“It’s mostly chaos in L.A.,” new New York Red Bulls midfielder Santino Quaranta says in an interview with the Newark Star Ledger’s Frank Giase. And he would know: Quaranta had been at the Galaxy 11 months before he was traded to the Red Bulls two weeks ago.
Quaranta arrived in L.A. last August, right around the time “the craziness began,”as Giase calls it. Alexi Lalas had only been club GM for four months and Frank Yallop had just replaced Steve Sampson, who had led L.A. to both the 2005 MLS and U.S. Open Cups. But Quaranta says that Yallop actually did a good job of settling the team. “To be fair, I thought we were one of the best teams in the end of last year, from August to September to October, I thought we were the best, especially in the West.” But this year, with the knowledge that David Beckham is arriving, “now it’s just panic mode.” Every week there seems to be a trade involving the L.A. Galaxy, as Lalas and co. frantically try to find the right mix prior to Becks’ arrival.
As for the trade, Quaranta says, “I guess they did what they had to do in the end. They’re trying to keep their jobs, too, as well, so I can’t fault them for trying to make the team better. But in the end I don’t know if it makes it better.” As for the Galaxy, “I feel bad for Frank (Yallop) because I don’t think he deserves all this…what can he (Yallop) do at this point? Alexi’s the guy. He’s the decision-maker and that’s it.”