I wouldn't say that Frank Yallop is on any sort of hot seat as Galaxy coach, but the bottom line is that if the results don't improve - he could be.I haven't done a major study of this, but I think the Galaxy has to be one of the top teams in MLS for going through coaches.
Of course, Chivas USA is in a class all its own there. The team is in its third year and has had five coaches - Thomas Rongen, interim Javier Ledesma, Hans Westerhoff, Bob Bradley, and the current coach, Preki.
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I can't fathom Yallop being fired but if the results don't match the hype this season, if the Galaxy is not competitive when Becks gets here and misses out on the playoffs, then I probably could fathom it.
As far as Chivas' bosses go...
Rongen: Nice guy, in over his head
Ledesma: Nice guy too
Westerhof: Cracked the whip; no nonsense with that guy
Bradley: Believed in the work
Preki: Looks like his team is well prepared entering the season
Wow, that was a little too harsh, a little too early.
What ticked me off, though, is Lalas' arrogance. His success rate (as an administrator) in the MLS is so far much inferior to what Yallop and Johnny Moore accomplished in San Jose. He acts like MLS in L.A. is a whole another level above the rest of the markets making the manager's job a pressure-cooker situation. The reality, simply, is that it isn't. LA is just a bigger city than most MLS towns, has a much larger Latino population, but the passion/support level for the Galaxy isn't exactly two or three times what you saw in San Jose. [And let's not forget that the Quakes-Dynamo have won 3 MLS Cups, while LA only has won two.] And to shoot off his mouth with comments like “He knows that this isn’t San Jose and this isn’t Canada” is merely exposing his overbloated opinion of himself.
Hot seat, bien dit !!
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Charly
While I can sympathize a little with the attempt to combine the Quakes with the Dynamo, it's not the same team. The Quakes have two championships, not three, and the fact is, if the support for the Galaxy wasn't as high as it has been from the start of the league, then MLS as a whole would be a step back from where it is. LA fans have topped the attendance records every year.
LA coaches who fail to win have been shown the door.
I think Yallop can turn it around, but I'd have to agree that the pressure to win in LA is higher than anywhere else he's coached before. That's just reality.
ds --
sorry to see that you are bitter but i will say this, SJ didn't support their team and they are gone. my advise, let it go and stop living in the past. on the other hand, LA has only missed the playoffs once and has enough pull to land beckham and trying for ZZ. looking at those facts, what was your point?
The idea that SJ fans did not support their team is pure nonsense.
I am at best an occasional MLS fan and I only went to a few random games each year. However, all games that I saw were very well attended. The team did well to market itself and the game to those folks for whom soccer was new. IMHO, some of these efforts were Disney-like goofy, but they somehow worked to bring the fans out.
I think the team left because of the stadium situation.
I also think that eventually, MLS will learn that it should be harder to move a team. Part of building a fan base is developing community spirit. It's very hard to do that when you know the owner / league will pick up and move the team, or threaten to do so, on a whim or to gain negotiating leverage.
P.S.
Based on what I have seen, LA Galaxy in recent years have played some of the ugliest futbol around. Even by MLS standards. I know they won an MLS Cup a year ago, but they were often unwatchable.
Once the Galaxy lost Mauricio Cenfuegos in the middle, their game lost fluidity.
AC/Anon:
:: I don't claim Quakes and Dynamo are the same organization, just that the team/coach were essentially identical during Dynamo's first year.
:: While the Galaxy have boasted the best attendance record in MLS over the years, this statement says nothing: with a population of 4+ million, a huge soccer base, excellent grassroots-level soccer, the lack of an NFL team, filling up the 27K HDC is not great, in my humble opinion.
:: Fully agree with anon's point about SJ losing the team -- I am not one of those conspiracy theorists that blame AEG for everything - the cities in the area just didn't do enough to keep the Quakes.
:: My beef is only with Lalas' arrogance, as I see it. He hasn't done *anything* to stake a claim to be a great administrator in the MLS (unless someone says Beckham's coming thanks to Mr. Lalas' magnetic personality :-). To pretend that the Galaxy enjoy in LA the same status as, say, the Yankees in NYC or the Cowboys in Dallas, is just wishful thinking. And making this point by making disparaging statements about another city is just plain classless.
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