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Earthquakes land rights to Marcus Tracy

Tracy

The San Jose Earthquakes won the MLS lottery for the rights to forward Marcus Tracy.

San Jose had a 4.6 percent chance to land the former Wake Forest standout, but beat the odds to add the promising prospect to an already stacked stable of forwards.

Tracy, who signed with Danish side Aalbor BK before knee injuries cut short his stint in Europe, is still recovering from micro-fracture knee surgery and seems to be more of a long-term project than an immediate contributor.

By joining San Jose, Tracy will be re-united with former Wake Forest teammates Ike Opara and Sam Cronin. All three were members of the 2007 National Championship team.

San Jose had the second lowest odds heading into the weighted lottery, but beat out the likes of New England (33.2 percent), FC Dallas (19.7) and Philadelphia (16.8) for Tracy's services. Only Seattle had lower odds heading into the lottery (2.1 percent)

What do you think of this development? See Tracy making an impact in MLS?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. SJ doesn’t use or need a “maestro”. Baca and Cronin are great two-way mids who can both pass and defend. Rather than having a CAM, the more attacking part of the midfield comes from the wings with Dawkins, Chavez, and Salinas. That’s why SJ scores on so many headers and crosses—the service from wide positions is strong.

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  2. They let their midfield maestro, Tressor Moreno, walk. I think this will bite them in the end. How can their midfield play with LA and NY in the playoffs?

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  3. Everything you say is valid….for a non injury prone prospect. 15 matches in 3 seasons, multiple knee surgery’s later = scary.

    If there is no trade value then so be it and hopefully he can overcome the injury bug, he obviously is tremendously talented.

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  4. Before his injury he was really developing into a strong player. Hopefully MLS will give him the edge back. He has an interesting profile – extremely dominant striker in the aerial game – that we have a hard time producing since McBride in the USA. I remember some Europa League games where he was schooling veteran EPL guys in the air. That was another Marcus probably, but perhaps he can get his groove back.
    Good luck to him in any case.

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  5. considering the rehab in front of him, it’s great he’s at a team that won’t really expect production out of him for awhile.

    that said, when it rains it pours. this is SO he year of San Jose…

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  6. Nope. We should hold on to him.

    A) Trade him… for what?

    B) He’s a prospect, not a great prospect, but a more or less free prospect. How many of those does a team get?

    Remember where that Wondo guy came from… out of nowhere. And keep in mind that Lenhart and Gordon are having career years. Can’t rely on them to replicate that without injuries for too far into the future, especially if one of them becomes valuable enough to offload for, say, an even better midfielder or a better contract for Wondo, or Chavez, or Bernardez, or Baca.

    Also, competition for positions seems to be helping the team. One more hungry forward is not a bad thing.

    In all, this acquisition, while certainly not a god-send, is nothing to dismiss off-hand either.

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  7. I think it’s just a good place for him to land. Obviously grass is a better alternative than playing all of your home matches on turf. More importantly, he is coming to a team that doesn’t really need him to produce this season. With the three-forward rotation of Wondo, Gordon and Lenhart, we are looking fairly solid up top. Just get him healthy for camp next season and see what we have.

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  8. I just love reading about MLS roster/transfer rules. I’m pretty sure there’s a section on deciding tie-breakers in the draft allocation process by arm-wrestling contests between GMs.

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  9. It’s a big gamble that he’ll be able to regain his speed and lateral mobility after that surgery. Did we have a roster slot and cap room for this after adding Ballouchy?

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  10. Yeah he was only 3rd round in the draft because teams knew they were taking precisely the risk Houston did, that he’d either wait their rights out or maybe even never come back.

    That being said, for damaged goods coming back, he should probably be happy for a paycheck.

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  11. I bet he’ll be making much less than if he signed right after college. All those former European players that never really made it to a big league or presence in Europe are now making $65K or something in MLS.

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  12. Fair point except the baseline is usually already players looking at the end of their career otherwise. That being said, the percentage rates of “success” for ordinary people may not translate to people looking to play professional sports again…I was looking at a list of NBA players who’ve had it and the losers list is longer than the winner’s (but then, if McGrady wants to play, for example. he’s looking at something like this…). That’s many many orders of magnitude higher in terms of physical demands, necessary fitness, wear and tear. Mind you, the athlete may take care of themselves better, but the reality is that they also need to work harder to try and stay fit and play their sport.

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  13. If we do keep him, at least his knee will be happy to be training in the best turf in the MLS and not that plastic stuff. Good thing we’ll have plenty of time to get him fit and evaluate him. No need to rush him into action with the stable of attacking players in SJ.

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  14. Micro-fracture knee surgery is no cure all. In fact I bet for every one person who had a successful procedure you can list another that their career was never the same. Good luck to him.

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  15. Yes! I’m so excited about this team, it’s good to be a San Jose fan these days. Might have to consider season tickets for the new stadium. Go Quakes!

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