Everything is going right for the San Jose Earthquakes this year.
The league leaders landed former Hermann Trophy winner Marcus Tracy on Thursday in a weighted lottery in which they had only a 4.6 percent chance of winning, the second-lowest probability of the eight MLS teams in the running. (See the weighted percentage of each club going into the lottery.)
Each club's chances of winning the rights to the forward was determined by their performance in the last 34 matches dating back to last year while also factoring in playoff performance. Vancouver and Colorado were precluded from participating based on winning previous lotteries this year.
“We liked what we saw of Marcus when he finished his career at Wake Forest,” said Earthquakes head coach Frank Yallop in a club statement. “He’s an athletically gifted striker and is dangerous in the air. We look forward to bringing him in.”
Tracy, a forward who has spent the last three years at Danish club Aalborg BK, was awarded via a weighted lottery after declining an MLS contract in 2009. He was drafted by the Houston Dynamo in the 2009 SuperDraft but decided to embark on a career in Denmark which was riddled with knee injuries.
The Pennsylvania native, who has been out of contract since January, has been working on a comeback and was recently training with the Philadelphia Union.
Tracy, a star player for Wake Forest, has already signed an MLS contract and gets set to join an already potent attack in San Jose featuring the likes of Golden Boot leader Chris Wondolowski, Steven Lenhart, Alan Gordon and Simon Dawkins.
He will also be joining former Wake Forest players Sam Cronin and Ike Opara, with whom he helped the Demon Deacons to a NCAA title in 2007.
The Quakes have some good fortune when it comes to lotteries. They also won one last year, claiming current back-up goalkeeper David Bingham in January 2011.
