Galaxy Could Find Plenty of Obstacles Are in the Stars

By GRAHAME L. JONES

Jan. 17, 1999 12 AM PT

Consider this a wake-up call for the Galaxy.

Remember it? Halfway decent soccer team. Plays at the Rose Bowl. Usually goes unheard from between October and March. Bought for an alleged $26 million in October by Philip Anschutz and is only weeks away from what could be its sorriest season yet.

On the field and at the gate.

Why?

Because unless Anschutz does something soon--as in find a general manager, sign some new players, inject some life into what appears to be a rapidly cooling corpse--the Galaxy is in trouble.

Yes, the team led Major League Soccer in attendance last season with a 21,784 average. But what happened to the 69,255 who turned out for its inaugural game in 1996? Why have they never come back in the same numbers? And why were there games last year at which the announced attendance--never mind the actual--did not top 10,000?

Yes, the club set individual and team records galore in 1998. Statistically, it had the best offense and best defense in the league. It had the second-, third- and seventh-best goal scorers in MLS in Cobi Jones, Welton and Mauricio Cienfuegos, respectively. Octavio Zambrano was candidate for coach of the year and under him the team won 24 of 32 regular-season games.

But all the Galaxy has done since being knocked out in the second round of the playoffs is change owners, lend Martin Machon to Santos Laguna in the Mexican league and trade captain Dan Calichman to the New England Revolution for a couple of paltry draft choices.

The Galaxy has not announced the new training site it originally promised. In fact, no new site will be built. The team will train at a better facility than the Rose Bowl parking lot, but no one has yet said where.

The team has been without a general manager since Danny Villanueva left when Anschutz took control. One long-wooed candidate already has turned down the post. At the moment, the ship appears rudderless.

On Feb. 1, the team is supposed to open a two-week training camp in Oxnard. After that, it is supposed to be going to Mexico to play some exhibitions. Its season opener is March 21 against the Colorado Rapids at the Rose Bowl.

But why would fans turn out in appreciable numbers for that or any other game in 1999?

Loyalty to the players they have come to know and love? Not a chance. Of the original Galaxy roster in 1996, only four players remain--Cienfuegos, Jones, Robin Fraser and Greg Vanney.

And midfielder Cienfuegos apparently is not untouchable, even though he is by far the team’s most indispensable player. There was talk that he might be traded to the Kansas City Wizards for Preki. Imagine how that news would have been received by Los Angeles’ Salvadoran community. The deal is now dead, said to have been killed by Cienfuegos himself.

It will be interesting to see if Guatemalan fans return now that Machon is gone. Nor will loyalty to the owner boost attendance, especially not one as remote as the Denver-based Anschutz unless he works some magic soon.

All that leaves are the jersey, team colors and name. But loyalty to such ephemeral objects takes decades to build, not three years. And it is built on a foundation of top players sticking around, playing attractive soccer and winning championships and cups now and again.

That’s why 47,197 fans showed up at the Coliseum last Sunday to watch Mexican powers Club America and Chivas of Guadalajara play what was essentially a meaningless exhibition. Those were their teams. Teams that they and their families had followed for 70 years or more.

The Galaxy will never become their team, but it could become their local team if it got its act together.

The Galaxy started out well, going from zero to a three-season average of 23,775 fans a game. Exclude the doubleheader with the U.S.-Mexico game in ’96 and the three Fourth of July games, when fireworks crowds skewed the figures, and the average is still a respectable 22,066.

But to keep coming through the turnstiles, fans demand progress.

MLS teams each started with five so-called “marquee players” in 1996. They should have gone to six in the second season, seven in the third and eight this season. By 2002, each team would have had a starting lineup composed entirely of marquee players, all being pushed by promising youngsters. When all players are noteworthy, the battle for starting spots generates argument and interest in every game. Injuries become more significant. So do trades and holdouts and all the other factors that keep other sports in the news year-round.

MLS has yet to generate that type of interest.

Instead, the Galaxy has lost three of its original five marquee names: Eduardo “El Tanque” Hurtado was traded to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, goalkeeper Jorge Campos was sent to the Chicago Fire and Calichman has been let go for a pittance.

That leaves Cienfuegos and Jones, with Cienfuegos tottering. What kind of message does that send to fans?

This is not to argue that the players who have stayed or those who have been brought in are less worthy of their place. On the contrary, young Americans such as Steve Jolley, Kevin Hartmann, Daniel Hernandez and Clint Mathis are solid players who have earned their place in the lineup.

At least in the absence of the kind of players Los Angeles deserves to have and should have.

MLS is sadly mistaken, at least in this market, if it thinks it can win fans away from Club America or Chivas or Necaxa or Cruz Azul or El Firpo or FAS or Communicaciones or Saprissa or any other major Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan or Costa Rican team without the star quality Campos once brought.

Carlos Hermosillo can’t do it. He had an unhappy 1998 and it remains doubtful whether he will return from his loan stint with Necaxa. Cienfuegos and Jones can’t do it alone. Not year after year.

It all comes down to finances, of course, and the sad fact is that the top MLS salary-- about $279,000 in ‘98--is only a fourth of what top Mexican league players such as Ramon Ramirez or Luis Hernandez earn each year.

MLS pleads poverty and/or asks for patience. But why should its fans believe that when they see owners such as Anschutz fork out $5 million for a hockey player (Rob Blake of the Kings) and yet be unwilling to stock MLS with the sort of players that would make the rest of the world sit up and take notice?

Of course, Anschutz did enrich the Galaxy’s previous owners to the tune of $26 million, but perhaps it would have been wiser for MLS to have let Anschutz buy the team for $15 million and pour the other $11 million into player acquisition.

Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and George Weah--the three most recent FIFA world players of the year--are never going to come to MLS, at least not in their prime. MLS is unlikely to ever be able to compete with the top European clubs for talent. But there are second- and third-tier players whose acquisition would spark a bit more interest in the league.

There have been excellent players signed in the past--Marco Etcheverry, Carlos Valderrama and Roberto Donadoni, for example--but where are the signings for this season? The fact is, the maximum number of foreigners has been cut from five per team to four. Which means that unless the Galaxy trades Hermosillo, Welton, Cienfuegos or Wellington Sanchez, what L.A. fans saw in ’98 is what they will see in ’99.

That is unlikely to prove much of a lure, especially if the team does not enjoy the on-field success it had a year ago. With top-quality matches from Italy, England, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Mexico and elsewhere now being broadcast in increasing numbers, television hurts MLS too.

Why, for instance, would an English-born soccer fan living in, say, Santa Monica, drive to Pasadena to watch the Galaxy when Manchester United and Liverpool are playing that same day in his or her living room?

It’s a question the Galaxy has to find an answer to, and quickly.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Team That Got Away

A competitive starting 11 could be fielded by selecting players the Galaxy has parted company with in its first three seasons. For example:

Goalkeeper: Jorge Campos (traded to the Chicago Fire, 1998).

Right Back: Mark Semioli (traded to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, 1997).

Center Back: Dan Calichman (traded to the New England Revolution, 1999).

Center Back: Jorge Salcedo (traded to the Columbus Crew, 1997).

Left Back: Arash Noamouz (released, 1997).

Right Wing: Guillermo Jara (released, 1997).

Midfielder: Chris Armas (traded to the Chicago Fire, 1998).

Midfielder: Martin Machon (loaned to Santos Laguna of Mexico, 1998).