Alexei Lalas (pictured at left), whom you might remember as that red-headed, long haired, goateed, hippy clown from US Soccer 10 years ago, is now the GM of the LA Galaxy. As such, he is gifted in the double-talk and ambiguities you expect from an executive in the "entertainment" business in LA. I don't know if all those years of smoking weed* have gone to his head, but he's also prone to making stuff up. Like in
this recent interview with a guy from Sports Illustrated. The article is titled "Lalas goes ga-ga". Appropriate. Here are some excerpts of the ga-ga ness, with my comments. Alexei's words are in bold.
This is a watershed moment for the Los Angeles Galaxy, for Major League Soccer and for the sport of soccer. true; kind of true if you say so; and maybe true in a signed-a-faded-star-for-his-retirement sort of way.
I think that we will certainly look back at this day and recognize the significance in terms of the growth of soccer. You sold only 2,000 tickets. In an urban area that has 8 million people. With no american football team. Let's not get carried away.
my bad, by all means, get carried away.
We talk about these big-picture things and they're all very important, but what tends to get lost, and understandably so at times when you're talking about David Beckham, who is this world wide icon, is how good a soccer player he is. Ultimately that's what it all comes down to. He's going to make us a better soccer team.Pay attention to this part where he says it's about making us a better soccer team. We will come back to it later because it is a) marginally true overall that Beckham makes them better, because the Galaxy are crap (not because Beckham is good), and b) COMPLETE BULLSHIT THAT IT'S ABOUT MAKING THEM A BETTER TEAM. It's about marketing and branding and blah blah blah.
We not only want to be the premier club in the United States, but we want to be considered one of the premier clubs in the world, and in order to do that you have to make bold statements and do bold things, and you can't get any bigger or bolder than what we did.I applaud the ambition to be one of the premier clubs in the world. Unfortunately, there are some other clubs that have a head start. Like two of your new guy's former teams, Manchester United and Real Madrid. Real Madrid have won their own domestic trophy 25 times. They are like the Yankees of Spanish football. except their games draw 100,000 people. As for getting bigger and bolder, that same Real Madrid team used a similar philosophy and started signing all the big stars several years ago. It nearly bankrupted the club, and once the stars got old, they stopped winning. Which is why they are unloading them to shite teams in Qatar and, ummm, LA. Describing the impact of signing Beckham, he says:
...it raises an incredible amount of attention and awareness of the Los Angeles Galaxy and Major League Soccer.True. But I thought this was about making your team better?
It is a player who is in his prime at 31 years old, who has played for two of the best clubs in the world in Manchester United and Real Madrid and now is going to what we feel is one of the other great clubs in the world.Whoa there, Lex! Slow your roll! If by "in his prime" you mean "fired by his own national team" and "unable to make it into the first team on his current club" then yeah, he's in his prime all right. The fact that you feel the LA Galaxy is one of the "other great clubs in the world" says a lot about your tenuous grip on reality.
He is a presence on and off the field, he is known throughout the world; and let's be honest, there are teams all over the world that would love to have David Beckham and he has chosen to come to the United States and has chosen to come to come to the Los Angeles Galaxy. That means a lot and that says a lot to the soccer community in the United States, and even more to the soccer community internationally.If this is about making your team better, why are we talking about a player's presence off the field? Because this is about publicity and market share and everything BUT making your team better. What Beckham coming to the US says is that he is too prideful to play for a second or third-tier club in England and he can get more money here. Because he is not very good any more.
They all know he's great player and when the ball is thrown out and people start playing soccer, I expect to see all the players step it up a level. That's what happens when big timers come into the mix. You want to impress. You want to do well. Not only will he raise the level of players on our team but I also think he will raise the level of play of other teams. I mean, who doesn't want to beat the team that David Beckham's on?Ahh... It turns out that the MLS players were not reaching their potential because Beckham wasn't there. They must have been holding something in reserve. They must have not wanted to do well before he got here. When he gets here, look out! People will want to do well like never before. Opposing teams will also play better, because they didn't have enough incentive before. That silly idea of "winning" is not as good as "beating Beckham".
[SI interviewer shits the bed here and draws analogy to ARod, which is ridiculous because baseball is a much different type of game and also because ARod is one of the top 5 best players on the planet at any position. Beckham is not one of the top 10 midfielders, never mind players.]
As far as the Galaxy brand, I can tell you that in the past 24 hours, what we've seen in terms of the attention and the interest domestically and internationally has been unlike anything we've ever seen, and that's the type of impact that David Beckham has.I thought this was about making your team better? Wait, what? It's about selling jerseys and market share and promotion and attention and "interest"? Weird. i never would have guessed that.
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* I made up that part about smoking weed. Because it is funny to me. And he looks like the sort of guy that would smoke a lot of weed. But I made it up. Even if it is true. Which it isn't.
