Galaxy Gameday & More
The Galaxy plays live at 11:30 tonight on Fox Soccer Channel against FC Seoul in the first game of their Asia tour.
The Daily Telegraph in England has more on the David Beckham buzz in South Korea.
Galaxy PR folks reminded me that the team has four players (and one coach) who particpated in the 2002 World Cup in Korea: Becks, Landon Donovan (who is back here in the U.S. for treatment and won't play tonight), Abel Xavier, Celestine Babayaro and now Assistant Coach Cobi Jones. Strangely, they all played against each other in the first round of that World Cup - Jones and Donovan beat Xavier and Portugal 3-2 while Beckham and England drew Babayaro's Nigeria 1-1.
Here at home, last year's Big West Goalkeeper of the Year, Galaxy draft pick Charles Alamo (UC Riverside) goes under the knife today, a week after tearing his ACL, a team spokesman e-mailed from Korea. Alamo is out for the year, but remains with the team after the Galaxy offered him a contract the same day the injury happened.
Injured defender Ante Jazic, remains in Korea to continue his rehab work with trainers Armando Rivas and Cecelia Gutierrez, as suspected, team officials confirmed.
Meanwhile, former Galaxy prospect Dan Paladini has resurfaced with Chivas USA. Former Galaxy midfielder Santino Quaranta has returned to D.C. United in an effort to resucitate his career. And, yes, Landon Donovan is the U.S. leading scorer after all FIFA confirmed today.
Finally, there's preps news from the Daily Breeze here.
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About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook.
Now that Harmse is gone, what do you see the Galaxy doing with the players that they sent back to LA?
Possibly trading them or waiving them? I find it weird/odd that the roster deadline is almost up and the Galaxy seems to be making a lot of moves that don't make sense in the short term, but that's just me.
Nick replies: It's not odd at all. The Galaxy is way overstocked in midfield and need to shift some bodies to get into cap compliance (or show they are significantly moving toward that by March 1 - Saturday.
Young Izzy Sesay doesn't count toward the cap so he's probably safe; Kyle Martino I'm sure is looking over his shoulder and several other high-riced veterans (Abel Xavier, Pete Vagenas, for instance) are also trade candidates.
I was the one who asked the first question, but I guess my feeling is that with all the recent trades of quality talent that we've lost and seeing what we have left just to comply with the salary cap, as a fan at the moment I'm kind of questioning the depth of the team, if those players who are not with the team right now are traded just to be at par with the cap.
Do we as fans have to wait and see what happens with how Ruud is going to handle the team or is there a cause for concern for depth in certain areas of the squad at least for the beginning of the season (since we really can't tell if they're going to make any moves in the summer window at the moment)?
Do you think that MLS is or would consider raising the salary cap for all teams anytime soon?
Nick replies: Actually, MLS did raise the cap in the off-season. The depth question you raised is always an issue in MLS, but the reliance on a few big names (or big salaries) on the Galaxy appears to be accentuating that. The Galaxy is trending toward the New York Cosmos approach to building a team: a few big names surrounded by a bunch of unknowns and inexpensive players.
The veteran medium-salary guys are becoming expendable out of necessity. We'll see if that gamble works.