Alexi Lalas is Doing Fine, But What About Bob?

Just another day in the soccer-writing life, but now I suddenly have a few hundred more Twitter followers than before. 

It's pretty much Alexi Lalas' fault. 

So @soccercanales is in the midst of a long and interesting twitter dissection of @J_Klinsmann's tenure.
— Alexi Lalas (@AlexiLalas) April 20, 2015

The man has a gift for garnering media attention, so perhaps he's in his best career fit as a sports pundit, but I remember well when his trajectory in sports management seemed unstoppable. 

Instead, Lalas was derailed when he became the ringmaster in the circus that was the LA Galaxy's colossal craziness in the early Beckham years. It's kind of a shame, given his energy and enthusiasm, but living by the propaganda sword means dying by it as well. 

Bob and Alexi Lalas

That's what happened to Lalas, but like the phoenix, he's risen from the ashes of that disaster to do quite well on television. 

Still, I wonder what happened to his little Yorkie, which I believe he told me was named Bob. 

Alexi would bring him to Galaxy practices sometimes. Maybe Bob hides in the TV studio or Alexi's office now. 






Update! Alexi says Bob is fine.

@soccercanales Bob is alive and kicking. He actually got me in trouble a few weeks ago. He says hi.
— Alexi Lalas (@AlexiLalas) April 21, 2015

Bloodbath begins

For weeks, it seemed the writing was on the wall for either Ruud Gullit or Alexi Lalas. The Galaxy's terrible results dictated that someone would have to pay the price.

It seems both have as both Gulllit and Lalas are gone.

Gullit resigned for personal reasons while Lalas and AEG have also parted ways.

Gullit had been doing a decent job until lately. He had put his house up for sale so the writing was on the wall. Lalas, meanwhile, had been under fire for quite some time. He survived last year's debacle but could not outlast the club's poor results this season.

Cobi Jones is going to take over for Gullit on an interim basis while Tom Payne and Paul Bravo will assume Lalas' roles.

What do you think about the moves? Surprised? Relieved? Upset?

Lalas backs Donovan

Of course, I couldn't pass on the chance to get a Galaxy reaction to this whole thing. In between tapings of our Alexi Lalas interviews, I went ahead and asked him about Landon Donovan and Preki, and as usual Alexi did not disappoint.

He said he was taken aback a bit that it was Preki who was complaining. He also stuck up for Landon, which you would expect. Listen to the clip here.

In the end, I think the whole thing adds another element to the rivalry and to tonight's match. While both Lalas and Chivas USA players and Preki said the entire back-and-forth is not anything that they are thinking about, it happened and there was fallout. And I was there to get their reactions and now you got to listen to them.

Caption This: Alexi Lalas

More than a year ago, we tried to run a write-the-caption type thing but it got a muted response. I hadn't thought much about that until I snapped this picture last year. And then somewhere along the line I forgot about it. Until now.

Here's our second installment of Caption This, and it's a pretty good shot if I do say so myself. It's Galaxy General Manager Alexi Lalas walking with one of David Beckham's personal assistants, and past HDC security. You can't see him too well but it's Lalas, trust me.


I guess I'll start it off... ahem...

"Yeah, I know why he's Golden Balls, but do you want to see why they call me Fire Balls?"

Have at it.

Alexi answers

I had the opportunity to talk to Alexi Lalas on the phone earlier today. I’m working on my Galaxy season preview for The Press-Enterprise and I figured it would be good to talk to the Galaxy’s general manager about his club.

I can’t put everything he said on here; after all, I’ve got to save some of his better stuff for the PE. But I had some leftover quotes and wanted to share them here.

This year, the Galaxy is quite possibly the largest unknown quantity in the league. The collective exploits and talents of David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Carlos Ruiz are well known, as are Chris Klein and Greg Vanney but the squad could go either way in terms of how much the young players contribute, how the team comes together and how the Galaxy’s depth responds when called upon.

I asked Lalas if he felt he had done enough to put together a competitive squad.

“For all intents and purposes we have three designated players in Landon, David and Carlos,” Lalas said. “There is a lot of talk about all of our eggs in one basket and the lack of depth but I think you are going to see some young players come to the front. I think you are going to see some of the players have the experience of 2007 really blossom this year.”

As far as adding to the roster, Lalas ruled out the possibility of bringing in any player from outside of the league before the summer. While the team has three players whose salaries do not count against the cap, Lalas said the club’s hands were tied when it came to adding players, just like any other club in the league.

“We have a core of players… that have incredible experience and are adding to this team,” he said. “Every MLS team wants to have as much depth as possible and it’s difficult in our league because of the lack of mechanisms and were no different than any other team.”

Given that the Galaxy has missed out on the MLS postseason in each of the last two seasons, making the playoffs this year might be an acceptable goal or accomplishment. However, Galaxy players have talked often during the preseason about winning championships and not just making the postseason. I asked Lalas what he would consider to be a successful year.

“I hesitate to lower our expectations or dumb it down because the fact is that regardless of the performance for the last couple of years – and not making the playoffs, which is an incredible disappointment and unacceptable for the Galaxy – the expectations continue to be high both internally and externally.”

Clearly, the expectations for the Galaxy are to reach the playoffs and make noise once there.

“For us, we expect to make the playoffs and expect to challenge for cups,” Lalas said. “But we are approaching this year very differently in terms of the philosophy we are pulling from training to games to the off the field way we treat this team.”

More from Lalas

Andres Cantos served as moderator of the Honda Soccer Symposium. He does a lot more for soccer than call games, and this event is one of them.

He asked Alexi Lalas some good questions. It was a bit lengthy - about 20 minutes worth of questions from Cantor alone - but it's worth listening to if you're a Galaxy fan for sure.

The first 12 minutes or so are here...

...and the last eight-plus minutes are here.

Alexi's talk

Alexi Lalas didn't really have a lot of new things to say during Thursday's soccer symposium. But he spoke about what he called the D and B words.

Audio of him here.

Symposium on tap

Tomorrow, I will be out at the annual Soccer Symposium. This event is usually pretty interesting as the speakers typically have some good things to say.

Here's the three speakers slated to talk tomorrow and their topics.

- U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley: The New Generation of U.S. Soccer and His Approach to Making the Most Competitive U.S. National Team.

- Mexican Soccer Federation general secretary Decio de Maria: The Internationalization of Mexican Football: Present and Future.

- Los Angeles Galaxy General Manager Alexi Lalas: The Impact of David Beckham on Soccer in the MLS; the State of the League Before and After His Arrival.

In years past, I've had the ability to connect to the internet while the speakers have been discussing their topics so I anticipate having the same ability tomorrow. I'll make sure and post anything newsworthy here.

Another interesting side note: when Bradley was in charge of Chivas USA, I talked to him once about his firing in 2005. Bradley was in charge of the MetroStars then and Alexi Lalas was the club's general manager then. Lalas fired Bradley with a few games left in the regular season.

I asked Bradley about Lalas and he didn't really answer the question so I rephrased it and he just looked at me and said: "That decision will never sit well with me." He and Lalas weren't exactly chummy last year while working in the same building, not at all. I don't know how their relationship has changed now that Bradley is in charge of the national team, but I can't imagine the two are hanging out much these days.

Lalas on San Jose

I asked Alexi Lalas if he thought the expansion of SJ would have a big affect on the current rosters of MLS teams, in terms of diluting the talent pool.

"It remains to be seen what the rules are going to be for this expansion and how they’re going to go about stocking their team. In the past they’ve been a very organic type of team in terms of the players that they’ve gotten. I don’t know if they’re going to continue to do that or if they’re going to look outside of the league. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But they’re going to want to get back to the level that San Jose was very quickly. It’s certainly not going to be easy, because most of those guys are in Houston."

Alexi answers

What's funny is that I talked to Alexi Lalas and Frank Yallop as well, but at different times than Luis. A crowd of reporters, including Luis, was around Lalas while I talked to Frank by myself. Then they all switched over to Frank, and I went to talk to Alexi. I'm sure they repeated themselves in some respects, but here's some of what I got from Alexi.

"I have and continue to have great faith in Frank Yallop. We’re pretty simple and direct in how we deal with each other. I understand the realities of this world that he’s been thrust into and the challenges that this season has brought. This is the Galaxy now. This is what this world is about. We need people that can function and thrive in this environment. That’s our new reality."

"I continue to assess. I’m working every day to improve what we all recognize is a team that has failed to live up to expectations. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not going to make any changes right now."

"Stopped it? I want to be very clear- I’m certainly irritated with the ultimate schedule that came out, but the schedule was not why we find ourselves in this position. But it sure didn’t help. When we formulated this schedule, you have 13 people who are all looking for the most ideal situation – even though nobody ever gets it. Having said that, it’s rare that any one team ever gets this many challenges thrown their way. Next year, because of the fact that David will be here from the start, we can look to rectify the situation and get a much more balanced schedule going."

"It depends – do I think it was a mistake? As the president and general manager of the Galaxy, would I have liked to see the schedule different than what it was? Yeah. But if I put myself in the shoes of other people – and this is a collective – this is single-entity – our ownership believes in making sure that everybody is taken care of and moving everybody together. I understand to a certain extent why decisions were made, so agreeing or disagreeing doesn’t change some of the realities of our sport."

"I think that as we go forward, there are certainly things that we’ve learned over the past couple of months. But if New York signs Diego Maradona in his prime, you’re damn right - even if he’s not coming for half the year, I want him here at the Home Depot Center. I want to benefit from other people’s vision and other people’s willingness to risk."

Lalas on Becks

Alexi Lalas spoke with a group of us scribes the day before the Galaxy-D.C. SuperLiga match. Here's audio of it, about seven minutes worth.

He hits on a lot of topics as always and really tries to absolve a lot of whatever blame there is to go around for the Beckham situation. At one point, he even points the finger at Beckham saying "ultimately it was the players' decision" to play against Chelsea, which Beckham admitted set him back at least a week.

Lalas then said: "He didn't do us and he didn't do himself any favors by playing that last game with Real Madrid."

More Lalas

See how things get pulled out of context? Alexi here says that the U.S. has never had a star the likes of Beckham, and that internationally, Beckham's profile is bigger than Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. I'd agree, because soccer is so much bigger internationally.

Then the headline becomes all about how Lalas is saying that Beckham will become bigger than Woods or Jordon in the U.S., which isn't what he said. It's also unlikely for that to happen.

More distortion from AP in this article, Lalas saying he could put together a team of the best MLS players and they wouldn't bring down the quality of the Premiership (which seems to imply they'd be somewhere safe from relegation, probably midtable. I really don't like random hypotheticals, but this scenario seems plausible), becomes "Lalas says MLS on par with Premier League", which is not what he said.

They're trying to make Lalas look ridiculous. Of course, it helps their cause that he is saying some of this stuff and he is wearing those pants pictured below.