I'm interested in opinions on who's the better player. Define "better" however you'd like. Or, compare Herzog to the 2000-2001 Cien, back when he (Cien) could still keep up. Who would you rather have? I didn't really follow the Galaxy until Cien was well out of his prime so I'm wondering if you old-timers can chime in. (I understand that Herzog is also past his prime but...)
For the time being, I like Cien because it looked like he made runs in addition to passing and tried helping a lot on the D, from my recollection, but of course my memory ain't all great.
I wouldn't say one is better than the other, just different. Both have great vision and play the ball very well. The only real difference I've noticed is that Cien played a lot more short passes while Herzog plays longer balls into space. Both are great, however, I wish we'd got the chance to see Herzog a few years ago.
Exactly my feelings. Cien played more the Latin style and Herzog is more the direct style of a good portion of Europe. They are both great examples of good players with those styles. Cien also had some great free kick skills as long time Galaxy fans know well. The direct style will work well for us if our defense is able to play the way they did Sunday in the future.
Agree with those before me. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Unfortunately, we are now comparing a slightly discolored, moldy orange and a worm-infested, desiccated apple. But back in the day, that was one juicy, refreshing orange and one big, shiny apple. I'll let everyone debate who is the orange and who is the apple. -Trick "I am the eggplant" Hog
Cien's role was also very different. He was there from the beginning, one of the allocated "stars," and therefore was a team leader in a way that Andy could not be expected to be. LAG was SOOOO lucky that their allocated star also happened to be a model dedicated professional! Andy comes into an existing situation, whereas Cien helped form the very character of the GaLAxy as a club. In many ways the club was built around him and what he could do. Cien was closer to his prime than Andy is now, so we got a truer picture of his skills. And, quite frankly, the level of competition that Cien saw in the early years was not nearly the standard that we see now. For all of those reasons, it is impossible to really compare who is "better." I second PZ's thought on style difference. In their own ways, each is a very effective playmaker. And, while we have had a number of pretty effective "Latin" style players, Andy is really a whole different cat from what we have seen before. He clearly does things that Cien couldn't - or at least never wanted to do.
The Orange. Does anybody think we could have used both. One using short passes and direct attacks on defenses while the other dropped bombs in the area or connected with lethal accuracy from long distance. the appange or orapple system.