Coach says Galaxy lacks 'leadership,' even with Beckham, Donovan

So it was strange to hear Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit on Saturday night talking about the "lack of leadership" on the field during the team's 2-1 loss to the New York Red Bulls.

True, Ruiz remains sidelined because of a knee injury, but Donovan and Beckham have played every one of the team's 630 minutes this season. Between them they have scored 11 of the Galaxy's 14 goals, but the team has won only two of seven games.

In part, the bleak record is because the Galaxy lacks quality and experience in key positions. But it is also because neither Donovan, Beckham, nor anyone else on the roster is the sort of calm but vocal on-field leader able to organize the players around him and get them to recognize what needs to be done in certain situations.

Beckham and Donovan are too busy trying to create goals, and veteran defenders such as Greg Vanney and Chris Klein are too busy trying to stop opposing teams from scoring. The lack of a take-charge central midfielder is glaringly obvious.

Not for the first time, Gullit pointed out how coaches in the NBA and NFL can call timeouts and can run the games from the sideline, whereas in soccer coaches rely on the players being intelligent enough to sort things out themselves.

That is a little bit of buck-passing on the Dutchman's part, but he does have a point.

Gullit was particularly unhappy at the way the Galaxy gave up the winning goal only a minute or so after tying the score, and he bemoaned the players' inability to "use their heads."

Contrast that with the comments made by New York's Juan Pablo Angel, who scored the game winner: "We were upset for having given up the goal, but I think the way we reacted leaves us all feeling good. They could easily have taken control of the game, but we didn't let them, and that's the most satisfactory thing from the game."

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Beckham managed to stroll into the postgame news conference about 80 minutes after the final whistle Saturday and then talked about the Galaxy being "careless at certain points" and about how the game had been "a learning curve" for some players.

"There are going to be some games we are going to play well and some we are going to play bad," he said.