Grahame Jones of the LA Times wrote about the Galaxy and Celestine Babayaro. Here's the response he got when trying to figure out the move.
Asked more than once why Babayaro had been shown the door, the Galaxy provided the classic non-answer.
"After a period of evaluation, it was decided that it would be in the best interest of the club and the player to part ways," Alexi Lalas, the team's president and general manager, said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that it did not work out, but Ruud and our technical staff are hard at work putting together this team and difficult decisions have to be made."
Next week, the Galaxy will be back in town and, if only for a day or two, we should have some sort of access to them. On the 15th, the Galaxy will play FC Dallas in the make-up game for Becks missing the SuperLiga match down there last year. Perhaps we'll be able to at least talk to Galaxy players and coaches about the evolution of the 2008 squad.
2 comments:
the one game I saw him in I kept thinking to myself "they are going to pay him $100K+ for this kind of play? Good for the rest of the league."
The moves looks to me like a simple case of 'do we pay $100K+ for mediocrity or do we pay $30K for mediocrity from someone else knowing Babayaro isn't selling any shirts based on his name alone?' I'm pretty sure I know what my choice is.
Babayaro's lack of quality should have been obvious, given how the Galaxy acquired him and Abel Xavier. Both came on free transfers. Both came after somewhat suspicious circumstances (Xavier after an 18-month ban for steroid use; Babayaro after malingering at Newcastle United).
This is the problem with Galaxy management: They tie half of their salary cap to three players, then look for quality on the cheap. If an NHL, NBA or NFL team did that, the media and fans would roast them at the stake thousands of times over.
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