Turmoil At The HDC?

Can you post the url for that article, sam?

seriously...Ruud has got to go....read on

Amid rumors of unrest, Galaxy tries to break out of funk
By Scott Wolf scott.wolf@dailynews.com Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 08/02/2008 11:43:19 PM PDT
When the usually optimistic David Beckham says the Galaxy played with "no fight or passion," in last week's 4-0 loss to Dallas, it's a troubling sign.

When you consider it's been six weeks since the Galaxy won a game, it's even worse.
But as L.A. plays at San Jose today at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland, a bigger question is whether anyone in this organization even likes each other enough to snap out of the current slump?

According to sources, general manager Alexi Lalas and Coach Ruud Gullit do not enjoy a good relationship, which is not surprising because Gullit was not hired by Lalas. Instead, it was Beckham's soccer advisor, Terry Bryne, who made the hire.

Byrne is best known in England as the former Chelsea equipment manager. He was also the masseuse for the England national team in 1998 and consoled Beckham in the locker room during the second half of the Argentina match, where Beckham famously received a red card.

Around the MLS, there is question about who really runs the Galaxy? Sources said the team pondered trading midfielder Peter Vagenas and forward Carlos Ruiz in recent weeks but then changed its mind.

"Ruud Gullit cannot have the power that he has in the club because no club can give that much power to the coach," said defender Abel Xavier, who was recently released by Gullit. "You take the risk of losing your identity when you give one person so much power."

Gullit took offense to criticism by Xavier and struck back on Friday.
"It's bad for a player to point the finger at somebody else," Gullit said.
"(Xavier) doesn't stay long with many teams.
"I asked him an interesting question. Can you do what I ask you to do? He couldn't answer that. It's nothing personal. But he is a bad apple."

Xavier said he confronted Gullit in the locker room after the Galaxy's 4-1 loss at D.C. United in June because of the way he criticized the team.

"Ruud Gullit needs to understand he cannot treat players the way he does,"
Xavier said. "Many things, the players don't agree with Ruud Gullit's actions.
The way he expressed himself and conducted himself and the way he treats players with a lack of respect.
"Most of the players are not happy to be coached by Ruud Gullit. They are afraid to talk back because they have non-guaranteed contracts and can be traded."

Are the Galaxy players afraid? Defender Chris Klein said he did see any discontent with Gullit but acknowledged, "in general, the security of our players is not there."

Gullit said his treatment is nothing personal and he also clashed with star forward Landon Donovan at halftime of the Galaxy's 3-1 victory over Kansas City in May. But unlike the headstrong Xavier, Donovan did not push the issue.

"I asked Landon to do certain things and he wanted a different way," Gullit said. "He did it and acted as a real pro. He scored a goal on a penalty kick and had an assist."

It should be noted that Gullit is known for disagreements with players. When he coached Newcastle, he stripped midfielder Rob Lee of captain's duties, took away his jersey number, sent him to the reserve team and forced him to train alone.

"At the start I thought Ruud liked me, we seemed to get on, but he didn't like being disagreed with and, as captain, my job was to put forward the players' viewpoint," Lee told the Sunday Times of London in 2000. "By the end, he didn't speak to me at all. He didn't want me anywhere near the training ground."

Four months later, Lee's career at Newcastle flourished under new coach Bobby Robson.
"I don't know how anyone could have left Rob Lee out of this team; he's England class," Robson told the Sunday Times.
Gullit recently put his Hollywood Hills home for sale at $4.25 million but said he will return next season.
"For sure, I'm not going anywhere," Gullit said. "My wife did not like the house."
Meanwhile, the Galaxy need to find a way out of their slump, going 0-3-3 since June 14. It's more magnified because of the higher expectations with Beckham and Donovan.

"Yeah, candidly (I'm worried)," Donovan said. "Hopefully, some guys figured out what needs to be done. You have to show you care."

Or as Beckham said, "We can't keep relying on other people's results."
No Solano
Gullit said he was unlikely former Newcastle midfielder Nolberto Solano would join the team because of salary cap and other obstacles. "He's not coming, I don't think he's coming," Gullit said.

the problem is not lalas, its bigger than that. aeg doesn't know how to manage teams, they're going to destroy galaxy, just like they destroyed the kings. who did the kings trade away months after aeg took over, and how many times have we made the playoffs since?

Limey, I agree with you on the coaching issue but I think Lalas has shown e doesn't have the ability to help this team. If that means they both go so be it but Lalas needs to be included in any changes.

Justin J. Ruud's not Sir Alex, Rob I'm not an expert on the role of the GM, but i do know that if players don't like a coach, they won't play for him.

Limey, How do you explain Lalas last year and the year befoe that. He has been here longer then Ruud and remember
who got rid of Albright. At this point I think Lalas has had more then enough time to show what he can do and unfortunatly he has.

San Jose from this past weekend's game is not the same team from the start of the season (last place still, but maybe not for long). they are not the same team we played in the 1st or 2nd meeting. new players have been brought on are making a difference in their playing making and striking abilities plus other teams are making advancements and we are not! we seem to be going backwards. frustrated yes, but I still have faith :)

“Ruud is happy with one and not the other.”

“… the honeymoon been over with a tyranial coach makes sense.”

Maybe, but is that really all that bad?

You think Sir Alex Ferguson doesn’t have favorites at Man U? Heck, Fergie sure isn’t buddy-buddy --- remember the time after a match that he kicked a boot on the floor of the locker room and hit Beckham above the eye? The spike hit Becks and made him bleed --- but Fergie didn’t even apologies when questioned by the press.

But would anyone argue he’s not a good coach?

Reading through all the comments on this thread the common theme is get rid of Lalas but i'm not sure i agree. I still wonder if Ruud is the problem, it would explain why Landon looks so distracted and Vanney keeps appearing in the line up. Ruud is happy with one and not the other.

I thought the Beckham Camp was responsible for picking Ruud, if they were maybe that's the problem. Ruud should be a success he has the pedigee, but if you think about the fall off in the standard of play recently, the honeymoon been over with a tyranial coach makes sense.

I was very dissapointed with Xavier this season but he was good last season and bad this season with a new coach, the math does add up.

Glen...the others finally caught up, with the overseas tours we got a bit of a jump on the competition but we've been overtaken and passed on by... Ive tried to stand by Cronin but Im done...as for Salcedo coaching, he'd be a interesting change. And yes, if we had the quality and depth of say Man Utd, or Real, we could interchange lineup but well, I dont think Im going out on a limb by saying we're not even close.

After giving it much thought, I'd like to rescind my statement about Bravo, but double my comments about Cobi being GM... and brining in Jorge Salcedo (UCLA's coach) to replace Ruud when he finally gets the boot (whether he deserves it or not!).

I'd also like to double my comments about Lalas, and echo NathanHJ and Ronny's comments to "casual england": SHUT UP.

Reading his comment makes me wonder if the English language actually DID originate from England, or whether all football fans there are just as stupid as "casual england" makes them appear.

The game on Sunday was horrible. I honestly started laughing after the Earthquakes scored their first goal, and then the worst team in the league, with the worst offence scored 3 goals. That’s just plain absurd.
The goals weren’t the only problem however, unlike the Dallas game the weather was picture perfect, and while still not ideal the pitch was much better --- but still on the many, many shots on or near goal by the earthquakes many times there were far more blue shirts then white.
Steve Cronin shouldn’t really be first string --- but any goalie is going to get 3 or more scored on them when the defense can’t manage to get back in any kind of numbers to help. He actually had quite a good game I thought, 5 or 6 goals had he not made some good saves.
All this fuss about players not feeling safe in their job kind of makes me laugh --- do you think that’s not the case on nearly every team in Europe? It doesn’t seem to affect their play so much, and lineup changes? Manchester Utd (and especially) Liverpool, Chelsea mix theirs around all the time, sure they have the skill, but you should be able to play with a wide range of teammates, it’s called the practice pitch.
Ruud is trying, as he’s said before to build up a team basically from scratch --- it will take some time to figure it out --- and while it’s no fun for the fans we really need to give him a chance to figure things out.
And get rid of Landon, are you crazy? Ruiz is useless, ditch him --- and that useless new defender (though I guess he should get another chance.)

About time!

Beckham is protecting his brand, agree with that totally since his play and professionalism backs up that approach. It is sad though that it comes to a player having to wield power and not a GM or Coach (and slow, slow, slooow acting ownership) to act.

I suspect LD's interest in Europe was a veiled swipe at Lalas and Ruud? Vote with your feet Landon. For the sake of the National Team playing for an EPL team might be a good thing.

I am really at a loss as to how this organization could have invested as it did in Beckham and be so ill prepared otherwise to put a good product on the field. This is just ineptitude at its highest.

UGH!

I agree with Sam about Bravo. Bravo is the one who brought us the miracle working saviour to our defense, Eduardo Dominguez (note the sarcasm here). If this is the best he can do to salvage the worst defense in the league, he is not GM material.
Cobi for GM...why not?!

on the sale of his home I was being a little sarcastic, I remember reading somewhere as was mentioned that his wife didn't like it hence the reason for the sale.

i have to agree on the starting lineups constantly readjusting and having the team not being very cohesive. the funny thing is some of the play in the 1st half of the season really was solid and the team played very well together.

did we go backwards in our play and other teams improved that much more than us?

NHJ...thanks for including the entire article..I didnt want to take up so much space.

Lalas needs to go away, Bravo is in over his head and would NOT make a good GM, Cobi? why not, he cant be as bad as Lalas. Every team in the league looked like our LAG at the beginning of the season, but they kept their line ups, brought in some youngsters and
allowed the players to get a feel for their starting line ups and work together. The LAG just keeps changing its line up every week and are expected to know exactly what each player is doing...whose at fault? Sorry but its definately RUUD.

Ruud's house is for sale because his wife didn't like it. She only recently got here. Simple as that.

Lalas is still employed because something must have happened to give him dirt on AEG during his year as hatchet man (er, GM) when the Quakes 2.0 left town for Houston. Then they moved him to be in charge of New York in the year before the sale to Red Bull (I think he sacked Bob Bradley if I'm remembering correctly) where the organization was disfunctional but no one has ever been able to make that place functional so some might discount their that from his record. After that he was shuffled to the next AEG job which was the Galaxy. Unfortunately in the past couple of years AEG have offloaded New York, DC, Chicago and half of Houston leaving only LA and the other half of Houston (whose fans would scream bloody murder if AEG tried to get rid of Oliver Luck and force Lalas on them).

Hey, don't AEG own your hockey team as well? The O2 in London? Any sort of sideways move because they've been extremely loyal to him despite not impressing in any of his previous asignments.

maybe the reason why Rudd is putting his house up for sale is 'cause they told him they have to make the playoffs or his contract will be terminated. why wait for the last minute as we all know real estate isn't moving that quickly.

what a shame, the season started out pretty good and I was hoping along with everyone else that as the season progressed we would develop into a solid team for the playoffs. have to wait and see!

To simply say "and the Beckham camp is quickly calling more of the shots within the organization" is a cheap shot.

I'm not saying it isn't true, but there needs to be something more concrete than that.

Like last year's backlogging of the schedule was a prime example. And ESPN's highlights of the latest match against SJ didn't even mention SJ's first two goals (!!!).

But there still isn't a smoking gun like last year.

Casual England:
Oh will you Shut Up.

are you la galaxy fans serious thinking that beckham is still good he is to old he is useless now and your fans are awful do you ever fight at your games cause thats the whole point of going football over here

Out with Lalas. He has shown again and again how completely useless he is when it comes to anything.

COBI or PAUL BRAVO for GM!

Keep Gullit (has a midseason coaching change really worked out ANYWHERE in sports?). Gullit, in my opinion, is the only reason the team is even close to making the playoffs.

For that matter, keep Donovan. Or lose any sense of what the LA Galaxy used to be, and lose a good amount of local fans who remember the yellow and green.

Lastly, the Galaxy should make a serious play for Corey Gibbs (first dibs on allocation) and trade Ruiz, who hasn't gotten a fair shake in LA and deserves to be treated with more respect somewhere else.

I don't think that the Beckham camp having more pull is a bad thing he wants to win! If he can get people here that he knows he can win with is that really a bad thing? Also you know he loves Landon so get Lalas out and lets make something happen. This team is starting to make me sick with the way they are playing.

The Beckham camp, as its been called, was a known player from the very beginning. We knew that we were getting a product in Beckham, not just a player. And the Beckham camp are going to protect their product. That is, they are going to protect "the value" of their product. By putting this team around their product, it devalues it. If the team can't deliver, it looks like David can't deliver, and the last thing they want is for the Beckham brand to fade away into the California sunset.

I've been saying it for years, "Out with Lalas!".