Galaxy Giddy About Future
From the moment the Galaxy completed a regular season that included the team winning Major League Soccer’s Western Conference championship, team captain Cobi Jones made a promise to himself, the media and all interested observers.
During the Galaxy’s postseason run, he would not talk about the team’s past shortcomings in the MLS Cup title match.
It was a sensitive topic to be sure. Though the Galaxy was, percentage-wise, the seven-year-old league’s most successful team, in three previous MLS Cup championships, the team was woebegone and winless, losing in 1996, 1999 and 2001.
So Jones stayed true to his word, reminding his teammates of the task at hand while writing inspirational affirmations on locker room chalkboards and keeping the team on an even keel after both playoff series wins.
Not so much as a bottle of champagne was popped in the Galaxy’s Invesco Field locker room after it swept the Colorado Rapids to clinch a spot in the championship.
But after the Galaxy exorcised its title-game demons with a sudden-death, 1-0 victory over the New England Revolution in the title match, Jones let it all out in the Galaxy’s victory celebration, a rally that drew an estimated 7,500 and nearly filled Staples Center’s lower bowl.
“We couldn’t have done it without you fans,” the normally low-key Jones screamed into the microphone. “You’ve been there for us since the beginning and now we can say that we’re the 2002 champs.
“We have everything in our favor now and in 2003, the Cup has to come through L.A.”
The champions will have the opportunity to defend the title on its home field as the Galaxy’s still-under-construction, 27,000-seat stadium at the Home Depot National Training Center in Carson is scheduled to open in June and host both the MLS All-Star game and MLS Cup next year.
And why shouldn’t the Galaxy repeat?
In the single-entity MLS, the Galaxy has the rare luxury of bringing back every player from this year’s team, which finished with the best regular-season record in the league.
“Nobody’s out of contract so that’s the beauty of it. We have that option,” Galaxy General Manager Doug Hamilton said. “It’s not a situation where we don’t have to beg people to come here.”
Plus, only four players -- Jones, Mauricio Cienfuegos, Ezra Hendrickson and Alexi Lalas -- are over 30.
“We’re coming off several different platforms to excite the community,” Hamilton said. “We’re coming off a championship, which everybody loves. We’re moving into a new building, which everybody loves. And we have the league MVP, which everybody loves.
“These things give us some degree of confidence but regardless of any of that, our job is to get better. We are not going to sit still. That’s not an option.”
After the World Cup, the Galaxy made it known that it planned on fielding a Korean player in 2003 to whet the Korean community’s appetite.
The organization can only hope it strikes gold in Asia as it did in signing Carlos Ruiz last winter.
All the Guatemalan striker did was lead the league in goals (a franchise-record 24), set MLS postseason records for goals (eight) and points (18) and win the league’s most-valuable-player award while bucking the Galaxy’s mediocre record of bringing in international forwards.
At the Galaxy’s championship rally, Ruiz, who turned 23 on Sept. 15 and scored the title-match winner, took his turn on the microphone to address the heavily Latino crowd.
With the crowd screaming, Ruiz led an arena-wide sing-along of his hometown team’s fight song, substituting “Galaxy” for “Municipal.”
This, of course, was after he collected on a bet with Lalas, who promised his young ward a new watch if Ruiz scored 15 goals.
With Lalas in a wedding and absent from the rally, Peter Vagenas, Ruiz’s first Galaxy roommate, did the honors, presenting Ruiz with a Rolex from Lalas.
“theseQue hora es?” Ruiz asked the gathering. What time is it?
According to Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid, it’s time for his team to start collecting MLS titles.
“Getting the first one, there was great satisfaction and a little bit of relief,” said Schmid, who won three national championships at UCLA but was zero for his first two in the MLS Cup with the Galaxy.
“The next time we play for the title, we don’t have to worry about those questions [about losing the final] and we can just focus.”
In a raucous celebration in which the players fought their way through yellow and teal streamers in a victory lap around Staples Center to share the championship trophy with the fans, the Galaxy felt the love.
“I’m just enjoying this, letting it all soak in,” Jones said. “It’s nice to be able to put all of that in the past now and not have to worry about all those other championship games and to sort it all out with this last one. We finally came through.”
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Youth is Served
*--* With its first MLS championship finally won, the Galaxy has the youth to contend for years to come. Only four players on the roster are 30 or older, with the average age 26 years. The Galaxy roster, with games and minutes played in 2002 and age: GOALKEEPERS Player G Min Age Kevin Hartman 18 1,648 28 Matt Reis 11 929 27 DEFENDERS Danny Califf 25 2,118 22 Adam Frye 20 956 28 Alexi Lalas 26 2,364 32 Tyrone Marshall 24 1,838 27 Craig Waibel 12 860 27 MIDFIELDERS Alex Bengard 4 26 23 Mauricio Cienfuegos 23 1,879 34 Simon Elliott 26 2,347 26 Ezra Hendrickson 23 2,048 30 Cobi Jones 19 1,638 32 Jesus Ochoa 9 352 21 McKinley Tennyson 0 0 28 Peter Vagenas 17 1,390 24 Sasha Victorine 25 1,985 24 FORWARDS Chris Albright 15 814 23 Gavin Glinton 22 790 23 Alejandro Moreno 12 561 23 Brian Mullan 21 1,019 24 Carlos Ruiz 26 2,376 23
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