These are troubled times in Los Angeles as the flagship team the LA Galaxy has gone two months without a win.
Ives Galarcep had written a couple of posts here and here about the state of the Galaxy as has SI’s Jonah Freedman here.
Freedman reports that “A source close to Major League Soccer’s glamour franchise tells me that Tim Leiweke, president and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Galaxy, made an unannounced visit to the team’s locker room this past week and issued a grim ultimatum: Get things on the right track in the next two weeks or there will be dire consequences.”
So what are the dire consequences? Well Anschutz basically has three choices. They can fire head coach Ruud Gullit, fire team president and GM Alexi Lalas or clean house starting with U.S. star Landon Donovan.
Head coach Ruud Gullit who is in his first year with the Galaxy was a very successful player in Europe and an average coach. He has the Galaxy playing attractive attacking soccer and I don’t think he is the reason that the Galaxy are leaking goals like a sieve.
Blowing up the Galaxy is an interesting concept, but doesn’t make much sense when they have #23. Beckham is the face of MLS and the league, Galaxy and Anschutz cannot afford to have the Galaxy is a rebuilding mode. Yes the Galaxy in their current form are not good enough to win the MLS Cup. They need a center-half and defensive midfield player, not a complete overhaul.
Selling Donovan and replacing him with a top quality center defender or defensive midfield player would be a good move for the team and would be a tweak to the existing team and not an overhaul
Ultimately the Galaxy team is overloaded with attacking players and that is the fault of the Galaxy GM Alexi Lalas. Lalas was a colorful player who has proven to be out of his depth as a General Manager. His GM career has been a disaster in San Jose, New York and now LA.
The Galaxy have needed defensive help since the opening game rout in Colorado and Lalas has been slow to react. With 40 goals conceded this season, the Galaxy have conceded 12 goals more than other team.
The X factor in all of this is David Beckham. Beckham’s influence within the L.A. Galaxy organization is growing and he blames the team struggles on the very reason MLS is now a known quantity internationally is short-sighted and ignores the bigger picture. If Beckham decides that Gullit, Lalas or Donovan is to blame for the teams problems then they will undoubtedly be gone.
The Galaxy need to do something soon if they want to rescue a season that promised so much. If I was Alexi Lalas I would start polishing up that resume as he is gong to need it soon.
