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Earthquakes transfer Ampaipitakwong, release Moreno

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The San Jose Earthquakes shed some weight from their roster on Monday, transferring one player while terminating the contract of another.

The Earthquakes announced Monday that midfielder Anthony Ampaipitakwong went to Buriram United of the Thai Premier League on an undisclosed transfer and they released Colombian midfielder Tressor Moreno after he expressed unhappiness with his lack of playing time this season.

In his second season as a professional, Ampaipitakwong did not make a single appearance in 2012 after seeing time in 12 games in his rookie year. Moreno did receive minutes this season, but he still wanted out despite playing in a dozen matches. Moreno had three assists this season, his first in MLS.

Per club and league policy, terms of the deals were not disclosed.

What do you think of the Earthquakes' decisions? Surprised they let Moreno go? How much, if anything, do you think San Jose got for Ampaipitakwong?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Agreed. Thing is that they still have the roster to build around, and enough technical players on the squad to make a possession / passing game work for them. So I suppose we will find out if the club intends to replace TM with a similar type of player or pocket the salary savings.

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  2. People really overrate Ampaipitakwong, the bottom line is, every MLS team passed on him multiple times, and none want him even now. Nanchoff is MLS caliber though, hopefully he gets some minutes.

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  3. +9999999999999999

    Well said, it’s annoying to see the Quakes move back to their old Yallopball style after briefly playing attractive soccer and being successful at it. But you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and it was only a matter of time before Yallop went back to what he knows best.

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  4. That team wasnt built around any one player. However, if there was anyone pulling the strings, it was Nanchoff not Ampai. Nanchoff cant get playing time with Vancouver despite repeated positive showings for them. Soccer is a tough sport that way.

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  5. I’ve been really surprised at Ampai’s lack of playing time this season. He had a better-than-average rookie season.

    Of course, this season he’s on a team that, when it needs a goal, lumps the ball up to Lenhart and Gordon. But I could see him fitting in as a role player for LA, RSL, Chicago, or DC right now. (He fits Vancouver’s style too, but they already have Chiumiento, Le Toux and Camilo able to play the same role.)

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  6. Ya, too bad his name is not something like Wo..wond… Wondolowski. Yup all MLS players should be called John Smith! :/ Stupid Merican.

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  7. This actually disturbs me a lot. Tressor Moreno, I mean–I haven’t seen enough of Ampai this season or last to have a real opinion. (Something tells me that we’re not going to regret losing him, however.)

    Moreno, however, added a lot of value to the Quakes. I’m a season ticket holder and have seen a lot of the team this season, and at the beginning of the season it seemed like the team was trying to play with much more possession and control–Moreno was actually pulling ALL the strings in their wins at home against NE and at TOR. They lined up with Wondo as their lone attacker and played with Moreno/Dawkins/Cronin in the mids and Salinas/Baca on the wings.

    Note that neither Gordon nor Lenhart figured into the team in this alignment; Lenhart came in as a late-game sub.

    The club played beautifully since they were arranged to make quick short runs and could expect passes from Moreno that would hit them in stride. It actually looked very different from any other MLS side; we were talking about them as a Mini-Barca for God’s sake.

    Then a few things happened along the way…

    1) Moreno showed that he was out of shape and couldn’t go 90 minutes
    2) Moreno showed a passing interest in defense

    and, most importantly

    3) Quakes started winning games with Lenhart and Gordon on the field, along with Marvin Chavez on the wing.

    The Quakes became a totally different team. Rather than holding possession and piecing together attacks, they developed a totally direct style with overlapping runs off of a target forward. Chavez’ speed became the most important feature of the attack, and the fact that Lenhart and Gordon like to play with their back to the goal basically defined our offensive tactics.

    The team looks awful with Lenhart and/or Gordon on the pitch when Moreno plays; attackers present for the ball instead of running off of it and the attack gets stuck.

    Unfortunately, the combination of Moreno’s obvious limitations and the early-season success with this direct attack basically forced Yallop’s hand. I was really hopeful that we’d have the ability to run a couple of different STYLES out there with the depth of our roster–Moreno would have been the centerpiece of a passing-based attack and Baca the centerpiece of a direct style–but the team clearly did not want to pay the salary that Moreno was earning to a 60-minute player.

    Hopefully this opens up a few more minutes for Khari Stephenson to play; he’s been miscast this season as a Cronin-type to link the defense to the attack and looks lost as a result. Baca’s the starter, no doubt, but I think we’ll end up needing both before too long.

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  8. i think the lack of possession (or rather patience) these last few games has been due more to tired legs than a regression to the long ball strategy- though we do occasionally catch teams napping or looking around “where’s Wondo?” with those passes. in fairness the team did look a lot better on the road against Dallas (how many shots did they clear off the line?) but I thought we’d see more of Moreno- either in Portland or Dallas. Someone else said he’s used to having more time on the ball and gets caught in posession or forces bad passes under pressure–hell, even when he’s not under pressure. kudos to him for saving the team the rest of his salary though.

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  9. Agreed. It is too bad that nowhere in the MLS would he seem to fit in. At Akron, the team was basically built around him for 4 years. Bunbury, Kitchen and Zakuani of course had some claim to the success of those teams and those 3 found ways to be big contributors to their MLS teams. When I watched Akron, it was pretty clear that so much of their attack went through Ampai, I had hoped that some MLS team would find a way to exploit his talents. Sigh!

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  10. Agreed. He’s a fantastic technical player who needs a team that possesses the ball. The only thing I’m not sure about — I only saw him play for Akron — would be his speed compared to other MLS players. I think he’d fit as a role player with the Galaxy.

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  11. Ampai was really something at Akron – he would be a great addition to a possession based team. Too bad there aren’t any in the MLS. His work rate, possession and distribution will pay off for some team that figures out how to use it.

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  12. Baca is better than Moreno and cheaper. It still hurts b/c Moreno gave the team a different look off the bench. You can see just how selfish he is though… it’s rare for players to moan about playing time when their team is in first place yet this guy did. Glad they made a clean break before it became too much of a problem.

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  13. Moreno had some good skills, but that’s a lot of $$ for a player that was mostly coming off the bench. I hope the front office hires some decent backups and saves the cap space next year for well-deserved raises to our B-crew: Baca, Beitashour and Bernardez.

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  14. I thought Moreno would be a great addition to this team. But the fact is he was only impressive in flashed and didn’t make much of an impact. I hope the Quakes sign a good midfielder to bolster their attack. After that great game against LA they have been looking less impressive each game. And they have been trying to go for a lot of long balls.

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  15. Considering that Moreno was slated to make $270,000 guaranteed this year and Ampai was scheduled to earn $44,000, this frees quite a bit of cash for the Quakes to make a move if they want during the summer transfer window.

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