Beheading in LA: Alexi Lalas and Ruud Gullit are Out the Door

By: Laurie | August 11th, 2008

There was a bloodbath in Los Angeles today as Galaxy GM Alexi Lalas got the boot and coach Ruud Gullit packed up his balls and went home. The official story is that Gullit resigned. There’s a chance it may actually be true.

LA fans aren’t hugely surprised by the Lalas news. He may have been good for the occasional colorful quote, but when it came to putting together a winning team… Well, rumor is that he just couldn’t stop meddling. The consensus among most is that this has needed to be done for a long time (although some of us are amazed that AEG at last had the guts to pull the trigger.)

The Gullit news, on the other hand, is a bit of a shock, if only because Ruud had only been on the job since February — not exactly enough time to make a mark. But the scuttlebutt since he came on board was that he was having a hard time dealing with the limitations placed on him by MLS rules — specifically by things like the fact that when your team is paying three DP salaries (David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Carlos Ruiz), under the MLS salary cap you can’t just fork over more money to acquire world-class players to play around them. The Galaxy’s offense has been the best in the league up until recently, but they didn’t have the cash to buy a good defense to go with it. So despite scoring many, many goals, they haven’t managed a win in seven games. The team is currently fourth of the seven teams in the Western Conference. And even worse, if MLS were single table, they’d be 11th out of 14. Not a stellar performance from the team that was supposed to be the “jewel of MLS.”

Wait. Who said that “Jewel of MLS” thing?

Oh, right. Alexi Lalas.

So what happens next? MLS original Cobi Jones will be taking the reins relinquished by Gullit, at least on an interim basis. Exciting stuff for those who count ourselves as Cobi fans, but it’s also baptism by fire. There’s no question that his twelve years playing for the Galaxy make him familiar with the ins and outs of MLS and the team. But when it comes to coaching, he has less than half a season as an assistant under his belt. The Galaxy is a team with a lot of problems. Is Cobi the guy to fix them?

Maybe. (In his favor, I would like to point out here that his name abbreviates to CoJones. I believe this is a good sign.)

Lalas’s job will be filled (again on an interim basis) by two people. From the LA Times:

Tom Payne, the team’s assistant general manager will take over Lalas’ duties on an interim basis, concentrating more on the business side. Payne will be assisted on the soccer side by Paul Bravo, the Galaxy’s director of soccer.

So, is everything going to be all sun and roses at the Galaxy from here on out? Don’t count on it.

“There are two good people that for different reasons aren’t part of this organization today, and that’s a shame,” [AEG head guy Tim] Leiweke said. “The fact is, the players have to look deep inside themselves and understand they have to be responsible for some of this.

“Am I angry we find ourselves in the situation we find ourselves in? Yes. This is not a fun week. The Galaxy hasn’t made the playoffs for a couple years. Punting on this season is not acceptable. It starts Thursday.”

Or, in other words, there may soon be more heads rolling at the foot of that Galaxy guillotine.

For all the latest on what’s going on with the Galaxy, be sure to check out LA Galaxy Offside, where my buddies and co-bloggers are on it.