Over 800 Try out for LA Galaxy, 2 are given Trials

By: Bob | February 12th, 2007

Hopefuls from all over the world descended on Los Angeles this weekend to take their shot at earning a paycheck from the same employer as David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Cobi Jones. It was tryout time for the LA Galaxy and because of Beckham this event – something almost all MLS teams do each year – actually received international attention.

Paying a cool $130 each, more than 800 players laced up their cleats and took their shot at MLS glory. Some were good, some not so good.

There was a postman from Blackpool, a nurse from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, a store-owner from Cádiz in Spain, a student from Guadalajara. They came from far and wide, from the Cayman Islands and the Netherlands, from Australia and Japan, from Sweden and from Trinidad.

Alexi Lalas, the Galaxy’s president and general manager, was pleased by the turnout but also a bit saddened. “It’s pretty much what we expected in terms of the level of play and the individual ability,” he said. “There are a couple of potential players out there. What’s a little disappointing to me, but not unexpected, is that you can be a bad soccer player, OK, and you might not be the fastest or you might not be the most skilled, but don’t show up here and be out of shape.

“I mean, some of the beer guts that we see and guys who after 10 minutes are huffing and puffing, that’s embarrassing to the Galaxy, it’s embarrassing to the game and ultimately it’s embarrassing to them. So we weed those folks out pretty quickly and concentrate on the ones that have shown up here with a respect for what it takes to get to this level.”

A couple players who presumably don’t have beer guts and impressed the club enough to be called back for one-week trials were Laurent Merlin, a 22-year-old French forward who played for France’s youth squads, and Rui Fortes, a 24-year-old midfielder from Portugal who has kept in shape by running the two miles between his home and his work as a machine operator in Pawtucket, R.I.

Funny, but our teacher friend from England hasn’t posted anything about his trial yet.