it's really interesting to watch the metamorphosis of false and/or ill-informed in to easily spouted sound bytes. lalas was in charge of new york for less than a year. new york was a disaster when he took over and had been since the inception of the league. it was a disaster when he left. lalas was in charge of san jose for a tad longer than he was in new york. he was in charge when san jose won their second mls title and left the season that san jose went unbeaten at home on their way to a supporter shield win. in 2006 lalas inherited a very poor galaxy side and it remains today a very poor galaxy side. though i would argue the team we had in 2005 overachieved while the team we have in 2007 is underachieving. there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to level at alexi lalas, but pulling out the old "he ruined every club he's been at" is sensationalism worthy of fox news. at worst lalas has failed to make an impact on the clubs he's been at.
Lay off with all the "in-depth" analysis. Who cares. A person with half a brain can see that Frank Yallop sucks. We suck. The results speak for themselves. I hope Yallop does the honorable thing and resign immediately. I don't respect him. I don't like seeing his face on my TV.
Lalas needs to dump Yallop to save his own ass. LA is going to be run over by Houston on 3 days rest. It's only going to get uglier. Two bad losses this week = Lalas throwing Yallop under the train next Monday or Tuesday.....
FC Dallas the week after is no pushover either. There have been more than two bad losses this year...What has taken so long?
Lalas wasn't feeling the heat. He's got to be embarrassed by now. The best way for him to protect his butt is to play the blame game.
I don't want to abandon LAG. I just want to abandon Yallop and his "stars": Gordon, Gray, Pavon, Buddle, Jazic, Glinton, Martino, Kirk. They suck and make us look like idiots. The goats are NOT that good. It's just that we suck. Are we MLS or recreational league? Yallop needs not be fired at this point. He should do the only right thing: resign. And now.
You are correct that I shouldn't be speaking about his time at NY or LA. I saw first hand what he did in San Jose; at best he was a puppet for AEG. Please reference the San Jose boards during that time for a complete history.
NY is a much better side since he left....whatever the reason at this point they got better and it happened very soon after he was gone. When he came here we had a decent team....but the coaching was poor. We needed a few player changes and some consistency. He has come in and dumped a number of good young players and replaced them with.....well I don't know what. There has been too much turnover since his arrival. This is similar to his time at NY where they were happy to have him in the beginning but soon learned his deficiencies. He seems hard headed and it's his way only....certainly he hasn't single handedly ruined every club he's GM'd....but his track record at this point is very poor. At the very least he is not the guy to turn our club around as is evidenced by NY and now his time here where we have gone from mediocre/subpar( I don't agree that we were very poor) to the worst in the league. Also, someone else mentioned AEG as the common thread.....I haven't followed the league since it's inception but hasn't AEG been the owner from the beginning? If this is the case you could argue that they have done a good job over the years as a whole of putting a quality product on the field. This all started with Sampson...even teh Sigi years we were maybe going downhill but we were still in first place at the time of his firing. The first few years at the HDC were not that bad...it started with Sampson.
I highly doubt that he dumped those good young players w/o Yallop's input. In fact I would guess that it was Yallop who wanted Cannon at the expense of Hartman, Ugo and Herc. I assume it was also his idea to make one of the worst trades in team history in giving up Sturgis and Findley for Klein. It is also not Lalas' responsiblity to ensure that the team plays with a sense of urgency against your hometown rival with your playoff chances hanging by a thread. That falls on Yallop as well and he failed miserably last night. If I am not mistaken, AEG is not the original owner. I believe it was a group that incuded Danny Villanueve that was the original owner.
Since nobody really knows who is making the trades we have to assume that both are equally to blame. As I stated in another thread, I fault Lalas only slightly more than AEG and Frank. So I don't argue against any of your points. There are just so many problems right now its hard to comprehend who is to blame the most. Also....took a while to find this: http://www.ticketnest.com/sports-tickets/Los-Angeles-Galaxy/index.php "In 1995, Anschutz Entertainment Group became the owner of the primary team in Los Angeles and renamed it the Galaxy. The team joined Major League Soccer in its opening season of 1996"
Your points on NY and LA are correct, but you are mistaken about SJ. He WAS not in charge when SJ won in 2003. That was his last year in MLS playing for your Galaxy. Check it up. He was on the bench for the miracle comeback at SJ in the playoffs. The GM for SJ in '03 was Johnny Moore. Mr. Moore quit in 04 after seeing AEG lie to fans about discussions with Club America acquiring the Quakes. AEG promoted Lalas to GM in SJ. In 2004, one year after winning the Cup, SJ limped into the playoffs with a losing record and had a first round exit against KC. Lalas was the GM at the start of '05, but he left in early June. SJ had only played 4 games and were tied for last place in the west when he bailed (3 ties and a loss). The Quakes then went on a record run to win their only Supporter's Shield. SJ had a losing record with Lalas as GM. We did NOT win any hardware when he was here. SJ was one of the most consistent winning teams from 2001-2003. As soon as Lalas arrived, our record stumbled. As soon as he left, we started tearing it up again. My conclusion, he's a cancer.....
That's incorrect. AEG was not the original owners of the Galaxy. It was an investment group that sold the team to AEG. Don't remember the year or the name of the group, but I did some work for one of the investors and he wasn't a part of AEG. EDIT: Couldn't find the year AEG bought the team, but the original owners were LA Soccer Partners, headed by Los Angeles investor Marc Rapaport.
Wonder if someone could dig up the answer.....took me a while to find that bit of info and maybe it isn't even correct.
I added it to my post after you read it. It was LA Soccer Partners. Headed by Marc Rapaport. I can't find out what year they sold to AEG though.