Ruud Gullit resigns

Bounty Hunter

after only 21 games in charge he has left LA Galaxy. Alexi Lalas has also been sacked.

guess Becks and the Galaxy arent exactley doing as hoped and Ruud aint going to revive his management career.

DenMan

Cobi Jones has just finished playing last season and is now the interim head coach. What a shambles. Spent some of the summer listening to both Alexi Lalas and Ruud Gullit talking about taking the Galaxy forward. What the hell happened? A little bit of patience is all that is needed.

Third_Echelon

Yeah thats a strange one alright. Seems it is for personal reasons. His family couldn't settle in the area.

http://web.mlsnet.com/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20080811&content_id=179386&vkey=pr_lag&fext=.jsp&team=t106

CARSON, Calif. -- Ruud Gullit, the head coach of the Los Angeles Galaxy Major League Soccer (MLS) club, will leave the team for personal reasons it was announced Monday.

"Both parties have agreed on mutually-agreeable terms to part company," said Timothy J. Leiweke, President & CEO AEG, investor/operators of the Galaxy. "It is an amicable arrangement and we appreciate and respect the issues that Ruud has highlighted with the club and are very grateful for all the hard work he has contributed while with the organization. Hopefully, he has laid the foundations for future success for the Los Angeles Galaxy."

Gullit, 45, the world-renowned soccer player who was named world player of the year in 1987 and 1989, joined the club in November last year. He commented: "In truth, it has proved a lot more difficult than I anticipated for my family to settle in the area and the club has been very supportive and understanding of my decision. I would like to thank the players and the fans for their fantastic support and I wish the LA Galaxy much success in the future. I would now like to spend some time with my family before considering any other position in football."

Galaxy assistant coach Cobi Jones will serve as the club's interim head coach while a search for a new head coach is undertaken. He will be assisted by current Assistant Coach/Director of Player Development Trevor James and Goalkeeper Coach Ian Feuer.

Jones, 37, an original member of the Galaxy, is in his first year on the team's coaching staff. A Los Angeles native, Jones played more than 300 games for the Galaxy during his 12-year MLS career (1996-2007). Before joining the Galaxy, Jones played college soccer at UCLA as well as playing professionally abroad with Coventry City of the English Premier League and Brazilian side Vasco de Gama. Jones was also a member of the U.S. National Team with whom he appeared a record 164 times. He played in three FIFA World Cups for the Red, White and Blue (1994, 1998 and 2002), twice helping his country advance past the tournament's group stage.

Jones is the Galaxy's all-time leader in nearly every statistical category, including goals (70), assists (91) and games played (306), making him one of just four MLS players to have appeared in more than 300 games and one of three players to have both 70 goals and 90 assists.

His first game in charge of the Galaxy will come on Thursday, August 14 when the Galaxy take on intra-city rivals Chivas USA at The Home Depot Center in a game that can be seen live on ESPN2 starting at 8 p.m. (PT).

It was also announced that Galaxy President and General Manager Alexi Lalas has been relieved of his duties effective immediately. Lalas joined the team in April 2006 after serving in the same capacity with the New York Red Bulls (formerly MetroStars).

"With Ruud moving on, we believe that this is the right time to make more sweeping changes throughout the organization," said Leiweke. "Our commitment continues to be focused on not only winning the MLS Cup this and every season but to build a club capable of competing at the international level. This decision is the right one for the organization, the right one for the players and the right one for our fans. We thank Alexi for the tremendous hard work and dedication he brought to his job each and every day."

Paul Bravo, the Galaxy's Director of Soccer, will continue in this role overseeing all issues related to the Galaxy's roster including scouting and evaluating players (collegiate and professional), overseeing the club's development system and other team administrative functions.

Assistant General Manager Tom Payne will continue to oversee the Galaxy front office, including corporate partnerships, ticket sales, marketing, programming, communications, operations and community development. Payne has been with the organization for six seasons.

sitout

il take the job! first off il buy the whole cork city squad for about 2 million dollars, and then il loan in maybe 2/3 leauge one players, finally il sell becks to leyton orient (his home town club), where he will strugle to make the saturday squad. Then in a master move il get zidane (a real footballer ) to come out of retirment play him in the middle of the park while the cork boys run their bollix of in the heat of LA doing all the donkey work while zidane slices the yanks soccer game in half.How do i apply?

Xavi6

Cobi Jones = Legend

CHD

Good to see Becks is improving soccer in USA

Royale with Cheese

Can't blame him. L.A's a shíthole

inforfun

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Can't blame him. L.A's a shíthole

And so is Gullit.
Great player, horrible manager.
Almost managed my favs from Holland into bankruptcy.

Galvasean

I love how LA Galaxy match reports are presented.

BECKHAM SETS UP GOAL FOR GALAXY!

Galaxy lose 4-1... 7 matches without a win..

gosplan

There's no way this LA Galaxy experiment can work.

Beckham making $1 million a week and the other players making $100,000 a year or whatever.

Flamed Diving

Thats one sexy resignation.

galwaydude

LA are a shambles of a club, beckam has done fa since he has been in LA apart from making millions more. Only in America. They are like any team that has two superstars and no one else. Pure chaos. No team spirit and why should there be. I can imagine most of the players are peed off when they see x and y making crazy money when they earn a pittance. Even the better league of ireland players earn better.

They seem to love him over here and not a day goes past when he or his annoying wife are not on the box. What LA need to do is hire some english or scotish manager, the best clubs over here are managed by scots.

Flamed Diving

Is it true that Beckham trains on his own?

Galvasean

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Thats one sexy resignation.

We only do the sexy resignation, not the sexy sexy..

godtabh

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Is it true that Beckham trains on his own?

That sounds like something the Sun made up.

A lot of players train on there own if they are injured but Beckham hasnt been injured in a while has he?

BaZmO*

gosplan wrote: »

There's no way this LA Galaxy experiment can work.

Beckham making $1 million a week and the other players making $100,000 a year or whatever.

Yeah but how much is Beckham worth to them marketing wise. It's all relative really.

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Is it true that Beckham trains on his own?

Sounds like Bollíx tbh.

zAbbo

Beckham always looked the best player on the park whenever I've watched them play.

I think their expectations are different, in that a marque player like Beckham won't be able to single handedly win a game like Kobi Bryant can in basketball.

FatherTed

As a follower of MLS this has been on the cards since the day he got here. MLS is a very tricky league to succeed in so much so that I would think even the likes of Fergie, Mourinho, Capello etc would struggle with all the rules and limitations. There are some crazy rules like player allocations, salary cap, developmental spots, designated players, superdraft, waiver draft, discovery claims, senior internationals slots, junior international slots. It is a lot for a new manager to learn. Steve Nicol has succeeded because he understood all these rules since he lived here before he became manager of New England. It is no coincidence that his team doesnt have a "DP".

As already noted here, you cant have one player on your team earning $10million while some of the other players earn $20K-$30K. There were some players on the team who joked "well Becks can buy the drinks after games" when he came over first. Also, the galaxy as a team can score a ton of goals but they have absolutely no idea how to defend. Look at the table so far this year, have have score the most goals but also conceeded the most by far.

This is a team who has fired past managers for not playing attractive football despite being top of the league
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/soccer/08/16/bc.som.lgns.galaxyfireschmid.r/index.html
and fired their next manager after doing the double (MLS+US Open Cup) two months into the next season: http://web.mlsnet.com/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20060606&content_id=61528&vkey=pr_lag&fext=.jsp&team=lag

FatherTed

BaZmO* wrote: »

Yeah but how much is Beckham worth to them marketing wise. It's all relative really.

Beckham now owns his image rights and also gets a share of all galaxy ticket sales. He was a big hit last year but the interest is waning now.