Galaxy Acquires South Korea’s Hong
The smiles have yet to disappear from the faces of the Galaxy since the club won its first Major League Soccer championship Oct. 20. Monday’s announcement that it had finally acquired the rights to South Korean defender Hong Myung Bo has only made the grins grow wider.
The allocation of the 33-year-old Hong not only appeases the Southland’s burgeoning Korean community -- which filled Staples Center with 18,000 fans at 4 a.m. to watch the South Korea-Turkey World Cup game on the arena’s big screens -- team officials say it makes the Galaxy a better team.
“He’s going to make us stronger in the back,” Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid said. “He’s a very good long passer of the ball and he has a tremendous amount of experience.
“Next year we have a tremendous amount of games with the CONCACAF Champions Cup and league so you need another quality defender because you don’t know who’s going to be hurt. Plus, we’re going to be missing [Danny] Califf for the U.S. national team at times next year and we’re going to be missing [Tyrone] Marshall for Jamaica, so we had to get deeper in the back.”
Hong, a veteran of four World Cups, will become the first Korean player in the seven-year history of MLS after leaving his homeland team, the Pohang Steelers of the K-League. Per MLS policy, contract details were not released.
Galaxy captain Cobi Jones remembered the 6-foot, 161-pound Hong, who was awarded the Bronze Ball at the World Cup as the tournament’s third-best overall player, as being “very physical and good tactically.”
He added: “I think it’s very important that when you’re bringing in players you don’t want to tear apart your team to do it. He’s a good match for our team.”
The last time the Galaxy made such a high-profile signing -- Mexican forward Luis Hernandez in 2000 -- the Galaxy paid dearly by having to part with three starters in Joey Franchino, Clint Mathis and Roy Myers.
No such sacrifices will be made this time, Galaxy General Manager Doug Hamilton said.
“Will we have to make moves? Yeah, but at this point we don’t anticipate any significant moves,” Hamilton said. “We never replaced Greg Vanney [who was sold by MLS to Bastia in the French first division] last year. We replaced Greg with a minimal salary player so we’re just basically sliding someone into that avenue.”
Sarachan Takes Over Fire
The Chicago Fire chose U.S. national team assistant Dave Sarachan, 48, as its coach, replacing Bob Bradley, who last month left to become coach of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars.
At the same time, Steve Nicol, who as interim coach of the New England Revolution led the team to the 2002 championship game, said he has reached agreement to return as coach -- minus the interim tag.
“Everything has been arranged,” Nicol, 40, told Associated Press.
“It’s just the legal stuff.”
The Revolution is expected to make the formal announcement Wednesday.
Nicol played for 15 seasons with Liverpool, winning virtually every honor available to the English Premier League club, and also played 27 games for Scotland, including those in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Sarachan’s playing credentials are more modest, being limited to two seasons with the Rochester Lancers of the old North American Soccer League, but the new Fire mentor has proven successful as a coach.
He was coach of Cornell for nine seasons, and later was an assistant under U.S. Coach Bruce Arena at Washington D.C. United, before becoming Arena’s top assistant with the national team.
Brazil Goes Retro
Faced with a friendly game against South Korea in two weeks and not having a coach, Brazil’s soccer federation (CBF) called Mario “Lobo” Zagallo, 71, out of retirement to take charge of the world champions for the Nov. 20 game in Seoul.
Zagallo won the World Cup as a player in 1958 and 1962, coached the victorious Brazilian team of 1970 and was an assistant coach on the winning team of 1994. In addition, he coached Brazil to fourth place in 1974 and second place in 1998.
The CBF is expected to name a full-time replacement for former coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, early next year.
Trapattoni Safe
Giovanni Trapattoni, the beleaguered coach of Italy, was given a vote of confidence by the Italian soccer federation (FIGC) despite a series of poor results, including a recent loss to Wales.
Trapattoni met with Franco Carraro, president of the FIGC, in Rome, after which Giancarlo Abete, the federation’s vice president, said the coach’s contract, which runs to the 2004 European Championship in Portugal, would be honored in full.
