I've been thinking a lot of Klein's comments about club identity and culture. I've also been thinking about what I would do if I was him. I decided to turn this on you guys. I'll start: 1) This is LA. Top to bottom we are an attacking team. Academy, G2, and 1st team all emphasize attack. 2) with LAFC next door, I emphasize the Galaxy as the blue collar hard working team that represents all of LA. All our DPs have to be hard working guys. No one is bigger than the team. We win. Period. 3) I hire a GM. I hire Dunivant or Curtis. 4) I put all my money on GBS or Berhalter. I look for a coach that knows the league, plays to attack and wants to play young players. 5) I make the game day experience the best in the league. Your turn!
Thanks for the vote of confidence. What's the pay? Do I get free tacos? Hell if it means I can get rid of certain players and never have to watch them play for the Galaxy again that will be compensation enough.
I think it's pretty hard to specify a particular playing style or "spirit" given all the constraints on the roster. I think the Galaxy are one exception in that we will typically have a big name, and I don't see us going away from that, but otherwise, you just find players who fit the ideas of the current coach. Here's what I would do: 1) Improve scouting. We all know about how the team doesn't keep a list of potential players and that needs to change. In addition, we need to do more scouting of South America. 2) The academy. So far, it's pretty much been a failure but I'm not really sure how to fix it. Part of the problem is the lack of training compensation so that I expect most of the quality prospects to do what Llanez and Mendez did: don't sign with the Galaxy and then go to Europe when they're 18. Too early to say, but I think there's a serious chance that the academy system isn't going to work very well for MLS. I would lobby the USSF/MLS to work on this issue but that's more what an owner would do rather than a director of soccer operations. 3) I'd hire Dunivant for an assistant GM role to give him a chance to learn and also to get a better look at him. 4) I'm a "systems" guy so I would have a budget for each position in the abstract. Say that a DMid is allocated $500k. Have a list of players that you think would come at that price and be worth it. It's OK to get value, but be very skeptical about paying somebody much more than the position budget since it will bite you down the line. This will sometimes cause you to miss opportunities but it enforces a discipline to plan for the long run. Too often we've made bad signing decisions in order to win now, and then we don't win now and we find ourselves in a salary bind the next year.