LAG Best XI all time

I don't know if this is just my personal bias... but I'm not sure I'd put Lalas and Becks on this list. There's definitely an argument to be made for both of them, but I feel like they both kind of showed up and rode their teammates' coattails to glory. Not sure who I'd replace them with, though.

 

Interesting that they didn't have a right back or a d-mid in the top 10 players. So it wasn't a greatest by position. I didn't follow the Galaxy that closely back then, but I would have thought that Ezra Hendrickson or Chris Albright should have made the list for their play at right back.

 

Ezra? LOL come on man. I love the guy but he was not great.

 

Okay, I didn't follow (as I said) the Galaxy that much before 2005. Who would be the best Galaxy right back of all time? There aren't that many candidates: Ezra, Albright, Franklin, and perhaps Klien. Looking at the stats (since I didn't see them play that much), I would rank Ezra at the top.

 

No Danny Pena? F...that list

 

The other big omissions from my point of view were Cien and Robin Fraser. Lalas? Yes he was an important pert of some good teams, but I don't think he was the defender Robin F was - Robin was the bedrock of the defense in the early years.

 

Ezra would get no playing time in today's MLS. I think Albright wins by default.

 

Cien was on there, as he should
be. Good point about Fraser.

 

I don't remember Ezra much. Between Albright and Franklin I need to go with Franklin. Klein isn't there

 

I think Albright was a good RB, a converted role from forward. He seem to improve as a player overall when that switch was made.

 

Albright had a modicum of technique...Franklin, none at all.

 

Who belongs ahead of Beckham?

 

See @TrickHog's post above.

That said, as you can tell by my original post, I'm ambivalent about Becks. Truth be told, Becks probably starts over Junhi if you've got Cien as your other CM, but so does Gerrard. However, you could make the same argument for Gio and Cobi. If they were both on the squad right now, Gio may well get slotted in ahead of Jones, but there's no question who has been the better Galaxy player. In that light, I think Junhi made the team better on the field. Especially when you take into account that Beckham essentially wrecked the squad and publicly dissed the organization before Arena showed up and straightened things out. In the end, Donovan, Keane, Gonzo, and Junhi had more to do with the last dynasty than Becks did.

 

Solving the Jones/Beckham debate is pretty easy. Cobi was never better than the 1998 season when he was played at forward. So Cobi up top with Keane (Ruiz’s one great season and the emotional impact of the first cup don’t cut it for me), Beckham wide right. Done and done.

Code:

          Keane - Jones
Donovan - Cien - Juninho - Beckham
Dunivant - Omar - Fraser - Albright
            Hartman

 

The problem is that Jones was never really a forward. He was an out-and-out winger. I think it's really tough to put him ahead of Ruiz up top. Besides, Becks played as a CM for most of his time with us, not a winger. So in this lineup, you've got two guys playing out of position.

My personal conundrum with Becks is all the negatives he brought on and off the field. In his first two years with the club, he (and Lalas) let his ego basically turn LA into a laughing stock. 2008 was a train wreck. When Bruce was brought in midway through 2009, he cleaned things up, restoring Donovan to the captaincy, and making Becks respect his role with the team. However, then he left for Milan again in 2010, tore his achilles, and then slotted back into the lineup in mid-September to be part of the supports' shield-winning squad. After the season he tried again to get a loan to Tottenham. However, LA finally forced him to abide by his contract and play a full season in LA, which I think was clearly his best. He contributed greatly to the SS/Cup-winning squad, as well as the cup repeat in 2012.

However it's tough to get past the fact that, for the first two-thirds of his tenure with LA, he was a part-time player where the team succeeded largely in spite of him rather than because of him. The 2011 and 2012 seasons, Becks finally showed up for the team. It finally felt like he was really committed. However, by the end of 2011 Keane had come in, and it was clear that the squad was built around him and Donovan. When Becks left, Sarvas stepped in and, while being a different player, was arguably just as valuable to the team as his predecessor.

So there's no question that, at times, Becks played like a best XI guy for LA... but you could say the same for Sarvas. In the totality of his work, I'm not sure that Becks beats out Junhi (or Ruiz). Here's a straight-up comparison:

Code:

         Yrs   GP    G    A  Cup  SS
Juninho   6   206   19   28   3    2
Beckham   6   115   18   48   2    2
Ruiz      4    93   62   10   1    1

Actually, looking at those stats, I'm a little more swayed by @Lazy Assed Assassin's argument to exclude Ruiz.

 

Sure and no one’s ever going to agree on this because it’s such a subjective thing. Are we talking about raw talent, the player when they were with the Galaxy, what about the relative strength of the competition at the time. Does the off-field stuff weigh in or not?

My take is you’re building a Galaxy team of current & former players at the peak of their form for LA. For Cobi he was played as an out-and-out forward in 1998 which was his best ever year. Despite missing a large portion of the campaign for the World Cup that year he finished 2nd in goals and just behind Stern John for the Golden Boot. Cobi never came close to replicating that form, unlike say Donovan who you could argue to the end of time whether 2014 or 2010 or 2008 were his best years. I also realize it’s contradictory to say Cobi played his best football as a forward, while Beckham rarely played on the right for LA, and certainly in none of his most productive years, but it’s my fantasy team so there

 

I don't think we ever saw Beckham play right mid on a Galaxy best XI basis for more than a few games. In 2008, my recollection was Klien running overlapping run after overlapping run and Becks basically standing around afterward and certainly at no time playing more than a modicum of positional defense while Klein bust his gut to get back. I vividly recall him refusing to take any defensive role in corner kicks, lamely standing alone, outside the top right side of the 18. More importantly, I remember him tanking after mid-season that year. To honest (and while I am sure there were others) I only remember one game against Seattle (I believe in the playoffs but I don't recall the year), where I saw the Becks play a right mid worthy of legend. Otherwise he was, IMO, more effective as a center mid with Juni behind him.

 

Thank you. That was the game. I found it and the next game against Seattle on YouTube and rewatched the highlights.

I remember thinking to myself, that it was the first time, I had seen Beckham play all over the field, for the Galaxy and make great recovery runs. It was also a surprise to me because other people (Birchell mainly) had played right mid for most of the season (of course David had been out most of that season due to the Achilles tear).

 

I don't think he's an all-time XI but no one has mentioned Calichman yet, and he probably deserves a spot on the bench somewhere. I'm probably just tinted by nostalgia but I've got a soft spot for our original ginger.

 

Yeah before Omar I think it’d be Calichman - Fraser in central defense for me. Like you probably a bit of nostalgia than actual merit there.