Bruce addressed the captain issue in the latest ExtraTime Radio broadcast. We are making a big deal out of nothing. Apparently last year's vice-captain wasn't even Becks - it was Gregg Berhalter (LAG Confidential pointed this out in an article). (who knew?) But Gregg didn't play a lot of games and got injured, so when Becks was on the field, and Landon wasn't, armband went to Becks. Come to think of it, when Gregg was on the field and Landon wasn't, odds are, Gregg wore the armband. With Gregg moving on, the team voted on a new vice-captain, and it was Robbie. Endorsed by the way by Beckham - which is something that Bruce points out on the broadcast. So it sounds to me like old vice captain went out, new vice captain went in. What is more interesting is that Robbie got the vote from the team over Becks. Maybe he's more inspiring in the locker room? Maybe it's his national team presence and the fact he's still captaining somewhere? Who the heck knows? But it was a normal process the team went through and has zero to do with Bruce and Becks' relationship. Now your first part of the post is more interesting to me. It sounds more and more to me like there's some injury that the Galaxy are trying to hide. They've done this before (hello, LD of 2011), and the way they are hiding him from the public makes it seem like they want no one to know. On Extratime Radio Bruce says "nothing I read about our team is accurate." Yeah, it's because you're a clam sometimes Bruce.
Have we ever thought about a 4-1-2-1-2????? -----------------Saunders-------------- Franklin-----AJD-----Boyens(?)--Dunivant ------------------Juninho------------------- -----------Sarvas-------Beckham---------- ------------------Donovan----------------- -----------Buddle------Keane------------
Was it just me who knew that Gregg was the team's vice captain last year and not Becks? Perhaps the reason Becks is not the vice captain this year is because he didn't want to be? Perhaps that's the reason for the last year as well. Plus, after all the fiasco people made when he was captaining this team at one point and how people said he was not entitled / not qualified to be the team's captain at all, if I was him I wouldn't want to be captain either. Bruce said Becks himself endorsing Keane to be the vice captain and voted him, which means Becks didn't/doesn't want to be. I'm sure when both LD and Keane gone sometime Becks will be the captain in their absence. As for his injury, I think Bruce had overused him since the start of the season. Perhaps he does suffer the back spasm again. Perhaps he's just tired, physically n emosionally, so Bruce decided to rest him for the away game like he did last season. What makes this whole situation look worse or more than it is, is the fact that it's happening after the worst lost in which Becks was substituted.
Betting sites have SKC (not surprisingly) favored, albeit not TERRIBLY so. I think if SKC wins dominantly this thread will alive and hopping tomorrow.
That will be the worst! I think something has to happen if we get creamed, Bruce has to step up and show an urgency for this freefall. I say trade some useless defender that will go unnamed throw cristman and rooney's stunt double, And get a quality defender with a trade or get allocation $$$ and let's go get us an international defender someone who can grasp the idea of defending our 3 sticks!
Panic button being hit? I hesitate on it right now. What has me throwing crap at the wall is the lack of effort! We have no fight, no heart, no idea out there. There seems to be this gapping hole in the formation (gonzilla we miss you badly) that has everyone worried and instead of distribution of the ball from midfield they are more worried about defending. Which in turn leaves our strikers waiting for service that is slower than denny's on sunday after church on mother's day!
I actually have been contemplating this formation. I'd switch Magee with Buddle just cause Buddle has been terrible so far. I worry that this formation would make us far too narrow though. Franklin and Dunivant would have to put in work down those flanks.
After the way the defence played today, I think we don't need to hit the panic button yet. What needs to be working on now is righten the midfield. If the midfield is great, automatically our offence will be okay. However, I vote for benching Franklin right now. Makes me missed Birchall terribly at the same time. Buddle also needs to be bench. Keane and Barret is OKAY. Buddle and Magee is OKAY. Magee and Keane is BETTER. But...Keane and Buddle together is DOOM. At least that's what it is now.
Man.. you guys are real patient. If it were up to you guys, Juan Pablo Angel would still be leading our line!
Chivas wins? We're in last. We've hit rock bottom now. The only lower we can go is to lose on home soil. In any case all bets likely are off now. So we can officially stop playing up to pre-season expectations and start getting back to quality soccer.
This! 100% this! We, or the guys, should stop thinking that they are the real deal because they are not. The media is not helping as well. I guess we should start from zero again. Think of ourselves like the underdog again a la 2009. Yes, we have to go back to 2009 again and fight for every game. Then we will have success again. Be humble. Be realistic. Go Galaxy!
Man this is an EFN nightmare! I cannot believe that sh/tvas have moved up the standings in front of us! That to me is the ultimate kick in the bulox. The meyers kid is showing some promise though, I think we need to give him the starting spot and send boyens to the USL to stink up some other club. Franklin needs to ride the pine and think long and hard about what position he wants to play. My only hope now is that we don't fall too far behind were we have to limp into the playoffs. And by that time the rock (gonzilla), Leonardo, and meyer (with alot of game fitness) can form the great wall of Los Angeles!
WWWHHHHAAAATTTTT!?!?!!??! You aren't already panicking? SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! I am with most people that the way the season goes we could end up hot at the end and win the cup and totally forget about the beginning. A good cup run won't "live up to the expectations" this team was saddled with but is the most we can realistically hope for in the playoff format. The CCL is really the black mark that I don't think this year's team will ever live down. Especially with most journalists saying that we won't be able to keep this team together for another year. We looked primed to make a run at it but totally screwed our offseason workout plan. I am just waiting for the team to get their collective zen on and get healthy and more in shape and see where that leads us. Hopefully at the end it will be us that have the last laugh over the other league teams.
I just don’t understand this line of thinking. Every team in MLS goes through a poor run of form like this. Some more severe than others, some longer than others. Remember last season, RSL was hot on our trail for the Shield when all of a sudden they gave up three hat tricks in three games and they were done. 1996 D.C. United started out something like 1-5-1, SKC didn’t win their first game until match 16 last year. There are 29 matches left, 87 points. If the players had the same mentality to the early season as many people here we’re screwed.
Agree 100% The only thing keeping Boyens on our roster is Leonardo still not being match fit. We need him ready to go for depth before we can ship off Boyens. I think Juninho needs a massive kick in the arse too, he has looked a ghost of what he was last year. Beckham has shown a lot of fight in a couple matches and completely hopeless others. Buddle and Keane obviously do not jell at all, they had no preseason together tho so I can't blame them. I bring this all down to one single thing. (it's not Omar) We had NO preseason as a full team AT ALL. We let the players get what they wanted so Keane and Donovan were off in England while the rest of the team was practicing here, Gonzo was off getting injured and Buddle and Juninho were not even with us! That is 4 starting players on our current roster that had barely a preseason with the team. How can you expect almost half your team gone and still jell as a unit!???????
I'm confused by what you think I said. I think that realistically most teams, even ours, hopes for a cup run at the end of the year. As has been said ad nauseum, a team can get hot at the end of the year and go on to win the cup. That's just what the playoff format does for any team. The SMASH thing was sarcastic so if you didn't get that, my bad. I should have put the emoticon but I did a quick reply and there weren't any. I was basically saying that the expectations put on our team, whether fairly or unfairly, would mean that most think we should do the domestic treble or something to that effect. That we should have flown out of the gate winning 5 or 6 nil and set all kinds of records. In a roundabout way I was just trying to preach restraint and saying that by the end of this season with a trophy or two in tow, we could look back at this season as still a success. Even a cup run at the end would still be a success to me because of the playoff format. However, no matter what this team does, the CCL will always be a black mark against it. I'm not saying they would have beat Santos but I would have at least wanted them to give it a try. Especially with it looking like this might be the last year before we have to start really replenishing our roster again.
Agreed. Now only if we could identify what we changed (besides starting Barret) so we can replicate week in and week out.
A lot changed from the KC game, some replicable, others not. Here are a few of the big changes: Personnel: Lopes in, AJ out. Becks in, Stephens out. Barrett in as starter, Buddle out as starter Tactical: (midgame) Landon switches sides with Magee. Opponent: Portland was conference bottom dweller with 1 win, 3 losses, 1 tie with 7 goals for and 8 goals allowed. SKC was 5-0-0, also with 7 goals for but only 1 goal allowed. Location: Home rather than Away Luck factor: Referee mistake disallows Portland goal So there were a lot of differences. We control the 1st two - personnel and tactics. The last 3 - opponent strength, location, and luck -- are out of our hands so we can do nothing to replicate. Note that all of the "out of our hands" factors favored us in the Portland game. The opposite was true vs SKC.