I am an avid fan of improving the soccer quality here in the states, and the David Beckham signing by LA definitely elevated the profile of US soccer. So naturally I started following the Galaxy closely.
I've read some of the English media's assessments of the MLS recently, and with all due respect, they are full of the same national conceit that has cost the England national team so dearly over the years. The fact that Beckham's arrival hasn't raised the standard of play overnight must mean, according to the UK-based pundits, that the league is irredeemably crap. They rarely if ever mention other great players like Blanco, De Rosario, Angel, etc.
Beckham might be part of the rot in LA though - he has a lot of influence at the club and I honestly think that at least some of the players must resent his colossal salary. A lot of what is going on is beyond his control, to be fair, but the locker room in LA is not a happy one.
Gullit's signing was at least in part Beckham's doing and Gullit did not get along with Landycakes and a few other players. Gullit left because he became frustrated with the MLS's idiosyncrasies such as salary caps etc. I also think that idiot CEO of AEG is meddling with the club and has no idea what he is doing.
The league has broken or bent its own rules in order to give the Galaxy an advantage, but it is instead turning into a costly fiasco. the team is unbalanced; you've got two skilled primadonnas (Beckham and Donovan), a couple other useful players (Klein & Buddle) and a bunch of no-names. Bringing in Bruce Arena as the next coach won't solve anything; I think he did a bad job with the national team and he hasn't lit up the MLS with his coaching either.
It's a shame that the Beckham/Galaxy circus is the public face of MLS when the best football is being played by teams like Chicago, Columbus, Houston and so forth. They are doing well without any help from the league, and have their own stars.
On balance, the Beckham experiment is proving to be a wash. It has brought new interest in the league (some of it negative), and they are selling a ton of Beckham jersies and posters. But the Galaxy is a shambles and people are focusing on that travesty overmuch. The problem is that MLS expected to create a championship winning side with their biggest star leading the charge, but due to mismanagement and *gasp* other teams playing good football it hasn't worked out.
In actual football news, Columbus had an excellent game on Saturday, beating their second place counterpart in the western conference, FC Dallas, 2-1 in Columbus. We started slow and looked very vulnerable defensively in the first half, but came out very strong in the second half and scored two goals to take all the points. Bring on the playoffs!
Columbus needs more depth (most MLS teams have this problem), but when we have all of our starters I think we are good enough to beat any team in the league. We have two skillful veterans in Moreno and Schelotto who have great vision and guile, but their age is catching up to them. Moreano is a tank with a high work rate who makes a good center forward, but he isn't particularly fast and relies on careful positioning. Schelotto is a very technical player who already has over 12 assists, and handles dead ball situations. However, we have two fast, young wingers in Robbie Rogers and Emmanuel Ekpo (both of whom are international U23s for USA and Nigeria respectively). Taken together these four can break down any defense. Losing Rogers and Ekpo to the Olympics really hurt our form.
I very nearly made the 360-mile round trip to see the game, but my fuel tank was empty and I didn't feel like paying $50 to fill up, drop whatever a ticket costs plus $6.50 for a crap beer and 5 hours of driving.
I think I will go to the next home game though. The stadium, though small, is very nice and the pitch is in excellent shape.
