By Tony Edwards - San Jose, CA (Sep 18, 2012) US Soccer Players -- In Thursday’s column, Tony looks at transfer deadline signings on the West Coast, asks if the Revolution will get their leading scorer back for next season, and examines which teams have the most difficulty in the second half of games.
Will San Jose fans see new signing Marcus Tracy on the field this season?
In the San Jose Mercury News, Tracy said he’d be ready to go in a few weeks calling his knee '100%' and saying he's working on becoming 'game fit.'
A bigger question for San Jose might be what Tracy’s signing means in the longer term. This season, barring injury, San Jose coach Frank Yallop seems unlikely to disturb his forward pairing of Chris Wondolowski and one of Alan Gordon or Steven Lenhart. Next season, however, as San Jose looks at salary cap and age issues, Tracy might give the Earthquakes another option up front. Getting him on the field in the short term even in a cameo role would be helpful. Tracy is a unique talent that was highly prized when we opted for Europe over Major League Soccer coming out of college.
Will New England’s Saer Sene be back for the start of training camp after surgery on his left anterior cruciate ligament?
Possibly. According to Boston.com, he’ll be out six to eight months, which means he might be back for the early part of the regular season, if rehabilitation goes well. New England is in the tough position of already thinking about 2013,
While Toronto’s Darren O’Dea called his team “mentally weak” after surrendering a late goal to Philadelphia, which team in MLS has given up the most goals in the second halves of games?
Montreal has given up 33 goals in the second half of games. Toronto and Portland have given up 28 second-half goals.
In MLS play, does Salt Lake losing Alvaro Saborio for at least two weeks with a shoulder injury end their chances of catching Seattle for second place in the Western Conference?
Not by any means. Salt Lake is tied with the Galaxy on 46 points, two points behind second-place Seattle in the Western Conference. Of Salt Lake’s five remaining games, Saborio will miss games against Portland and at Chivas USA because of the injury suffered in the CONCACAF Champions League game this week, plus their game against the Galaxy on October 6th, presumably, while he’s playing for Costa Rica.
This isn’t Salt Lake’s roughest part of the schedule. Portland will be at the end of a three-games-in-a-week span, having faced Seattle and San Jose previously. Chivas USA looked terrible against San Jose last weekend, continuing an unfortunate season-long trend. Injuries or not, RSL should continue to build on strong recent play by Ned Grabavoy and others and make the race for 2nd-place in the West compelling viewing.
How will this week’s announcement that the Anschutz Company was “commencing a process” to sell subsidiary company Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) affect MLS and the franchises AEG still owns?
For this season, any potential deal will not have much impact one way or another.
AEG is supposedly in the final stages of completing the sale of the Houston Dynamo to Leslie Alexander, the owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, which can be looked at as a sign of growth (attracting new ownership), or the ending of an era, as AEG reduces its stake in the League.
Even though Forbes Magazine valued the Galaxy’s worth at $100M, the Galaxy are a small piece of AEG’s businesses and investments. The longer term concern for Galaxy fans, and for MLS, is finding an owner willing to maintain the Galaxy’s status as the League’s flagship franchise.
Tony Edwards is a soccer writer from the Bay Area.
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