Season Two of the New-New-New-Quakes

Earthquakes 0 New England 1

Drat. On paper a midfield with Huckerby, Corrales, Convey, and Alvarez looks pretty hot, and there were brief flashes of brilliant football on Saturday. Mostly, however, we saw the classic weakness of the Quakes (both the new-new-new-Quakes and the new-new-Quakes under Yallop's tutelage previously), which is to say: nice approach work, lousy finishing. Or no finishing at all. Once again we revive the impassioned plea of Quake fans: "SHOOOOT!"

We also saw Huckerby spending far too much of the match completely disconnected from play out on his own on the wing. Has someone told him he's not allowed to stray 5 yards from the touchline or something? Or is the loss of the one guy on the field capable of hitting him at full sprint with a 40-yard cross-field pass (Ronnie O'Brien), put a huge hole in the team?

On the whole, the Quakes played the better football, but neither team looks particularly good, and after the goal the Quakes looked quite ragged.

And, astonishingly enough, this is the first time in many years of season tickets, that I have got seriously rained on at a Quakes match. Cold rain down my neck just about summed up this opener.

Next up: The relabeled-highjacked-still-playing-in-a-college-stadium-I-notice-new-new-Quakes.