After Missing Playoffs, Galaxy Looks to Retool
Now that the Galaxy’s worst season in its 11-year history is behind it, the team has the chance to slam shut the book and open a new one.
Coach Frank Yallop says he can’t wait. Landon Donovan echoes the sentiment. Cobi Jones says he’ll be back to set matters straight. Chris Albright says he believes 2007 can only be better.
No one will argue that point.
A tumultuous 2006 is finally over. It began with the death of one of Major League Soccer’s brightest leaders -- Galaxy president and general manager Doug Hamilton -- continued through the arrival of Alexi Lalas as Hamilton’s successor, included the firing of coach Steve Sampson only seven months after he had taken the team to the MLS title, and ended with the Galaxy missing the playoffs for the first time in its history.
“We’re obviously disappointed on the whole for the season, but I guess it’s great to finish on a high with the way we played tonight,” Yallop said after the Galaxy beat Western Conference winner FC Dallas, 5-2, on Saturday in its season finale at the Home Depot Center.
The victory meant the Galaxy went 11-15-6 in 2006, not good enough to make the playoffs but better in terms of wins than two of the eight playoff-bound teams.
“I think our movement, our appetite for the game, was great,” said Yallop, who was 9-7-5 in his 21 games in charge. “Our overall performance was excellent.”
The trouble was, the Galaxy could not find a way to reproduce Saturday’s showing each week. Inconsistency plagued the team.
“There was never a point during the season where it felt like we could play in a relaxed state,” goalkeeper Kevin Hartman said.
In its final game of 2006, the Galaxy showed the sort of free-flowing style that Yallop wants: The speed of play was fast, the transition from defense to offense was smooth, the passing was exceptional and the finishing was clinical.
“Our guys, when they do free their minds, they’re good players,” Yallop said. “Maybe the pressure being off helped them.”
In many ways, Yallop, the former Canada national team coach who led the San Jose Earthquakes to the MLS title in 2001 and 2003, was hamstrung by having to use players he had inherited.
That won’t be the case in 2007, when a good percentage of the team will be of Yallop’s choosing.
Changes are inevitable and could bring at least three or four new starters.
“In this league we know it’s not easy to just go ahead and rip the team apart. We won’t do that,” Yallop said. “I’m very much looking forward to building the squad for next season. I think we have some great assets and some good, solid players to build on. I’m excited that we can add the right players to that and hopefully be much better next year.”
One possibility is that of Honduran international forward Carlos Pavon.
“His name has come up,” Yallop said. “I’m not going to make any decisions now. We’ve got to see about availability, salary, does he want to come to L.A., you know, all the things that come into it.”
Pavon seems a stretch, however, despite a career that has taken him to leading clubs in Mexico, Italy and Guatemala. At 33, his best years appear behind him.
But the 2006 team had a distinctly non-Latin look, hardly reflective of Los Angeles and perhaps one reason why attendance was down.
“A team should reflect the city that it plays in,” Lalas said. “If there are players that we feel can make this team better, whether they’re from Canada, Mexico, Guatemala or the moon, we will find them.
“But just to say go out and get Hispanic players because there’s a huge Hispanic population in Los Angeles, it doesn’t work on the field and at times it doesn’t work off the field.”
What the Galaxy will be seeking in the off-season is a defender, preferably one who can provide some on-field leadership the way former U.S. international Jeff Agoos did at San Jose; a creative midfielder who can add something unexpected to the attack, and a striker who can provide the goals.
“One thing that we need to do ... is find somebody up there who can finish as well as Landon,” Lalas said. “He deserves that because all the focus and attention is on him right now.
“He needs someone to take the pressure off him.”
Donovan, who finished as the Galaxy’s top goal scorer for the second season in row, adding 12 goals in 2006 to the 15 he scored in 2005, says he expects Yallop to make significant changes.
“He’s going to get guys that he knows will do what he wants them to do,” Donovan said. “For too long guys have just kind of done their own thing.”
Meanwhile, Jones, the only player left from the original Galaxy team of 1996, says he wants to return for a 12th MLS season.
“At the beginning, you’re just happy to be out there and to be playing,” he said. “Toward the end of your career, you start thinking about the legacy you want to leave behind.”
In 2007, the Galaxy will be trying to erase the memory of 2006.
