Today’s conference call guests: MLS Deputy Commissioner – Ivan Gazidis San Jose Earthquakes forward – Landon Donovan Dallas Burn Head Coach – Mike Jeffries Ivan Gazidis’ Opening Comments: “We offer congratulations to Landon for scoring his first MLS goal. It didn’t come a day too soon and I’m sure it will be the first of many. Landon is playing on a team with Frank Yallop, a young coach and his second in command, Dominic Kinnear. Both of them could probably still be playing. That’s a great story for us that we have players coming through and assuming those coaching positions. MLS hasn’t been around that long and it’s something that’s relatively new to us. As we get older as a league we’ll see more of it not only on the coaching side but also on the business side. That’s a tremendously positive thing for us. What’s happening in San Jose is also positive as well and Landon is playing a big part in that. “I’d like to congratulate Pablo Mastroeni on becoming an American citizen and on scoring his first Major League Soccer goal. Pablo was born in Argentina but on Friday completed his paperwork to become a U.S. citizen. It’s a good weekend all in all for Pablo and we look forward to many more contributions from him. “Also, we have very exciting games coming up. Tomorrow night D.C. United plays Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer will also be playing the Columbus Crew on this trip. That was part of the arrangement in bringing Landon Donovan to MLS was that we would have Leverkusen coming over here to play against our teams. It’s another good opportunity to test ourselves against one of the best teams in the world. We’re very excited about that. We also have the opportunity on Saturday to see the MetroStars take on Bayern Munich who are ranked No. 1 in the world by ESPN.com and CNNSI.com world club team polls. They may well be the champions of Europe by that time. They are the Bundesliga champions and all of their regulars will be at that game with only two exceptions: midfielder Jens Jeremies is injured and goalkeeper Oliver Kahn is unable to make the trip. Other than that they will have their entire first team. That will be a great test for the MetroStars and I think they can do well. “Finally, a few words about the FIFA Club World Championship: Obviously we’re extremely disappointed that FIFA has cancelled this tournament. It took us by surprise. We had heard some rumors 48 hours prior to the cancellation. But we never expected it would come to that. It’s a huge disappointment for everyone in the soccer community. Particularly, I feel for the players, coaches and the fans of the Los Angeles Galaxy who were looking forward to that tournament. They earned their right to be there and deserved their right to be there and tragically they’re not going to be there. That’s a terrible, terrible shame. “We are still waiting for official notification from FIFA. We have not had anything official from FIFA. We’ve read the same things that everyone else has read. We’re interested in what FIFA is going to propose with respect to compensation. We’ve incurred very significant costs in re-scheduling, in promotions, in player decisions and in preparations leading up to the tournament. A great deal of reliance was placed on the representation that FIFA made. So we’re interested to see what their proposals will be but we can’t comment on it until we receive some sort of official word. “We’re looking at scheduling options. Obviously there’s a large gap in the Galaxy’s schedule. One option would be to move some regular season games in that space and we’re looking into that. We’re also exploring the possibility of a game or games against some of the international clubs who would have been at the Club World Championships. It’s too early to say whether that’s likely to lead to success. But we’re definitely in talks and exploring those possibilities. If there’s a chance of pulling that off, you can be assured that we will do everything in our power to give the players, the coaches and the fans in Los Angeles the opportunity to compete against some of those teams. “If there’s one positive note to take out of it, it’s that the Los Angeles Galaxy players will now be able to play in the MLS All-Star Game on July 28. That was not our or their first choice and we cannot comment too much further until we get some sort of official notification from FIFA.” Mike Jeffries’ Opening Comments: “Clearly we would like to be the Burn that’s always defended our home field and been incredibly strong there. At this point in the season we’ve won a couple and lost a couple and we want to push that and be much better at home. It’s important for us in that respect to get off to a good start tomorrow (against San Jose). On the whole, in our seven games we’ve only managed to score the first goal twice. That’s an important aspect of our game so we’re looking to get off to a good start and be better and stronger at home. “As far as the season for me, I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s been a little bit of a learning experience going from being an assistant to making all the decisions and dealing directly with all the players. I think it’s going well and it’s been enjoyable. I’m still learning about the guys and we haven’t gotten to the point where I know 100 percent which guys are going to play. I’m still learning what the strengths and weaknesses of the players are and where certain guys fit into our team. With that, some guys have done better than I would have expected in playing different roles. I don’t know that we’ve yet put together the type of game in which we’ve played well on both sides of the ball throughout the 90 minutes and that’s a goal of ours as the games continue. “Lastly, with regards to San Jose, I’ve been very impressed with how they’ve played. They’ve been very well-organized. All the players on the field work for each other in defending and going forward. They have a fair amount of team pace and the ability of the guys to change and take on different roles. Also, the work rate they put forth has made them difficult to break down defensively. We’ve played them before and I’m fairly impressed. It should be an exciting and fast-paced game tomorrow night.” Landon Donovan’s Opening Comments: “I want to say that my life has been really wonderful since I’ve been back. I’m happy to be here. I’m having an incredible time. It’s a huge tribute to Bayer Leverkusen, MLS, my agent and everyone who helped me get back here. It wasn’t an easy situation and it took a lot of compromising and work from a lot of different people. I’m really excited and happy to be here. It’s been a dream for me to be back. “Going along with that is the success of our team so far. We’ve had a wonderful season so far. We weren’t too happy with a few games but aside from that, we’ve played extremely well and we’ve surprised a few people and opened up a lot of eyes. The win against the MetroStars was huge. They were the best team going into the game and we really wanted to challenge them and make them beat us. We wanted to show them what we have because we believe we’re one of the better teams in the league as well. It was a great result for us. Obviously my first goal was a huge relief for me and great excitement as well. It wasn’t the hardest goal I’ll ever have to score but as a goalscorer you take what you can get and I’ll take it. “It’s a big week ahead of us. We travel to Dallas and we want to get some revenge against the Burn. We felt our worst game of the season was when we played them in our first game at home. To their credit, they played very well in our place and deserved to win. But we feel we’re a better team and we hope to continue our winning ways tomorrow night. Going into Chicago, we hope to break up their unbeaten streak at home. That’d be another great feat for this team. We beat some good teams on the road this year. We feel we’re a good team on the road. We’re a dangerous team to play against. It should be another good game this weekend. Overall I’m really happy to be here and I thank everybody for letting me come. My life is incredible right now.” Gazidis on television ratings rise: “We had a tremendously encouraging figure on our ESPN2 game this weekend. It was our highest ESPN2 rating of the year at 0.332. That brings our ESPN2 rating so far to an average of 0.238 which is slightly up on our 2000 ESPN2 ratings which was 0.223. The TV figures are looking encouraging and we’re definitely feeling good about them.” Gazidis on seeking legal action for reimbursement due to the cancellation of the FIFA Club World Championship: “I don’t want to comment on that. It’s premature to make comments about what our options might be at a time when we have not received anything from FIFA. It’s clear there have been significant costs but I don’t know whether they can easily be quantified. There is the changing of our schedule, giving up valuable Saturday dates, pushing games to Wednesday and all of the knock-on effects of that. It does not only affect the Los Angeles Galaxy but also their potential opposition. It affects games even beyond that. It’s extraordinarily difficult to quantify. At a minimum we were clearly relying on the guaranteed amount of $2.7 million. We hoped we would earn more than that by being successful in the tournament. We haven’t received anything from FIFA at this point and I don’t even know what their proposal is to deal with this situation.” Gazidis on establishing games with other clubs who were to be participants in the Club World Championship: “We have had contact with a number of those clubs. I don’t want to get people’s hopes up in an unwarranted way. The list of clubs we’ve been speaking to does include Real Madrid and Boca Juniors. It also includes Jubilo Iwata, Olimpia and other clubs involved in the tournament. I don’t want to speculate at this point on how likely it is we’d be able to put something together. But we are committed, if something is possible, to make the best of a bad situation and turn this into a positive for us. At this point I couldn’t tell you that we’re imminently about to put together a tournament. Is there a deadline on that? There is. Our first decision would be with the Wednesday games that Los Angeles has coming up and whether one of those is going to be moved to a weekend slot. There’s a game on June 6 (D.C. United at Los Angeles). So that’s one constraint on us. You need to get enough notice prior to June 6 to know whether you’re going to move that game or not. It has to happen fairly quickly but there’s no specific deadline on it.” Gazidis on how valuable international friendlies are to MLS: “It’s valuable to our players certainly in terms of experience against international opposition. It’s valuable exposure to some of the great clubs in the world for our fans. It’s a good measuring stick. It’s not a perfect measuring stick because they’re not games in an official FIFA competition. But any game between professional athletes is a competitive game. There’s no way that Bayer Leverkusen wants to lose any game where its team takes the field. And Bayern Munich will be exactly the same. We’re playing against two of the world’s best club teams and it’s a good and valuable test and a great opportunity to give to our players and our fans.” Gazidis on how realistic it is for FIFA to compensate the Club World Championship qualifiers: “I just don’t know. Is it realistic? In my mind we were guaranteed $2.7 million to participate in that tournament. I’m sure the same was in the mind of other teams that were going there. I’m eagerly awaiting some sort of official notification from FIFA about what their plans are for compensation. I don’t know what those would be.” Gazidis on whether it surprised him to learn about the cancellation after it had been announced: “It did surprise me. It surprised me that we wouldn’t have had some sort of discussion or some sort of notification and that we had to read it on the internet along with everybody else. I’m trying to be responsive now in a situation where I really don’t have any more information than anybody else does. It’s difficult to give a response when we don’t know what FIFA’s position is with respect to the promises it made.” Gazidis on Sigi Schmid’s input in re-scheduling matchups: “I think Sigi’s opinion is an important one. It’s certainly not going to be ignored in the process. I don’t want to speak for Sigi but he has a focus of winning MLS Cup this year. That’s an understandable and worthy goal. They clearly need to fill their scheduling gap. If we can do something that can be genuinely meaningful and exciting in terms of international competition, that’s what we had planned for that period. We owe it to ourselves, our fans and our players to look at it very seriously. If it becomes clear we are not able to pull that off, and it’s by no means clear that we could, then obviously we have to look at moving regular season games into that space so that the Galaxy has a good competitive schedule. We’re looking at both of those in parallel at the moment. At some point one part will take over from the other and as soon that happens we’ll make it public.” Landon on his views on the quality of play in MLS compared to Europe: “The consensus of people in Europe is that MLS is not top flight. But I’ve been there and I’ve seen German soccer and I’ve seen one of the best teams in the world train on a daily basis. Coming back here has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I always expect to score but I didn’t expect it would be that hard. The goal I had this weekend was probably the easiest chance I’ll have all year. Defensively the league is a lot better than people give it credit for and the offensive players in MLS are incredible like Clint Mathis, Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno. But overall, defensively, it’s a lot, lot better than what people think. And it’s only going to get better from there with younger and better players coming up all the time. Also, college players coming in are making good contributions and Santino Quaranta scored his first goal this weekend. It’s a lot better than people think, I can assure you that. Tactically it’s better, without a doubt. Tactically these guys are very smart. We’re a tough team to break down. The goals we’ve given up this year have not necessarily been mental lapses. Defensively and tactically, teams here are tough to break down and hard to beat.” Gazidis on when he expects more information from FIFA about the cancellation: “I wish I could say there’s a timetable, proposal or anything official. But I just haven’t seen anything yet. I’m sure there will be some kind of official communication either through the federation or directly to us and the Galaxy. We’re just waiting on that. In the meantime we’re assuming there is no tournament this summer along with everybody else and we’re doing the best we can with that reality. We’re trying to minimize our costs and our losses.” Gazidis on Shaun Bartlett’s transfer from MLS in light of his recent signing with Charlton Athletic: “We got a good transfer fee. It was seven figures and over a million dollars. We were happy with it at the time. At the time we believed Shaun had tremendous potential but had not fulfilled that potential in MLS. That transfer was not based on his performance in MLS but entirely on his performance with the South African national team. We were very happy with that transfer at the time. ôI classify Shaun as a personal friend of mine. So I’m very happy to see him achieving great success. And Shaun’s success speaks partly to Landon’s point. When you speak to Shaun about the development of his career he always will say that his time in the United States is what enabled him to become successful in Europe. When we signed Shaun from Cape Town he had very limited professional experience. He had no professional experience outside of South Africa except with his travel with the national team. When he came here he had to adjust to a new lifestyle. At the same time MLS was a good enough level that clearly he was challenged by the defensive capabilities of the teams here. He didn’t score that many goals here. It’s a challenge for anyone coming into a new situation. He’s learned from it and developed and I’m glad to see he’s a success.” Gazidis on the impact of Phillip Anschutz’s investment in a European team: “Anything that happens on players happens with the league. It’s not possible for Mr. Anschutz to take players from clubs in Europe and bring them here and vice versa. But at the same time Mr. Anschutz has clearly made a decision that he wants to be active in soccer not only in the United States but on a global scale. That’s a positive development for us. It’s going to open many doors for us as a league. It’s a sign of his commitment to the sport. He’s increasing his investment in the sport. I take tremendous positives from that. On the players’ side, everything needs to be through the league. That’s the way we’re set up. I could see some positives developing from that on the player side but not directly with the Los Angeles Galaxy or Chicago Fire.” Donovan on how he’s been received by the San Jose community: “The community here has been wonderful to me. When I came into the game in the home opener, the crowd erupted and, believe it or not, that makes a big difference. When you come in, it gets your adrenaline going and gets you pumped up to play. They’ve been absolutely tremendous. Every time I’ve been announced they go crazy. That’s also good for the team. As you’ve seen in the past they haven’t always had a great atmosphere here. So it’s incredible now. They deserve a good year and we’re trying to give it to them.” Donovan on the Dallas Burn’s defensive form: “The first time we played them they shut us out. They’re doing well lately. We’re a lot more confident now and going forward we feel we’re going to score in every game we play in. It’s not going to be easy on Wednesday but we create a lot of chances and if we finish decently we should be able to score against Dallas. We’re optimistic and confident now after going unbeaten in four games and we feel like we should win and score goals in every game we play.” Jeffries on Burn forward Ariel Graziani’s attitude after being substituted: “Ariel and I like to meet on Monday mornings. There’s frustration on both sides. Ariel has high expectations for himself in terms of what he contributes to the team. Clearly, I have those same expectations. It hasn’t been going as well as we’d like. We talked about it yesterday. I have a lot of confidence and belief in him and I feel he can be a major contributor to this team. We want him to be that. It’s a situation right now where he hasn’t been comfortable being removed from games and hopefully we can work our way through this. We talked about it and we’ll move forward and take it from there. There comes a point when enough is enough. The issue is obviously that we want Ariel to be successful within our team and he has to fit in the framework of the team. Those things are discussed between Ariel and myself.” Donovan compares training sessions in Europe to those in MLS: “They’re fairly similar. It’s not about European vs. American. It’s more of individual coaching decisions. For the most part you’re going to see some possession, some 6-v-6 or 7-v-7. And you’re going to have something that goes to goal that’s more game-like as well as a little bit of fitness and finishing drills for the forwards. For the most part they’re fairly the same. There are tweaks here and there but nothing major.” Donovan compares his lifestyle in Europe to that in America: “My lifestyle in Germany consisted of training, eating and sleeping with an occasional golf game or a Monday night movie at the American movie theater. Here life is so much easier. We have the beautiful California sun and everyday I go to the pool, golf with the guys and see my family much more frequently than I had before. I can’t stress how much life is easier in the United States. Not only that, but the soccer on the field is just as good. For me, the way I like to play is attractive, creative, flashy soccer with a good work ethic and mentality. It wasn’t like that in Germany. It was pure work, robotic, methodical and it wasn’t fun for me. MLS is real exciting soccer and it makes the game more fun and exciting for players like myself. But for any kid, I would stress to stay here. You can’t get much better than being here.” Donovan on whether he would have still made the decision to go to Germany in hindsight: “I don’t regret going to Germany simply for the fact that I’ve grown up as a person. Clearly I’ve become a better player. But I think I would have become a better player here as well. I probably would have developed faster here to be honest. But I grew up a lot as a person and for that I’m grateful and thankful and I enjoy and appreciate things more now. I don’t know how my decision would have been influenced if I knew then what I do now. But I would be fine with either decision.” Jeffries on changing styles of play on the road and at home: “We don’t go with the intention of playing any differently on the road than we do at home. You have to look at the games individually. In San Jose, we were coming off a game where we had given up four goals the game before against Tampa Bay. Our focus on that week was going to be our defense. I don’t think it could have been any other way. We played San Jose on a smaller field on a day when we were no good with the ball and we have guys who are generally very good with the ball. It ended up being a game where we battened down the hatches and defended well and held on to the lead. It’s not something we intended to do. “Also, the Burn’s mentality on the road that I inherited did not do well last year. They went 11 games before they got any result on the road. So I’m trying to instill a better mentality for how we do play on the road. Against Los Angeles, we felt we could go out and play against them. We weren’t as successful as I would like. But we didn’t go in there with the idea of focusing on 0-0 and walking out of there. That was not our best night. But I give credit to my guys for hanging on to do the things they had to do not to give away the game. We had our chances but not as many as Los Angeles. We don’t go into road games with a different mentality or different attitude. There are certain limitations with the guys I have that dictate how we play. That factors in.” Donovan on international exhibitions and their effect on changing foreign views on MLS: “It’s about bragging rights. When I went over to Germany, the U.S. national team had just beaten Germany 2-0 and it really doesn’t change their mind. They’re arrogant people whether that’s good or bad. That’s just the way they are. They don’t ever want to believe that we’re better than them. I think for the players it’s huge and it’s a great opportunity. And Bayern and Bayer Leverkusen’s starters won’t play the whole game but their players who sit on the bench are just as good and are fighting for a spot to look good in front of their coaches. Bayer Leverkusen has a new coach and I’m sure everyone is going to be playing to show him what they’ve got before preseason. If people think they take those games lightly, I guarantee you they’re wrong and they’re going to be good games.” Jeffries on what MLS teams get from playing international exhibitions: “It’s an enjoyable game for the players and one they look forward to. It’s a bit of a break in the schedule of league games and the typical pressure of league games. That’s a good thing for the players. And it’s often times an opportunity to play different guys and put them in a real game against excellent competition. That’s also positive. But it also depends on the schedule. If you have an international game on a Wednesday, you want to put your best foot forward but you’re going to have to rest guys with a league game coming up. The one game we had with Dallas in the preseason against Chivas was a great way to start getting ready for the season. They came and worked hard with every intention of winning to go back to Mexico with a good deal of pride. Those are good tests to see where our players are. It’s a fun, enjoyable experience for the players. They usually manage to get a jersey out of it and they’re happy about that. It’s positive all-around.”