While We Were Away Weekend Wrap

A combination of a software update and a concerted SPAM attack pretty much imploded the blogging system here since Friday.

In the interim, Dutchman Ruud Gullit succeeeded Frank Yallop as Galaxy coach, the MLS Cup match-up is set, Becks is back in the England squad and Seattle has an MLS team.

For perspective, I dug up a couple of pieces on Gullit including this excellent recent profile on Gullit from The (London) Times.

The best profile though may be this 1999 Guardian piece as Gullit was on the way out as manager at Newcastle United, which described him as having "the charisma of an actor in a Fellini film."

Some excerpts:
*On Gullit's need to be front and center -

Yet wherever he went, there was trouble, endless quarrels over status and tactics, because in every team Gullit needed to be the main man, the straw that stirs the drink.

*At PSV Eindhoven he brought down the manager and left saying the club would never be great (a year later, they won the European Cup). Before the World Cup of 1990, he forced out Holland's manager. During the World Cup, he quarrelled with the team's new manager and with a former manager, unleashed a newspaper war between the two main Dutch dailies, and, though unfit, demanded the lead role in the team. In 1994, he walked out of the Dutch squad before the World Cup had even begun. By then, squabbles had also forced him out of Milan.

*On what the Galaxy are getting as a coach -

Gullit is no tactical genius, but he does know the ABCs of football. He bought players capable of passing the ball accurately to each other, rather than those equipped only with the British working-class virtue of "heart". This meant unloading the mediocre English players who were having laughs in the Chelsea changing room, and buying top-notch foreigners, mainly Italians who also wanted to live in Chelsea and earn big money in England. Gullit himself was a lure too. If you are a legend with charisma, no one turns you down.

*On Gullit's ego:

Gullit's gift for antagonising people is remarkable, for it is almost impossible to meet him and not like him. In conversation he looks you in the eye, laughs a lot, mixes anecdotes with fairly intelligent analysis, and gives the impression of frankness.

Yet it is hard to love him, because he does that so well himself. Ruud Gullit is in love with himself; if you were him, wouldn't you be?

*On locker rooms in different countries -

"Well," he said, "in a Dutch changing room everyone thinks he knows best. In an Italian changing room everyone probably also thinks he knows best, but nobody dares tell the manager." And in an English changing room? "In an English changing room they just have a laugh."

Read the whole thing here.

By the way, I asked Gullit Friday about that last quote and what he expected to find in an American locker room:

"I hope to find a mixture of that," he said. "I hope to find a team that's curious, ambitious and can play with heart."

Foreign coaches haven't been particularly successful in MLS and Gullit hasn't had the most glittering coaching career. Here's Galaxy GM Alexi Lalas on that:

"Just because you've had international success as a player or manager doesn't mean you're going to succeed in MLS," he said. "Sometimes people need to get to the appropriate situation before they blossom."