I'm not embarrassed. But the organization should be. Case in point: my facebook sidebar of "trending" is "ManU Buries Galaxy 7-0 in Van Gaal Debut." I'm gonna say that's a bad thing for the Galaxy organization to be have trending.
Agreed. Look, the experiment has failed. Lets try again in another 10 years.. If the teams the caliber of Man city and Man Utd want to come here let them play each other. Galaxy(and any other team for that matter) can sit on the sideline with pen and paper in hand. This does more harm than good.
I intend on contacting my rep about the Galaxy's role in all this. This was not sold by the Galaxy as what it ultimately was: a United promotional match. As a United fan, I would have likely attended regardless, however I am disappointed that: a) In our home town, we were treated like outsiders b) As a supposedly aspiring "superclub" we made our club look very much small time by acquiescing to effectively, a supporting role c) We failed to promote our own brand in this venture, despite the level of attention d) If we didn't have enough cajones or clout to get a larger billing in this event, we shouldn't have been involved at all - let Chivas USA or the Smurfs bend over instead
If the galaxy want to host these friendlies to make money, fine. But at least lets HOST them. We don't need to play in a Man U home game in Los Angeles. That helps Man U. I remember the Galaxy vs Barcelona game at the Rose Bowl, and while it was a mostly pro Barcelona crowd, it felt like a Galaxy event.
So Man U is serious with those shirts? Because that giant Chevy logo thing is both terrible and surreal at the same time. Does Chevy even make anything that would fit on the road in England? OTOH, we didn't even get to wear our real kits.
Fair points. I wonder if the decision to play rests with Finance or Marketing? Result will be different.
You'd be surprised. I didn't even think of Ford as a maker of trucks until I came here. They are known mostly in the UK as a maker of everyday runabout cars, like the Escort or Fiesta (and more recently the Focus). This is why I found it hilarious when they were trying to sell the Fiesta in California recently and went with their usual shtick "I love the milage... I get looks around town... people ask if it's a sports car... my dog prefers driving in my F150 to my S-Class Mercedes... etc". That said, the only Chevy I recall being remotely prominent in England was the PT Cruiser. EDIT: Hang on... the Cruiser is Chrysler isn't it?
There was no excuse for losing by such an embarrassingly large margin. We could have fielded a better team (Landon for Husidic, Omar for Leo), we could have come out with a better tactical game plan (more compact, better organized), and we could have been better prepared mentally for the game. You could see it in the faces at the beginning of the game - one team had the look of concentration and determination and it wasn't our team. And giving up two end-of-half goals due to silly mistakes - another sign of lack of mental toughness - changed a very respectable 1-0 half time score (which would be a ho-hum story today no matter how the second half subs performed) into a 3-0 thorough halftime drubbing. And of course there is no way to be sure but if Bruce had started Omar (who was clearly chomping at the bit to play) we might not have been scrambling as much defensively and may have shown more composure in the back. Leo may not have made glaring mistakes, but he isn't a leader than inspires confidence either. Omar handled the pressure of the WC with no problems and showed a talent for snuffing out some very dangerous scoring opportunities. I doubt the prospects of playing Man U would have bothered him in the least. Now I'm not saying that losing was anyone's fault - this is an excellent, motivated Man U team that was going to beat us no matter what we did. But losing 7-0 though was not inevitable. And it's not acceptable. It was Bruce's fault mainly - he chose to not play LD with the regulars, not to start Omar and instead go with Husidic and Leo (like Husidic can keep up with any Man U player, right?). And Bruce was the man responsible for getting the team prepared mentally and tactically for the game, which they weren't. I understand that we have league games coming up that are more important for our season. And to the ardent fans like us who write on these boards, the league games are far more important. But for the larger audience that the Galaxy and MLS are trying desperately to attract - a majority of them may not know if we beat Seattle 3-2 in our next game. But they know we got our asses wiped by a preseason EPL team. MLS is all about improving the general public's perception of the the league and are spending millions to bring back USMNT stars like Beasley and millions to foreign stars like Kaka to accomplish this. Because the commish knows that perception of quality matters - a lot. It affects how the media writes about us and most importantly it affects TV viewership (which drives salaries, and affects future player recruitment and retention, which drives quality of play, which drives TV viewership, and the cycle goes on and on). The performance of the Galaxy last night undid a lot of that work last night. And there was no excuse for it. Even against Man U.
Then we shouldn't be playing these games at all. We can't afford to give them 100% when sandwiched between matches against the top teams of both conferences. And frankly, it never improves the perception if we win anyway. Like I said earlier, it barely registered that we beat Juventus 3-1. It was deemed a minor surprise and chalked up to it being a non-competitive game against a major club in pre-season, not their full first XI and any other reason to dismiss it as relevant. I would like to know exactly how much money we make through these games. Is it worth the negative PR? And while I'm at it, **** the planet for only giving a shit when this happens to an MLS team. If Chelsea goes and bludgeons Rosenborg 8-0 in a friendly, I doubt that trends on ****ing twitter.
Because nobody is worried about the Scandanavian leagues. There is no potential there to ever rise much above the level they are at. But, deep down, a lot of people know that the wealth and size of the US create at least the potential for MLS to become a top five league. And MLS has been vocal about its aspiration to do just that. It's a little bit poking fun at our hubris, and a little bit of fear that we might just accomplish it.
Yeah, that's 100% true - there will be little to no credit when we beat a pre-season team even if its a major club. Best we can hope for is a) collect $$, b) no injuries, c) not lose in humiliating fashion, and maybe d) build a little confidence in how we play. We accomplished two of those goals but fell well woefully short on the other two.
Funny thing is, I believe Chevy did/does have a European division at the time they signed their deal with United. However, I read a few weeks ago that they will be closing up shop there by the end of the year. Since then they've been spinning it as "United's exposure in Asia" will help market the Chevy brand there. Seems like a big "oooops" to me.
One positive: right after the Man U's first goal a pretty good chance was created going the other way, ending with a pass from Gargan to Sarvas that he one-times on goal. I thought at the time he did pretty good to make a decent shot of the pass. His shooting the last few weeks show a night-and-day improvement over last season, IMO.
Maybe Chevrolet is replacing Vauxhall. I know Opel has been losing money for years so perhaps they are rebranding with Chevrolet. There is a Chevy web site, but the Camero and Corvette are left hand drive so not exactly UK friendly.
I think I read in the WSJ that the guy who negotiated that deal for Chevrolet is no longer with the company. His replacement has given it a luke-warm endorsement but the rational is that people all over the world will be seeing that shirt.
Not disagreeing but if so, its really, really dumb to have their UK website show pictures of cars with left hand drive, if their objective is to actually sell cars. On the other hand, given that this is a car company that lies about many things and has knowing sold unsafe cars for over a decade, its about what you would expect.
I was there. I laughed when Robbie tripped that guy, after getting shouldered off the ball. I was heartened that Landon got a cheer when he lined up to come in. I liked Mendiola. I loved Friend. Otherwise, that was NOT FUN AT ALL. P.S. I do know better, but the dang kid wanted to go.
Repped. A zillion times repped. After reading this thread and thinking of the long term brand impact, I gotta think we just should have passed. Another example of a condescending as all get out story that gets written during these friendlies: http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...ly-arsenals-arsene-wenger-says-gedion-zelalem Gee. Thanks Wenger for telling us what we already knew and making us out to be a nation of plebes. EDIT: And then there's this treasure: http://www.givemesport.com/488922-la-galaxy-left-floundering-by-improving-mls The article makes a fair point that many of us has made about needing a fresh face, but it's also littered with inaccuracies and just a state of WWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH that doesn't reflect reality. All stemming from the Man U game.
^ Good finds. Thanks for sharing. Further indications of the damage done by this excersize in futility.