The Arena Effect
Bruce Arena succeeded Ruud Gullit as the manager of the LA Galaxy on August 18, 2008 ( press release ). In his first game in charge, he inherited a team from which he picked the following line-up against Chicago on August 21st. It was a home game that was lost 0-1. Beckham and Donovan were both away on national team duty.
G Steve Cronin D Greg Vanney D Troy Roberts D Ante Jazic D Sean Franklin M Chris Klein M Peter Vagenas M Pires Alvaro (Josh Tudela, 50) M Ely Allen (Mike Randolph, 67) F Edson Buddle F Alan Gordon (Israel Sesay, 86)The next match, which included both Donovan and Beckham, was August 30th, a 2-2 draw at New England. This was a particularly interesting line-up, seeing Greg Vanney in the midfield. Bruce was starting to bring in some fresh faces, with Eddie Lewis being the first.
G Steve Cronin (Josh Wicks, 45) D Chris Klein D Troy Roberts D Ante Jazic D Sean Franklin M David Beckham M Greg Vanney (Mike Randolph, 65) M Eddie Lewis (Eduardo Dominquez, 81) M Peter Vagenas F Landon Donovan F Edson BuddleFrom this pool of 18 players, 11 are no longer on the official Galaxy roster: Cronin, Vanney, Roberts, Jazic, Alvaro, Tudela, Randolph, Vagenas, Sesay, Dominquez, and Allen. Over the past year, Vanney has retired, some have been traded and others let go. The rebuilding culminated, in my opinion, with the signing of Gregg Berhalter in April of 2009.