From the Bleachers by Neal Thurman - June 25, 2007 |
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Isiah Thomas - the name used to conjure images of one of the best players pound-for-pound in NBA history. He was a great scorer, an effective passer, all-around team leader and two-time NBA champion. |
 Lalas seems to be confusing Yallop, but the message is clear: win MLS Cup 2007. (photo: Christian Petersen/Getty) |
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| Since his playing days ended, though, Lalas has been promoted through the management ranks faster than national team cohorts like John Harkes and Jeff Agoos. One could argue that the New York situation was pretty bad when he got there and no worse when he left, but he certainly didn't do much to help. The real "work" has come since he returned to LA, where the Galaxy have continually regressed since his arrival. I can't argue with taking the big swing on bringing in David Beckham - if Juan Pablo Angel can make a serious impact on MLS, then Becks is most assuredly worth the risk. The issue I have is the big name-only (in as much as there is such a thing as a "big name" in MLS) mentality that is undermining any possibility of developing a team over time. Nathan Sturgis and Robbie Findley are exactly the kinds of players that the Galaxy need to be bringing in to learn from Becks to accelerate their curve. What exactly does Alexi think he's going to get from Chris Klein? Is Becks going to teach him the secrets of being a great right-sided midfielder? As far as I can tell, this removes Beckham from his best spot (on the right) and deprives the team of a good (and improving) defensive midfielder in Sturgis. Maybe Lalas is convinced that his aging group has a championship in them THIS year, but unless they start winning some matches quickly, they might not even make the playoffs. Next season they'll be left with an even older roster, with few players likely to improve. On the Field I don't know if it was the altitude, the travel, the turf of something else, but Christian Gomez didn't have one productive touch against RSL on Saturday, just a shockingly bad performance from one of the league's best... Wow, I guess I jumped on Houston a little early, they've been fantastic in the absence of Ching, De-Ro, and Clark... Given Alexi Lalas' penchant for big names on the downside of their careers, you have to wonder if Houston will look to unload Ching to the Galaxy (and the waiting arms of Landon Donovan) for some salary cap relief and some young talent... Great to see Brad Davis finding the target. A promising career was disrupted by injury and hopefully his midweek hat trick will go a long way toward bringing back his confidence (although he is still losing playing time to Corey Ashe on the left side, another place where Houston could consider making a trade from a position of strength)... Did anyone win in the Eddie Johnson to the Gold Cup team transaction? Johnson was completely ineffective and KC completely lost their momentum, anyone think the Copa will be any better to EJ? A Few Notes from the Gold Cup I'm torn between two ways of thinking about the US win in the Gold Cup. The optimist in me says that it's great to be able to win against a good Mexican side while we're in a period of transition for both the roster and the coaching staff. There were encouraging signs of great things to come from a few young players (especially Bradley and Feilhaber) and even more gave us some reason to have hope for the future if things continue to progress (Spector, Simek, Parkhurst and Bornstein). The pessimist in me can't shake the feeling that the central defense - which was our "A" group - was really not good and that our strikers were worse. I can't argue with the idea that Gooch and Bocanegra are our two best central defenders individually, but they are way too slow to be paired with each other. My suggestion would be to pair either of the two with Parkhurst - who is a little quicker and much more tactically aware - to ensure that we aren't caught confused about who should be following a runner. That just doesn't happen in New England, nor did it happen when he was playing in this tournament. Neal Thurman lives in the Nation's Capital and is not a lawyer. He blogs for Yahoo at http://fantasyepl.blogspot.com and you can email him at nthurman@americansoccerdaily.com |
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