Galaxy players react to departures of Ruud Gullit and Alexi Lalas
SOCCER
Veteran midfielder Peter Vagenas says 'there's blood in the water' as team discusses resignation of coach and firing of general manager.
Ruud Gullit showed up at the Home Depot Center on Tuesday morning and bid a rather tense farewell to the Galaxy team he had coached for all of nine months, making a few friends along the way and, by all accounts, a few enemies as well.
The mood was somber in the wake of the former Dutch star's resignation Monday and the simultaneous dismissal of Alexi Lalas as president and general manager.
As veteran midfielder Peter Vagenas put it, "there's blood in the water," and everyone is now uncertain about their future.
Even David Beckham wasn't smiling much.
"Obviously, it's disappointing," he said. "It's disappointing to lose somebody who's a good coach and a good person. It happens in football clubs and it's happened here. Maybe it happened too early, but we wish him good luck in whatever he goes on and does."
Beckham denied that Gullit had been at odds with all or some of the Galaxy players. Other players acknowledged that Gullit definitely had not seen eye to eye with Lalas.
"He was comfortable with the players," Beckham said. "It's different for him to coach here than it is in Europe, but I think he adapted really well. He's taken the decision to move on because of family reasons and everyone knows family always comes first, so good luck to him."
Others were less inclined to buy into that line of thinking.
Landon Donovan, the Galaxy's leading scorer, said that there had been minor friction between him and Gullit.
"Believe it or not, it was actually better toward the end," Donovan said of his relationship with Gullit. "Initially, he was a little hard on me. I was always fine with that as long as it was respectful. At times it was a little disrespectful and that bothered me. But I think he figured out that as long as he treated me respectfully he could say things to me and I would get on with it. So I would characterize it as good at the end.
"From Ruud's standpoint, I think it's been difficult for him . . . because it's not what he was used to growing up. If you've been in a certain way of soccer for 40 years and you come somewhere where you can't get the players you want, you can't do the things you want, you don't have an unlimited budget, you have other issues around you that affect things, then it makes it very difficult.
"So I understand his frustration with all that. It's not easy and not a lot of foreign coaches have done well here for that reason."
