4071: Becks, the Galaxy, and Super C
by : Bill Urban
What exactly constitutes a Major League Soccer “Super Club?”
Having Alexi Lalas, the red-headed, goateed for US international central defender who scored the second goal against England in that famous friendly defeat during the nadir of Graham Taylor’s reign, as your general manager is one requirement. Lalas was formerly GM at the New York/New Jersey Metrostars, and made the same rather pompous claims to “Super Club-dom” while in charge of a disappointing, unimpressive club.
Apparently, talking the talk is more important than walking the walk, then.
With David Beckham’s arrival, the “Super Club” nonsense has started up again, but at least Beckham’s new club has a past history of success to bolster such claims. The Los Angeles Galaxy have appeared in the MLS Cup final, the league’s championship competition, five times in eleven years, running out winners on two occasions in 2002 and 2005 with a pair of 1-0 over-time victories over Steve Nicol’s New England Revolution. The Galaxy have appeared in four US Open Cup Finals as well, with two victories in 2001 and 2005. MLS does recognize the club that finishes a given league season with the highest total points by the award of the MLS Supporter’s Shield, an honour the Galaxy has won on two occasions in 1998 and 2002. And in the regional international club competition, the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the Gals won a thrilling final by a 3-2 scoreline over Olimpia from Honduras.
A fair haul of trophies in a mere eleven years of existence, that…
One of the founding ten clubs in MLS, the Galaxy used the massive Rose Bowl Stadium as their home pitch until 2002. Then, in the expected accompanying burst of media hype, the club moved to the Home Depot Center, the so-called “Cathedral of American Soccer.” The Galaxy share the HDC with another MLS club, CD Chivas USA, and the derby matches between the two achieve a fair amount of recognizable atmosphere and spirit in the stands.
The Galaxy are owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, a conglomerate with interests in many other sports teams in different sports. AEG uses the stadiums in which the clubs the group owns to stage “other” events, which does tremendous benefit to the corporate coffers, but has a much less beneficial effect on the stadiums themselves, the condition of the HDC pitch being a running joke at the end of a summer of concerts and the X-Games. One wonders whether the Galaxy’s acquisition of Beckham might lead AEG to do less damage to the pitch in the HDC, or perhaps to lay a new pitch during the season. For a club that has attempted to maintain the tradition of attacking football, playing attractively on a pitch resembling a beach has proven somewhat difficult. Sadly, the guess is that the money from the “other” events will prove to be too important for AEG to relinquish, so one can only hope for money to be spent in maintenance of and perhaps an entirely new playing surface at the HDC.
