaper The Oregonian, the Bay Area as a whole feels more like Ciudad de México this morning. I’m not referring to new U.S. Census data that shows the State of California taking on diversity of citizenry not seen anywhere else in the country. Rather, I’m talking about the arrival of the Mexican National Team circus at the Oakland Coliseum to take on Paraguay in an international friendly.

- Robert Jonas | Center Line Soccer

The weeks of steady build-up to the new MLS season finally came to an end when the Los Angeles Galaxy and Seattle Sounders FC faced off in the 2011 MLS First Kick match last Tuesday. But that 1-0 win by the defending Supporters Shield winners was just an appetizer for what’s on tap this weekend. All 18 of the league’s teams are in action — with LA and Seattle each getting game #2 on their schedule — in a blockbuster opening for the sixteenth season of Major League Soccer.

- Robert Jonas Center Line Soccer


I have a confession to make, one that will certainly not endear me to my fellow San Jose Earthquakes supporters. Just days removed from the Quakes heartbreaking loss to the Colorado Rapids in the 2010 Eastern Conference championship last November, I was in Toronto for the MLS Cup Final secretly wearing the jersey of the enemy under the three or so outer layers of clothing required to survive the wicked Lake Ontario winds. Yes, shamefully, I donned the powder blue away shirt, with its fine burgundy details and embroidered crest, of the same Rapids team that eliminated San Jose the weekend prior.

Robert Jonas - Center Line Soccer


“So you’re telling me there’s a chance. Yeah!”


With those simple words born from the mind of Lloyd Christmas in the movie Dumb and Dumber, optimists have a rallying call and continue to believe they are destined to succeed whenever it looks like the odds are heavily against them. Heading into Wednesday’s MLS super-special sixth draft of the preseason — a weighted lottery for the rights to goalkeeper David Bingham — many of the teams participating were probably muttering Lloyd’s words to themselves. One of those teams, the San Jose Earthquakes, had just an 8.8% chance of landing the vaunted prospect and newly minted Generation adidas signing, but they beat the odds to land the California ‘keeper.

Robert Jonas - Center Line Soccer

While most of the attention around Major League Soccer these days is on this weekend’s player combine and next Thursday’s SuperDraft, I can’t help but think about another news worthy issue that has apparently gone forgotten. Back in Toronto during the hour leading up to the kickoff of MLS Cup, Commissioner Don Garber regaled the collective media with his annual address on all things related to the league. He dropped the bombshell that the 2011 playoffs would expand to 10 teams and no longer could two opponents from one conference contend for the opposite conference’s championship. He also announced that the league would play a balanced schedule among its 18 teams, but that nothing had been decided for future seasons.

by Robert Jonas - Center Line Soccer

The drawn out saga of the proposed San Jose Earthquakes soccer stadium continued this week with a small but favorable step in the right direction. At Tuesday’s San Jose City Council meeting, an amendment to the land purchase agreement between the city and the stadium developers was passed in a unanimous vote. Basically the amendment gives a multimillion dollar break on the purchase price of the property while also extending the deadline to complete the transition to 2015. Without passage of the amendment, and despite already sinking $5 million in nonrefundable deposits into the deal, Quakes owner Lew Wolff and his developer partners had threatened to walk away from the whole project without the city’s concessions.

by Robert Jonas - Center Line Soccer


With much anticipation, the inaugural MLS re-entry draft arrived this week with a varied assortment of players available for selection. Big name veterans like Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Juan Pablo Angel and modestly paid options like Luke Sassano and Joseph Ngwenya populated the initial list of 35 players that went un-tendered by their original teams. This draft was lauded as a breakthrough moment for the players of MLS, who in their negotiations earlier this year on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the league wanted greater flexibility in changing teams in the off-season — a form of free agency if you will in a league where all player contracts are owned by a single entity. Yet when the big event commenced this previous Wednesday, it concluded
with only two players selected, and in as much time as it takes me to brew my morning cup of tea.

So, the rumblings and grumblings surrounding the USA World Cup bid proved to be true Thursday morning, as Qatar completed their dream-building exercise with the FIFA executive committee and took home the prized 2022 hosting rights. I’m not too surprised given the behind the scenes comments being passed around as recently as MLS Cup weekend in Toronto. After a luncheon hosted by the bid committee, in which Sunil Gulati and other US Soccer officials refused to talk directly about their competition in the FIFA vote, the writing on the wall that Qatar was a formidable foe was clear to see. Throw in the nervous looks of some officials to the threat posed by the diminutive Middle Eastern country, plus the subsequent kowtowing of MLS Commissioner Don Garber in donating $2 million to the bid and then suggesting major calendar changes to the league to appease soccer's governing body, and it strongly suggested that the USA's World Cup fait accompli everyone expected on December 2nd was in jeopardy.

It being the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday, one of the traditions at my family’s dinner is to go around the table and describe an event, person, or experience that you were thankful for in the last year. I was quick to describe the day earlier this fall when I dropped my daughter off at her dorm to start her freshman year of college. All of the effort on her part coupled with the sacrifices I’ve made as a parent to help her survive along the path to that point was punctuated by my internal shouts of joy at seeing her ready and prepared to embark on the next stage of her life. I was not alone in seeing her to this point, and so gave thanks to all those that helped me along the way.

"The postseason partially explained why baseball was so uniquely resistant to the fruits of scientific research: to ANY purely rational idea about how to run a baseball team. It wasn’t just that the game was run by old baseball men who insisted on doing things as they had always been done. It was that the season ended in a giant crapshoot. The playoffs frustrate rational management because, unlike the long regular season, they suffer from the sample size problem. Over a long season, the luck evens out, and the skill shines through. But in a series of three out of five, or even four out of seven, anything can happen..."

Over the past couple of weeks Major League Soccer has been collecting the ballots for the various regular season awards that will be announced over the next few weeks. The list included major awards like the Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, and Goalkeeper of the Year, along with lesser known awards like Referee of the Year and Public Relations Staff of the Year. Since the polls closed this past Monday afternoon, MLS has released the finalists in each award category and media members have revealed their first choices. For me, the most interesting of the categories is that of MVP.

Turn on your radio or television and you can’t miss them — campaign advertisements for politicians and propositions hoping to earn your vote ahead of state and local elections in early November. Most of these ads end up being of the mudslinging variety, but some try to focus in on the positive attributes politicians support and the promises they hope to bring forth if elected. Discussions and debates rage on between supporters on either side of each race and issue, while those few left in the middle and undecided try to weigh the merits of the opposing campaigns. In a few weeks’ time, all the fuss, all the arguments, all the vitriol will give way to a slate of winning candidates and new laws, and the losers will soon be forgotten.

As the MLS regular season enters its final fortnight, the top eight teams in the current league table are virtually assured qualification to the post-season MLS Cup tournament. The bottom three of those eight — Seattle Sounders FC, the Colorado Rapids, and the San Jose Earthquakes — now face an interesting choice as to where they target their playoff seedings.

Normally a mid week game at tiny Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara attracts a small crowd of diehard fans to watch their San Jose Earthquakes in action.  However, this past Wednesday night saw a nearly full house turn out to watch the Black-and-Blue take on a struggling Chicago Fire side that was winless over their last seven games.  Instead of a comfortable win over Chicago, as many commentators — myself included — predicted prior to kickoff, the Earthquakes were taken apart by the Fire 3-0.  Matching their worst loss of the season, the Quakes did little on the field to impress the many new faces that sprinkled the Buck Shaw crowd.  Nowhere to be seen was the club that had played with poise and confidence during a 5-1-1 streak this month and last.

One of the finest narratives on the game of soccer comes from British author Nick Hornby and describes his relationship to sport using the Arsenal Football Club as his chief muse. Titled Fever Pitch, the book was later adapted into a romantic comedy film of the same title with Colin Firth as the protagonist. Years later, an American re-make was made with the same title, but the sport was changed from soccer to baseball, and used the 2004 Boston Red Sox championship season as a backdrop. Both films were entertaining, but strayed too far away from Hornby’s original story and failed to capture the author’s deep passions for the sport.

Week three matches of the CONCACAF Champions League group stage took place the past couple of days, and for the first time since the tournament moved to its current format in 2008, I missed every one of them. It wasn’t because I was distracted by the midweek clash between my hometown San Jose Earthquakes and the visiting Philadelphia Union. It didn’t happen because I was on vacation in some wonderful tropical paradise (writing about soccer pays for trips to In-and-Out instead). And it certainly wasn’t due to my cable television being on the fritz. No, the simple reason was that I was just not interested.

I love the arrival of International dates on the FIFA calendar, because I know there is a good chance that I’ll get to watch the U.S. National Team in action. And even though most of their matches are inconsequential friendlies, I watch with the same critical eye and intensity usually reserved for the contests that count. I agonize over the failed opportunities to beat a worthy opponent, and I applaud the effort of the players when they meet my expectations. Above all, I am proud to cheer on the U.S. no matter the opponent or the result.

When news broke earlier in the week that Sunil Gulati had finally ceased his near teenage girl obsession with Jurgen Klinsmann and finally awarded Bob Bradley the contract extension he deserved, I let forth a fist-pump and an exclamatory “all right!” Following a four year cycle that saw the once caretaker coach lead the U.S. Men’s National Team to a Gold Cup trophy, second place finish in the Confederations Cup, and a round-of-16 match in the World Cup, Bradley met all reasonable expectations thus far in his tenure. Dumping Bradley at this juncture would only undue the progress made under his tutelage and leadership.

Editor's Note: MFUSA is happy to present the first edition of a weekly column from Center Line Soccer's Robert Jonas.

by Robert Jonas

As MLS stocked up on a new batch of Designated Players in the summer signing window, it was clear that these big-money earners fell into three categories. The first was the big name, big pedigree players personified by Thierry Henry and Rafael Marquez, while the second was the returning World Cup contributors still playing at a high level — Blaise Nkufo and Alvaro Fernandez being chief among that group. And what was the third category you ask? Simply, they are the players that have plenty to prove — I’m looking at you Nery Castillo and Geovanni — to MLS supporters.


The Chicago Fire's signing of 26-year old Mexican International Castillo came as somewhat of a surprise. Not so much in that the Fire were looking to reconnect with a Mexican fan base that was drifting away with the departure of Cuauhtemoc Blanco, but that Chicago convinced a young player with high aspirations to come stateside. The loan away from Shakhtar Donetsk should help gain him playing time, but he misses out on potential Champions League experience for MLS.


Geovanni found himself out of a job after his previous club, Hull City, was relegated from the English Premier League after last season, and has been searching for a new home since early this summer. His arrival in San Jose is certainly a coup for the relatively small market Earthquakes, and would never have happened without the convincing arguments put forth by former Cruzeiro and current Quakes teammate Andre Luiz. Lured by the promise of a sunny and vibrant Bay Area, Geovanni welcomed the chance to move his young family out of England. He now has the opportunity to make San Jose relevant again in MLS.


Looking at the situation in Chicago, the ink on Castillo’s contract wasn’t even dry before the rumors of a second DP signing were already flying around the club. Instead of complementing the attacking player Castillo with a defensive midfielder, the Fire traded for similar attacking player in Freddie Ljungberg. Almost nonsensical, the young Mexican playing on a contract that pays him over $1.4 million a season would be fighting for space in the center of the Chicago attack with the ex-Seattle Swede.


I dare say that the timing of the two signings suggest that they were not made with each other in mind. We are already seeing that this is not working well for the Fire, as Castillo has been asked to play more as a winger, when he clearly is more comfortable as part of central midfield. In just his last game, where he featured for only 45 minutes against the Houston Dynamo, Castillo had no impact on the Fire’s attack. Chicago fans cannot be pleased with what they saw of his obviously disappointing performance down in Texas.


As for the other aspect of DP signings — the idea that they can provide “butts in seats” — Castillo is not paying any dividends in that regard. Chicago fans are clearly not embracing him in the same way they initially did Blanco. Filling Toyota Park will not be accomplished by just any signing from south of the border. That fact is even more evident on the road, where Castillo is simply not the draw that the charismatic and controversial Blanco was during his 2+ seasons in MLS.


So where does that leave Castillo? His mark in MLS will be measured by how much he can help in leading Chicago to the MLS Cup playoffs. Even in that regard, Ljungberg is likely to get most of the credit. But Castillo can comport himself well by excelling on the wing and creating scoring opportunities up top for Brian McBride, Ljungberg, and the other Fire strikers. Throw in a half-dozen goals over Chicago’s remaining 12 games, and Castillo makes his mark. Playing for just half a game, then being out played by your substitute — Calen Carr is certainly gaining my attention — will only qualify you as a disaster.


Over in San Jose, the signing of the 30-year old Geovanni was met was a resounding chorus of “hurrah!” from long suffering fans of the Quakes 2.0 version that has struggling to make a mark in the Bay Area. Where the Fire failed in meeting a need on their roster, the Earthquakes addressed a gapping hole in their line-up by signing the Brazilian striker. Since the injuries that pushed Darren Huckerby into retirement last summer, the Quakes have lacked for a creative force in their offense. Geovanni is no target forward — a position they are still lacking at — but he has proven in the past that he is very effective as an attacking midfielder or withdrawn striker.


And like the Castillo signing, Geovanni was not brought to San Jose to fill tiny Buck Shaw Stadium. That was never an issue for this team, as they have constantly approached sell-out crowds over the last 2+ seasons — not hard to do when your leased stadium barely holds over 10K supporters. Rather, Geovanni’s arrival in San Jose was all about winning games and qualifying for the playoffs. He clearly understands those expectations given his comments at his introductory press conference, and wants to contribute to the club as soon as possible.


The paperwork necessary to make him eligible to play was completed in record time, and Geovanni made his debut for San Jose as a late game substitute in their 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy. Geovanni was clearly lacking fitness, and made no impact in the match, but he did get a huge ovation from the Quakes faithful. It will take the Brazilian another couple of weeks to get up to speed, and at that point will definitely be inserted into the Starting XI for coach Frank Yallop’s side.


So what should Quakes fans expect from their first DP signing in franchise history? Nothing short of a dynamic force that plays the dual role of offensive instigator and goal scorer for a team that is in desperate need of a finisher. A goal + assist total over 10 for the remaining 11 games of the season seems a fair benchmark of success. With that level of production, the Earthquakes should comfortably qualify for the postseason.


The opportunities are there for both Castillo and Geovanni, but must be grasped and not just taken for granted. The expectations are high — rightly so — and the fans will not be forgiving if either team fails to make the playoffs. Deliver some November soccer for their respective clubs, and their signings should be considered a success. Anything less will be a failure.


Robert Jonas is a writer and podcaster at Center Line Soccer and a frequent contributor to CSRN’s Around The League MLS show. He can always be reached on his twitter @robertjonas.