LA Beckhams Get New Coach
So while the Chicago Cuauhtemoc Blancos were eliminated from the playoffs last night by New England, the big news in MLS was the Galaxy announcing a big name signing as their new head coach to match their big name player.
[Ruud] Gullit has supreme confidence, a healthy ego and an unshakeable belief in his own abilities. While there may be no perfect candidate for the unique position of coaching the Galaxy, he seems to meet most of the prerequisites.
As former coach Frank Yallop found, plenty of scenarios will occur where it is easy to doubt yourself. No other manager in the league has to deal with the kind of pressure, scrutiny and expectation as those that hang over the Home Depot Center.
If track record is anything to go by, then Gullit will not question himself too often. As a player, he prided himself in making the right choices and the end result was a European Championship, two Champions League medals and three Italian Serie A championships with AC Milan.
Yallop ended up with the expansion San Jose Earthquakes and that’s exactly where Landon Donovan may also end up. But interestingly enough Pele thinks the Beckham situation was poorly executed.
In marketing terms, Beckham’s move has been a huge success but Pele fears the momentum will be lost because the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star is a midfielder and not a regular goalscorer.
Brazil World Cup legend Pele knows plenty of the US soccer scene having been part of the New York Cosmos side which briefly enjoyed popularity in the 1970s.
Pele said: ‘They announced him as a scorer of goals. He isn’t a goalscorer - that was a mistake.’
The thing is - would you rather have the goals in silence or the publicity. MLS need the attention to get the return on investment. Unlike Pele’s day, the product leaguewide is pretty decent. Hence ESPN’s promo line “You’re a fan, you just don’t know it yet.” Pele’s myopic continues:
Pele is keen for soccer to take off in the United States but feels for development to continue, restrictions on player movement and wages now need to be lifted completely.
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Pele, 67, said: ‘This was one of the mistakes - they have to give freedom to the owners of the teams to buy the players and (chose) which players they want to put (out).‘The big mistake in the league now is to control the level of the teams. If they opened this up, it would be much better.’
Again - part of the reason the MLS is successful is because they’re controlling the spending owners of their owners in an uncertain market. As Alan Greenspan would say, irrational exuberance will only lead to a quick economic downturn - the same kind of downturn that Pele’s NASL saw in the 70’s when the Cosmos were the only team making money.
Now you have Beckham in LA, Landicakes probably in San Jose, Blanco in Chicago, Barros Schelotto in Columbus, Angel in New York, etc … as well as American stars like Eddie Johnson and Taylor Twellman. The ideal situation would be to grow the league to the point where the quality of play rises, more solid Europeans and South Americans come here instead of Europe and more American stars can stay home and get the same level of competition as they can overseas.
And of course part of that would include making sure the marquis LA and New York franchises have big names and a good product on the field. We’ll see who New York brings in to replace Bruce Arena.
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