All About Ruud

By: Laurie | November 9th, 2007

I’m still in info-gathering mode and not ready to jump to conclusions yet. But I’ll offer up some of the interesting things I’ve come across in my research:

First off, we have a “Damn. Wish I’d gotten to this first” post from Dan Loney, who is hereby banning the following headlines:

Galaxy Goes Dutch; Galaxy Experience Ruud Awakening; Galaxy In For Dutch Treat; Galaxy Will Dread Nought; Galaxy Choice a “Lock”

Got that, soccer writers/bloggers? Okay. Let’s move on. The LA Times has a piece that is mostly career retrospective but includes these interesting thoughts:

His most recent coaching role was back with his old club, Feyenoord, in 2004-05. Since then he has worked primarily in television in England and the Netherlands, once having Beckham and his wife, Victoria, on his talk show as guests.

Accustomed to playing alongside or coaching players of a much higher pedigree, the challenge for Gullit, who has shown a short fuse as coach, will be to accept that and also to accept the constraints imposed by MLS. That includes the inability to simply go out and improve the team by throwing money around as top European clubs do.

Next, Andrea Canales at Sideline Views has an e-mail from someone who calls Gullit a “larger than life character” (because we need more of those) and says:

Gullit was outstanding at Chelsea but was ultimately sacked for bringing in too many Black players. At one point up to seven of his starting line-up was Black. The official line was that he had a falling out with the chairman over his contract demands. But Gullit denied that.

There’s no way to vouch for the source, but it’s an interesting thought, no? And finally, Greg Lalas devotes part of an article on Goal.com to our new boy Ruud, including this:

Ruud Gullit is “interesting.” Since the news broke on Wednesday night that Gullit was taking over the Los Angeles Galaxy, the reaction among my cabal of soccer freaks has been universal: interesting. None of the usual negative stuff about foreign coaches in MLS, such as “Oh, he doesn’t understand the American player … he doesn’t know the MLS system of salary caps and college drafts … he’s going to fail … he’s going to be disappointed …” The fact that people aren’t saying that means something. Not everything, but something.

I’m thinking that the fireworks in the upcoming year will make me glad I’m still here as The Offside’s Galaxy blogger.