I don't know much about blogging, but I do know that when I walk away from something I posted and keep thinking of better ways to make my point that I posted a bunch of gibberish.
As much as I like bits and pieces of my original post on the reported chilly tiff between LA Galaxy GM Alexi Lalas and LA head coach Frank Yallop, here's another, shorter, better (peanut-butter sandwich cookie) crack at it.
Santino Quaranta, a player deemed either surplus or irrelevant to requirements in LA, ain't exactly a neutral observer, but the fire-sale mentality seizing the Galaxy front office is there for all to see. Further, something clearly isn't right in LA's half of the Home Depot Center. After the players - who normally don't get cut down like the loose women in horror movies as they are now - the likeliest culpable parties include the general manager, who stocks the team with players, or the coach, who decides which of said players hit the field on game day and it what formation, etc.
Regarding Lalas and Yallop, one of these men has a record to boast of, while the other does not: Yallop has two titles with San Jose, while Lalas has two stints in the GM position, one with the MetroStars and the current gig with LA, in which he proved better at moving personnel than building a competitive roster. Given that, it seems likelier that Lalas is the problem...an impression backed up by the player merry-go-round he has currently set on "dizzy." By the time the old players get on the same page as the new players, newer ones replace them. At this rate, LA will "know itself" some time around Week 25. That doesn't seem like a bbq recipes for success, never mind a situation in which a coach can operate.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say in the original. You'll find links and a couple decent phrases in there, but that's about it.
(##########)
4 comments:
I liked the original! One has to wonder whether Beckham arrives at the Galaxy in spite of Lalas. Also, there's some rumours out there started by Shep that Donovan is fed up and looking for a way out (or the front office is fed up with Donovan). I wonder if a) this is true, and b) is it Lalas's fault.
Crap. Now that I've read them both again, I like the first post better as well....no pleasing some people.
As for Donovan, I'm to the point where, if I could find a way to blame Alexi for global warming, I'd do it.
I'm not disagreeing with you. At all. Yet at the same time, would the league be where it is without Alexi? Is there kind of an "only Nixon could go to China" element at work here? (And feel free to tell me I'm blowing smoke, because I was only peripherally following MLS as the events I'm talking about were going on, and your historical knowledge of all things MLS is encyclopedic. Not flattery, just fact.)
But wasn't LA the driving force behind the DP rule? I always got the feeling it was an AEG thing, with LA in the driver's seat. And who was the public face of LA at that time? Who was the dealmaker? Alexi Lalas.
The DP was an idea whose time had come, and I believe with all my heart that it will be a good thing for the league -- if only because it's the first step in lifting the salary cap and dismantling some of the barriers between MLS and the rest of the world. But it wouldn't be nearly as much of a league-changing thing if we hadn't brought in that one huge player to get the attention. And who brought in that player? Alexi Lalas.
Obviously we can argue that the DP-Beckham experiment isn't successful this year if LA isn't successful. And I'm pretty sure they won't be. This year. But this is about more than one team's one-year win-loss percentage. Once Beckham signed, what other names did you start hearing? And not just washed up has-beens, either. (Although there was a lot of that.) This was because Beckham signed on first, and for the first time MLS became a possibility.
But would Beckham even be here, getting MLS all this media attention and, yes, cash if not for Alexi?
I think this is a big leap for MLS, regardless of how LA does.
And yes, now it could be argued that he's served his purpose and should be moving on. But that's a story for another time. For me at least.
I can't tell you you're blowing smoke - and wouldn't in any case. I can't say one way or another that Alexi's participation in the Beckham deal was pivotal; only a handful of people could know that and I'm sure as hell not one of them.
All I have is speculation and here's what it tells me: Beckham to MLS was always going to happen - maybe not as soon as it did, but it was always going to happen. And LA was the only market for a player like Beckham; New York, maybe, but LA is SO natural. And I agree with you that it's a good, even great, thing in terms of publicity (though for how long?), but, seriously, I think Real Madrid snubbing him had more to do with the timing than anything.
If Lalas made it happen sooner, though, he does deserve credit; this is the difference between getting a player on the up and getting Lothar Mattheus.
But the rest of Lalas' trades tell me this man is not GM material.
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