The soccer season has been over for a few weeks now, and I’ve been meaning to hammer out a long post for even longer. But there’s a couple of headlines that have popped up recently in the off-season news roundups at the Merc, at the Quakes’ official site, and also over with our friends at Center Line Soccer. So I’ll give the Readers’ Digest version:

• Our fabulous new friend Darren Huckerby has been named Major League Soccer’s Newcomer of the Year. That’s because he is awesome.
• The Tottenham Hotspurs, an English Premiership League team, recently announced a partnership with the Quakes in which the Spurs get to help develop the untapped and massive youth soccer talent pool here in NorCal, and the Quakes get to stare slack-jawed at the mighty EPL team and learn via osmosis. There’s a bit of confusion, however, because many of the Hotspurs top-tier dealmakers have been sacked. No real word on exactly how that affects the agreement.
• MLS Cup playoffs kick off tomorrow night as the Chicago Fire faces the Columbus Crew, and Real Salt Lake squares off against the New York Red Bulls. It all starts 7:30 pm Eastern on ESPN2. I anticipate my payola from ESPN2 any day now.
• Ian over at The Offsides recapped the top 5 Quakes games this season. I missed one of those games, but thank God I didn’t miss the game listed as No. 1. It was truly spectacular.
• I attended a charity dinner the night before our 2-0 trouncing of Toronto FC in our season finale. I got to meet several players. I have pictures. I am waiting for some lazy bums to send me theirs. Then I will post like a mad fangirl.

For those who want to get drunk for a good cause Saturday night: Starting at 10 p.m. at the Britannia Arms in downtown San Jose, the San Jose Earthquakes’ soccer stars will be guest bartending at the outdoor patio bar. For a small tip, Earthquakes players will make you a drink, and for a larger tip, they will pose for pictures, sign autographs, and who knows, do a little jiggity-jig or something. All the funds go straight to the Earthquakes Community Fund, and all these festivities are following the game they will have just played (and hopefully emerge as the victors).

Oh yes, the game. For those who don’t know/remember, the Earthquakes left the area for 2 years, migrating to Houston and changing its team colors, logo and name to the Dynamo. Well now we have our Quakes back, and now they’re playing their Texified former selves Saturday night at Buck Shaw Stadium, Santa Clara University, at 7 p.m.

The Quakes are unbeaten in eight games, which is a tiny miracle thanks to our boy Darren Huckerby. But the Dynamo are dynamite at the moment, sitting comfortably at the perch on top of the Western conference. Should be a tense and dramatic game, and the Quakes need to win as many games as they possibly can to earn a spot in the playoffs. The problem is, with so many of our old quality players decked out in Dynamo orange, which side will the fans be cheering for?

And who would have thought our little expansion newbie team would be considering the playoffs in its first season back? Wow…

Darren Huckerby - Photo by Joe Nuxoll / centerlinesoccer.com / isiphoto.com

San Jose, meet Darren Huckerby.

Or rather, Hucker-Hucker-Hucker-byyyyyyy. (0:55)

Largely unknown here but practically worshipped in Norwich, England, the soccer striker moved to our side of the universe less than a month ago to play with the San Jose Earthquakes. Considering he’s good enough to play in every league in a country that is unbelievably INSANE about soccer, you have to ask yourself, “Um, yeah, WHAT?”

Fans of the Norwich City Football Club were shocked, to say the least. Norwich City management unexpectedly released their hero in May without even giving them a proper chance for goodbye. And because of the loyal gentleman he is, Hucker-Hucker-Huckerby refused to play on any other English team that could possibly play against Norwich.

Their loss is our gain, soccer fan or not. And this is why:

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