Former Dutch star Gullit to coach Galaxy
Having plucked David Beckham out of the hat in the spring, the Galaxy has conjured up another trick for the fall by signing former Dutch standout Ruud Gullit as its new coach.
Gullit, 45, will be formally introduced as the Major League Soccer team’s sixth coach this morning at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
Joining him on the stage will be Beckham and the rest of the Galaxy players, thus giving Gullit a chance to look at the raw material that he has been charged with somehow turning into a “sexy” and winning team in 2008.
The Galaxy has failed to make the MLS playoffs the last two years despite an influx of new players in both seasons.
Although the league does not reveal details of player and coach contracts, reports in England, where Gullit has been working for Sky Sports as a television soccer analyst, suggested that he had signed a three-year contract worth an estimated $10 million.
Former German national team coach Juergen Klinsmann also was approached by AEG, the Galaxy’s owner, but said he preferred to continue coaching on the national team level.
As a player, Gullit starred in the 1980s for such illustrious Dutch clubs as Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven, but his greatest success came in Italy in the 1990s with AC Milan, where he won two European Cups and a world club championship.
He played 66 games for the Dutch national team between 1981 and 1994, and captained it to its European Championship success in 1988, when the Netherlands knocked host Germany out in the semifinals and defeated the Soviet Union in the final, with Gullit scoring the opening goal.
He moved into coaching as a player-coach with Chelsea of the English Premier League in 1996 but lasted less than two seasons, despite the team having won the F.A. Cup in his first season and doing well in league play both years.
Gullit next coached Newcastle United, also in the Premier League, but again he lasted for only one season and a few games. His most recent coaching role was back with his old club, Feyenoord, in 2004-05. Since then he has worked primarily in television in England and the Netherlands, once having Beckham and his wife, Victoria, on his talk show as guests.
Accustomed to playing alongside or coaching players of a much higher pedigree, the challenge for Gullit, who has shown a short fuse as coach, will be to accept that and also to accept the constraints imposed by MLS. That includes the inability to simply go out and improve the team by throwing money around as top European clubs do.
There will also be the challenge of getting the most out of Beckham, whose 72 minutes in a Galaxy friendly game against the Vancouver Whitecaps in Canada on Wednesday night drew a telling review in the local media Thursday.
“David Beckham’s royal visit to B.C. Place Wednesday night was a bit like all those other royal visits,” wrote the Vancouver Province. “He made his appearance. He waved politely to the crowd. He didn’t do a whole heck of a lot, but somehow everybody still seemed to enjoy it.”
