2009 L.A. Galaxy: palpably underwhelming?

It's with a mixture of ambivalence and relief that I present the 2009 Los Angeles Galaxy thread.

 

Assuming that David Beckham will be unavailable to play due to his loan stint with AC Milan, the Australian League's Queensland Roar canceled their scheduled friendly with the Galaxy.

 

well that will save you a few $$$$$$$$$...why not try and get the hoofer to run your team ??????...i might be coming out next year so stock up on the beer .arty1:

 

Oddly enough, it's a good way for the guys at the lower end of the salary scale to make a few bucks off the salary cap. These junkets are big money earners for the Galaxy, which is why we fans hate them and AEG loves them.

I got beer for you, brother.

 

Landon Donovan to train with Bayern Munich, reuniting with Juergen Klinsmann

Klinsi was a technical advisor for the Galaxy for a few years, so he knows Donovan well.

Not sure if this is testing the waters, staying fit or a done deal pending negotiations with the MLS who owns his contract.

It will be sad when he leaves the G's because, frankly...he's all we got.

 

you could always sign thierry henry or some other faded former premiership star. it would be a novel experiment but i think galaxy can pull it off!

 

You know, we are just the team that can pull off that crazy scheme.

Crazy like a fox

 

Jovan Kirovski back with the G's...like the title says, 'palpably underwhelming'.


Attendance statistics for 2008 compared to 2007 for all MLS teams:
Team ||||||||||| G |||||| Total ||||||||| Avg. ||||||||||| ‘07 Avg. |||| Diff.
______________________________________________________________
Los Angeles ||| 15 |||||| 390,132 |||||| 26,009 |||||| 24,252 |||||| 7.20%
Houston |||||||| 15 |||||| 254,083 |||||| 16,939 |||||| 15,883 |||||| 6.60%
Chivas USA |||| 15 |||||| 226,717 |||||| 15,114 |||||| 14,305 |||||| 5.70%
New England ||| 15 |||||| 263,706 |||||| 17,580 |||||| 16,787 |||||| 4.70%
Chicago |||||||| 15 |||||| 255,511 |||||| 17,034 |||||| 16,490 |||||| 3.30%
Salt Lake ||||||| 15 |||||| 242,690 |||||| 16,179 |||||| 15,960 |||||| 1.40%
Toronto |||||||| 15 |||||| 301,613 |||||| 20,108 |||||| 20,130 |||||| -0.10%
New York ||||| 15 |||||| 238,925 |||||| 15,928 |||||| 16,530 |||||| -3.60%
Columbus ||||| 15 |||||| 219,332 |||||| 14,622 |||||| 15,230 |||||| -4.00%
DC United|||||| 15 |||||| 297,531 |||||| 19,835 |||||| 20,967 |||||| -5.40%
Colorado |||||| 15 |||||| 204,884 |||||| 13,659 |||||| 14,749 |||||| -7.40%
Kansas City ||| 15 |||||| 160,286 |||||| 10,686 |||||| 11,586 |||||| -7.80%
Dallas ||||||||| 15 |||||| 195,356 |||||| 13,024 |||||| 15,145 |||||| -14.00%
San Jose |||||| 15 |||||| 205,695 |||||| 13,713 |||||| N/A ||||||||||| N/A
______________________________________________________________
MLS TOTAL || 210 |||||| 3,456,461 |||||| 16,459 |||||| 16,770 |||||| -1.90%

 

There needs to be a new word developed to describe how I feel about David Beckham and the Galaxy.

However, two pictures say a thousand words.

 

Who's the chap with the trophy Fitz?

 

night man, aaahaaah, champion of the day man, aaahaaah. master of karate and friendship for everyone

 

I'm delighted to see world famous soccerballer David Beck-ham promoting fish fingers. Finally something worth promoting with his image.

 

It's Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, one of the top goal scorers for Boca Juniors and the MVP of the MLS Cup game between the Columbus Crew and New York Red Bull. Crew won 3-1, and he assisted on all three goals and pounded one off the crossbar as well. He is holding the new MLS Cup trophy.

He's everything Beckham isn't. His team won the Supporters Shield (best win/loss record on the season), the MLS Cup and he got MVP of the season and the game.

His playing salary is 1/10th that of Beckmans $5,000,000/year.

3 of the 4 goals scored were put in by players who the Galaxy had traded away in recent years.

Other tidbits:
The MLS Cup is formally known as "THE PHILLIP ANSCHUTZ CUP". Phil Anschutz is the Galaxy's owner.

The Columbus Crew's coach, Sigi Schmid, coached the Galaxy to their first title and the following year, midway through the season while the Galaxy were in FIRST PLACE, the Galaxy's ownership inexplicably fired him saying they wanted 'more exciting' football. The Galaxy hired trainwreck Steve Sampson hot off his miserable failure of a performance as US National team coach in the '98 World Cup... Meanwhile, Sigi took the rest of the season off, got hired by Columbus the next season, built his club painstakingly over the next three years and got to come home to AEG's Home Depot Center, home the LA Galaxy and snatch the Anschutz trophy off the table and hold it aloft to Anschutz himself.

The Galaxy on the other hand decided to trade away all their young players for expensive overrated no name foreign losers and MLS vets way beyond their prime, and spend their whole salary cap on Beckham, who dislodges the incumbent coach for Ruud Gullitt who never figured out what league he was in or how the salary cap works. Result? Bottom of the table.
My team is ****.

 

Here's what we did after the MLS Cup game which took place in our stadium.

We invited some of the away supporters to the park to eat tacos, drink beer and do a bit of the old bicylce joust. You need to see the videos to really get how stupid and fun it is. The link has several. I'm the guy who keeps shouting BOO when people fall off. I was impaired due to alcohol. My mom would be upset with me for that.

 

MLS official Ivan Gazidis heads to Arsenal's management

Kind of an interesting MLS related development.
Sort of.



Actually the link in the post above about what we did after the MLS cup is much more interesting.

 

The Galaxy play a friendly, a stupid ridiculous friendly, against the Oceania All-Stars in New Zealand in about an hour.

Boo friendlies!
The enterprising masochist could find the game on the innerwebs, but...

DON'T DO IT! YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!

 

AEG President Tim Leiweke was interviewed for the Guardian. It's pretty interesting...
Leading The Revolution:
Sports tycoon Tim Leiweke explains why the UK is at the centre of the global sports revolution

The LA Kings take on the Anaheim Ducks at the O2 Arena. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/***** Images

Continued below.

 

Tim Leiweke needs to get some rest and stop *****ing things up.

 

Landon Donovan rumor to Everton...
So sayeth the Telegraph...

 

At last, things look to be getting back to normal.

Beckham going away on loan to Milan, looks to be permanent. Now we can use his salary chunk to buy players who can actually help us instead of sell shirts.

The worst part of the Beckham era is that to make room, we had to gut the core of young players we had coming up through the ranks to keep him. They all now play at other teams, and we need to bring in shaky role players to fill the gaps.

It will take years to recuperate from it.

----------
Donovan also appears likely to stay at Bayern Munchen. He scored some nice goals in the appearances he's made so far, and had some great passes for assists on other goals.

His loss will REALLY adversely affect the Galaxy, which is the opposite of Beckham whose presence adversely affected the Galaxy.

 

I'm surprised Galaxy aren't looking at a long term loan deal for Beckham. He still has three years on his contract doesn't he? He's not going to be a top player in this continent in two years time, let alone three, so it'd be good for Galaxy to have the option to bring him back. Maybe they'll maintain their links?

 

For shirt sales, that would be a great idea.

However, there isn't anyone here who thinks having Beckhaman on the team as a player is a good idea though. He gobbles up way too much of the salary cap to make it worthwhile if the idea is to be a winning team.

The structure of the league's salary cap would have to change in order to make it work, and the league is evenly split between groups of teams who DO NOT want it changed and those who really do.

I like the sound of "on loan from the LA Galaxy", though we all know what sort of a joke that is. In the end, I really don't think he understood the league's rules on the salary cap (like Ruud Gullit's failure) and therefore how shallow the talent pool is here as a result.

He seems to be doing very well in Milan now though...more power to him, but I'm glad to see him gone.

 

It'd work for shirt sales and maybe he could appear for Galaxy a couple of times in the European off season. But the fans want rid then I suspect his American adventure is over for now.

Another question for you: taking everything into account (expected fee from Milan plus the increase in various revenues streams as a result of him signing, minus his wages etc) will the Galaxy come out of this with any kind of profit?

 

Galaxy already made every penny of their 5 year projected salary of $32.5 million. Already. Probably in short sales alone...not to mention appearance fees and their slice of the pie from huge gate results at Galaxy Away games. They sold the shirt sponsorship for about $5million, IIRC. Most other MLS squads get closer to $1million. The Galaxy already sold out home games before Beckhaman showed up, so he can't clain credit for that, but he can claim the increased full season ticket rate. It went from 15% to nearly 50% (I'm guesstimating).

As a business decision, the Beckham deal was very smart.

As a football decision, it was a disaster. This is due to the Salary Cap which few fans comprehend. They just think "Galaxy sucks".

Most American soccer fans will be sad to see Beckham go. Only LA Galaxy faithful and those who understand the league financials are glad to see him gone.

 

personally, i'm gutted. if only because in about a year i should be in la watching footie and without beckham and donovan it seems oh so pedestrian.

 

The huge opening in the salary cap will get filled with someone...it should be interesting who comes in.

One way or the other at any rate...

 

watford fans used to have that optimism till blizzard

 

Ouch. Watford has really gotten dreadful in the last few months.
Good thang about the G's is there is nowhere to go but up. Right?

 

The negotiations between AEG and AC Milan look to be very very interesting. I assume AC Milan confuses the Galaxy's position on the table with AEG's business acumen.

They offered 5 million euros for the transfer fee for Beckham which was instantly declined. AEG informed AC Milan that the price is 15-20 million, and now the battle begins...

 

all of this money just so they can put beckham in the youth squad while they wait for him to mature

 

"The Galaxy has rejected an initial $10 million offer for Beckham from AC Milan,"
http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/

 

liked it.

 

A quote from Tim Leiweke....

I'm assuming Fitz, that the only way that will happen is if Timmy boy f**ks off ?

 

Timmy Leiweke is a problem whenever he touches football (actually any sporting) decisions. I think Arena got him to step away as part of his contract. I feel like he is in his element dealing with the transfer fees though.

With regard to the 'circus'...MLS is a very fan friendly league. It's quite intimate most of the time. After most games, the players would come over and say hi to us. I can sort of amble up to most of the players and chit chat at functions. They love that we know them, and they are frankly flattered because no one else does here...soccer simply isn't that well known.

But when Beckhaman arrived, there became a sort of apartheid consisting of the Beckham entourage and their requirements (which are likely more or less normal scenarios for players in leagues like EPL or La Liga), but which are unheard of here. Beck's needed it for his own protection and sanity, but it really was in stark contrast to the anonymity of the rest of the players. There ended up being two sets of rules in the clubhouse, even if Beckham did what he could to minimize the impact to his teammates...it simply was over the top and became a 'circus'.

 

but what about the zoo?