Galaxy Gets Albright Idea
The new year is only three weeks old and already Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid has taken his first big gamble of 2002.
Schmid passed up the opportunity to acquire one of Major League Soccer’s leading players, Honduran midfielder Alex Pineda Chacon, who last season was not only the league’s most valuable player but also its top goal scorer.
Instead, Schmid traded away two first-round draft picks to get Washington D.C. United forward Chris Albright, whose three-season, 56-game MLS career so far has produced only four goals. By comparison, Chacon scored 19 in 2001, his debut season in MLS.
On the surface, Schmid’s move appears foolish in the extreme, but there was more behind the decision. First, if the Galaxy had picked up Chacon in the dispersal of players from the now-defunct Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny, it would have had to get rid of long-serving playmaker Mauricio Cienfuegos, one of only three remaining original Galaxy players.
Chacon, 32, plays the same position as Cienfuegos, who turns 34 next month, and his acquisition would have pushed the Galaxy over the salary cap.
Schmid felt it was more important to retain the Salvadoran midfielder, who has been a fan favorite for six seasons.
“I really think it’s important for this franchise to give Mauricio the opportunity to finish his career in L.A.,” he said. “I think he’s given a lot to this city and I really want his career, as it moves toward its finish, to finish in a way that he deserves.
“Paul Caligiuri’s last year [in 2001] went very well and it was a deserving and a fitting finish for a guy who had a great career. I would really like to see Mauricio’s career end that way too. We have a great deal of respect for our Salvadoran fans and [trading or waiving Cienfuegos to acquire Chacon] would have been a sign of disrespect.”
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Instead of pursuing Chacon, the Galaxy acquired one of his Fusion teammates, Jamaican national team midfielder/defender Tyrone Marshall, 27, who probably will take Caligiuri’s place as the starting left back although he played at right back for Miami.
“One of the reasons we went for Tyrone is because he is a two-footed player,” Schmid said. “He’s comfortable at left back, he’s comfortable at right back and he can also play in the middle. He’s also got great speed, and if there was a knock on our defense [last season] it was that we didn’t have [enough speed on defense]. He helps resolve that problem.”
Marshall, a first-round draft pick out of Florida International University in 1998 before moving from the Colorado Rapids to Miami the next season, said he expected to find a new team after the Fusion folded.
“It’s a good feeling to know that someone’s out there tracking what you’ve done in the past,” he said. “It’s just a good feeling being wanted.”
Schmid passed up other opportunities to sign new players in the MLS allocation and dispersal process, but afterward engineered the trade that brought Albright to Los Angeles.
There is history behind this move too. When Albright, 23, first came into the league out of the University of Virginia in 1999, Schmid was furious. He believed the Galaxy, not D.C. United, should have had first rights to him.
Albright had been the leading scorer for the U.S. under-20 national team, which Schmid coached to the second round of the FIFA World Youth Championship in Nigeria in 1999. He also was an integral part of the U.S. team that finished fourth at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
But in MLS he has struggled to make an impact.
“I’d like to forget what happened [at D.C. United] and try to move on,” Albright said, calling his move to Los Angeles “a fresh start.” Albright, from Philadelphia, said that at 19 he was not prepared to handle the level of play in MLS and that his inability to score goals for Washington had nothing to do with the way he was used by former D.C. United coach Thomas Rongen, who last week was named coach of the U.S. under-20 team.
“At the time I don’t think I was ready to produce like people wanted me to produce,” Albright said. “To be quite honest, I don’t think I was there yet, as far as technically, tactically and everything else. I’m still young, I’m just starting to figure out the game and MLS and the differences and the little nuances that you need to know in order to be successful.
“I think it was just a growing process and this being a fresh start will only help.”
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And what happened to Chacon?
He was picked up by the New England Revolution, whose coach, former U.S. national team defender Fernando Clavijo, has strengthened his team immeasurably by adding Chacon; Senegalese forward Mamadou “Big Mama” Diallo, the league’s top scorer in 2000; U.S. national team defender Carlos Llamosa; U.S. 2000 Olympic team goalkeeper Adin Brown, and American midfielders Steve Ralston, Jim Rooney and Shaker Asad.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy still is seeking a forward to replace Luis Hernandez. Guatemalan striker Carlos Ruiz is the current target.
For the first time in its six-year history, the Galaxy probably won’t have any Mexican players in its lineup. The theory is that since Mexican-American fans didn’t turn out in great numbers when the team had Hernandez, Jorge Campos or Carlos Hermosillo, not having such name players will make little difference.
Like Albright, it’s another gamble the Galaxy is taking.
