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Lalas Tackles Galaxy Job With Vigor

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Times Staff Writer

The lights are turned down low in Alexi Lalas’ office, making it easy to overlook the figurative wrecks inhabiting the room’s darker corners.

Moving from the playing field to the front office was going to be a crash course in management for Lalas. It has proved to be a demolition derby. Destruction everywhere.

In only three years as a president and general manager in Major League Soccer, the free-spirited former U.S. Olympic and World Cup defender, only 36, has had to negotiate a learning curve so steep it seems almost vertical.

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“I make a lot of it up, and I just kind of use my best judgment in other cases,” said a half-joking Lalas, who joined the ranks of AEG management, the parent corporation of MLS, in 2004.

“He’s been in it three years, and he’s had at least 10 years’ worth of problems,” Galaxy Coach Frank Yallop said.

No one can argue that point.

* It was Lalas who, in his first job as an AEG suit in 2004, had to persuade San Jose Earthquakes fans to keep showing up at Spartan Stadium even though everyone knew the team’s future lay elsewhere, as in Houston.

* It was Lalas who had to explain to those same San Jose fans how star forward Landon Donovan had slipped out the back door to play in Germany and then reappeared less than five months later in the uniform of the rival Galaxy.

* It was Lalas who was moved in 2005 by AEG from San Jose to New York to take charge of the stumbling MetroStars, where he fired Bob Bradley as coach and then saw the team sold out from beneath him, the team eventually becoming the New York Red Bulls.

* It was Lalas who was brought back to California by AEG last spring to take over the Galaxy after former GM Doug Hamilton’s death. The defending league champion got off to a 2-8-1 start, and Lalas fired Steve Sampson as coach in June and brought Yallop on board.

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“If you look at the other GMs in other franchises, it’s pretty smooth sailing,” Yallop said. “But Alexi has been brought up pretty quickly in this business.”

Lalas will be inducted today into the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y., along with former women’s world champion and Olympic gold medalist Carla Overbeck, former men’s national team captain Al Trost and AEG owner and MLS benefactor Philip Anschutz.

For Lalas, the occasion should be a pleasant one, helping to balance some of the thorny decisions of the last three years -- the firings of Bradley and Sampson, for example.

“It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do in my life,” he said. “It was horrible. I don’t say that to make myself look any better or make those folks feel any better, because at the end of the day we all think that we’re able to see the bigger picture and able to be mature about it.

“But it doesn’t feel good. I don’t expect any of those folks individually or their families or their friends to ever see me probably in the same light. Do they respect me? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I can’t worry about it.

“One of the things that I learned very quickly after I stopped playing is that there is absolutely no way for me to be everybody’s friend. There’s no way for me to please everybody. That’s not an easy thing to come to grips with -- that there are going to be people who don’t like you.”

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In San Jose, Lalas found it difficult to get fans to understand the business realities that caused Donovan to leave and eventually caused the Earthquakes to relocate to Texas.

“Many people see only the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to go around and explain to everybody what all the different layers of a lot of these things are. That’s part of the gig. That’s OK.

“New York was a real difficult and strange situation, but equally as challenging. My only regret in New York is that I didn’t have the time to let it play out.”

Coming back to L.A. in April was no picnic either.

“It was difficult because the organization had been through incredibly dark times off the field in terms of Doug’s passing,” Lalas said of Hamilton. “He was a great friend of mine.

“My respect for Doug was not just that I had played for him but also when I became a GM -- and in theory one of his colleagues -- he never once was condescending or treated me as anything less than an equal.

“He very easily could have, because there were times when I didn’t know what I was doing.”

These days, Lalas works under the eyes of Sean Hunter, the president of AEG Sports, and Tim Leiweke, Hunter’s boss and the president of AEG.

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While he was in San Jose and New York, Lalas said he used to think about what it would be like to have the same job in L.A.

“Now that I’ve experienced it, it’s the best and the worst,” he said. “It’s great to have the resources and the opportunities from being in the backyard of AEG, but they’re also right there with you, so when you screw up there’s no hiding.”

The return to Southern California reunited Lalas with former teammates, albeit in a changed relationship.

“He’s been smart because he’s made it clear what his role is,” Donovan said. “He’s not here to be everyone’s friend, though he is friends with a lot of guys on the team. But it’s not his primary role.

“As long as people understand that, then you can still be friendly. When he’s out on the road, he’s still fun to hang out with or go to dinner with. It’s nice.

“I think people respect him. He’s honest with you. He tells you how he feels. He doesn’t beat around the bush. If he feels something, he’s going to say it.”

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Cobi Jones’ history with Lalas goes back to before the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. They are only 10 days apart in age, and both have been part of MLS since its inception.

“It’s interesting, it’s very different,” Jones said of the way Lalas and the players have to approach each other. “It’s one of those things where you have to know where to draw the line.

“He has to separate himself from the players to a degree. He’s a little bit more on the corporate side now. He still has the feeling of a player, but he’s not one of us. He has to look at things from a different perspective.”

Given their background, Jones has the freedom to kid Lalas on occasion.

“I think I’m one of the few that’s kind of allowed to do that,” he said.

Pete Vagenas was Lalas’ roommate on Galaxy trips, and the two are friends.

“I played with him toward the end of his career, so he was always sort of an authority figure to us even when he was here on our team,” Vagenas said. “If anybody ever got out of line and complained about training or conditions or whatever, he would remind everyone what he had to go through.

“He set a standard as a player. A lot of us have always looked up to him because he’s always been Alexi Lalas. It’s been a sort of natural transition [to GM], I guess. I’m sure it’s a little tougher on him than on us.”

Especially on a personal level.

“I moved my family three times in three years, twice across the country,” Lalas said.

After his Hall of Fame induction, Lalas will bring his wife, Anne, and their 11-month-old daughter, Sophie, back to L.A. from New York and they will begin house-hunting.

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Things are getting back to normal -- on the field for the Galaxy (back in playoff contention at 8-11-5) and on the home front for Lalas.

“There’s no one more passionate about what he does and there’s no one who works harder,” Donovan said. “For us, that’s all we can ask for.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Lalas’ legacy

A look at some of the key moments in Alexi Lalas’ soccer career:

* 2004 -- Became first MLS player to be named general manager, with the San Jose Earthquakes.

* 2003 -- Played 22 games, starting 19 for the Galaxy.

* 2002 -- Started 2002 MLS Cup and helped Galaxy win its first MLS championship.

* 2002 -- Started 26 games and registered a career-high four goals and four assists.

* 2001 -- Was part of the Galaxy squad that won the Confederations Cup title and the U.S. Open Cup title.

* 2001 -- Returned to soccer by signing a contract with the Galaxy of MLS on Jan. 16.

* 2000 -- Announced his retirement from professional soccer.

* 1999 -- Joined the Kansas City Wizards of MLS and scored a career-high four goals in the season.

* 1996 -- Played every minute of every match at the Summer Olympics as one of the overage players.

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* 1996 -- Voted to the inaugural MLS All-Star game.

* 1995 -- Named U.S. Soccer male athlete of the year.

* 1994 -- Played in every minute of every U.S. match at the 1994 World Cup.

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Source: ussoccerplayers.com

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