The Los Angeles Galaxy are gearing up for the stretch run of their MLS Cup title defense, and they've added a Swedish international midfielder with valuable experience to help them in the final months of the season.
With 10 days to go until the MLS roster freeze deadline, the Galaxy announced the signing of Christian Wilhelmsson, adding a 32-year-old wide midfielder who was part of the Sweden Euro 2012 team and also played in the 2008 European championship, 2006 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League. He came off the bench for all three of Sweden's games at Euro 2012.
Wilhelmsson, who most recently was playing his club soccer in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, had been on trial with the Galaxy over the past few days and played in the club's reserve league match against the San Jose Earthquakes Tuesday. He drew positive reviews from Galaxy reserve coach Curt Onalfo.
“I thought that he created some things. He’s a pure wide player so was able to get into some situations that were good for our team," Onalfo told reporters Tuesday. “Like I said, there were four controversial offside calls that we didn’t think were offside that would have turned the terms of the game…he had a good performance.
“For him it’s about getting minutes and utilizing this as an opportunity to advance. He played fine, he played well. You can tell that he has a lot of quality and that he’s a very quality wide player. He’s a good and very clever wide player.”
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What do you think of this development? Wondering how the high-spending Galaxy can keep a player of Wilhelmsson's caliber under the salary cap?
Share your thoughts below.
um, yeah… what he said!
I am being dead serious Charles
its about the tv revenue and how many fans watch the game on tv and the sponsors. who cares about columbus getting a gate of 14k.
when is the last time columbus has been on the ESPN or NBC game?
here in Rome we were all in love with his wife…
“Oksana… Oksana… Osanna… Osanna… Oksannnna…”.
Well we tend to make some confusion sometimes when watching the sky and thanking for something.
Why doesn’t RSL use these funds?
Now if they could only dump the useless Pat Noonan…
Some of you are fogetting one thing Champions League teams get extra allocation funds.
you must work for the IRS commercial collection division
I have been saying it the whole time, why have a salary cap or not increase it and why have parity since only galaxy, Red bull, Sounders spend good money and the rest just wait for the salary cap and parity to save their season. For example ronaldinho would be in mls already but galaxy n Red bull can’t do everything. Seattle has a philosophy about dps, rsl as well, Montreal barely started, Vancouver and portland are holding back. Garber has to tell mls, parity does not last forever in sports
SKC is on the verge of moving into that next tier if they can a move. RSL has always been, but they seem to be one of the cheaper teams in the league.
Yes, indeed. And let’s not forget super-rookie Villareal.
LA is going for titles. I like the ambition. It is similar to what we see in NY and Seattle. Houston isn’t far off either.
It’s about time American teams start to drop dead-weight players and bring in experienced, quality talent. This influx will improve the quality of young Americans.
Everton blows
Seattle is following NY and LA by bringing in Gudjohnsen
Now if they can sign Schevchenko and Schneijder
Take note Portland fans
It’s a 6 month contract with a 3 year team option.
Right, because it’s not like the vast majority of Euros shun very city sans LA/NY/TOR.
You do understand that other GM’s have no incentive to let the Galaxy cheat the cap, right? I highly, highly doubt it is some vast conspiracy.
Marginal increase in revenue sharing from a relatively unknown dude does not outweigh competitive disadvantage of LAG having him, no reason to let them cheat if they were cheating.
Or we could just have a salary cap and not make $ the metric by which winning teams are decided.
Don’t you get it? It’s awesome that despite the Beckham’s and Henry’s fans in places like Kansas City, Columbus, Salt Lake City, etc. can watch a winning team. Instead of rewarding vast amounts of money, it rewards smart management.
The NFL is an infinitely better model than the EPL despite not having the international revenue. Sure, promotion/relegation is a good thing, but that’s not mutually exclusive with a salary cap.
The same team’s winning isn’t interesting and isn’t interesting to fans of other teams. Why would fans of a team that has no prospect of winning go to games in the US when every other team in their town in other sports can? That’s a terrible way to grow the sport.
MLS could be the top league in the world with a salary cap, it would just be much much higher than what we have now.
The talent would be greater than other leagues, but how it is composed would be radically different.
Oh also FFP sucks. Codifies existing disparities while securing the rights of the select few to spend boatloads of cash.
The amount of good teams in MLS this year is a testament to what a salary cap should be like (and yes I get having more than 60% of teams make the playoffs water that down, but once again, playoffs=/=salary cap. distinct things. )
I think we need a FFP-style system.
** You can spend what you can cover.
Lower clubs can’t spend themselves into the ground and the higher profile clubs that can afford to do so, are allowed to.
I hope you are joking.
You think that Columbus with 14k fans a game and WAY less money coming in from other sources is being cheap ?
Are you thinking they are pocketing huge money ?
Probably the only case you could make is Seattle, who is absolutely rolling in profits, is going on the cheap, but they have one of the best teams in the league.
You have to be kidding. There is no way you are being serious there.
I, for one welcome our hot supermodel overlords!
http://oksana.se/portfolio/
…on loan
I’m going to write Red Bull and ask them to buy my team so we can afford good players too.
in the grand scheme of things, fans should be happy that the LA’s and NY’s of the world try to sign top-notch talent on a constant basis. Instead, alot of fans complain and say its not fair. Write a letter to your favorite team’s GM and tell them to step their game up and quit being cheap. Manipulate the cap and put a better product out on the field that will attract more fans & get your team some tv time as well.
Don’t forget dealing Ricketts. Save the club another $250K. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if AEG is still paying JPA’s salary.
Donovan has stated he is not going to Everton next january.
Season is almost over. Its most likely a 2-month contract. Next season if he stays with the Galaxy they can make additional changes.
A lot has happened to lower the Galaxy’s salary cap number since the beginning of the season. Chad Barrett (and his $200K+ salary) loaned out to Norway), Adam Cristman retired, Gaudette traded and a much cheaper back-up GK signed. Plus, only half of his salary will be on this year’s cap.
My guess: partial season keeps the price down. If he works out, he gets bigger money after Donovan goes to Everton in Janaury
Will he even be here next year? Seems like a year ending rental.
Galaxy had to cut Barrett to get under the cap on a year-long basis. He was gone the minute the signed Buddle, it was just a matter of when. There might be some salary relief from that (plus trading Gaudette) that might allow Willhelmsson to come on for the remainder of the year. Next year is probably when it gets really interesting with a full year of his salary ont he books.
Agree with everyone who has said that the MLS cap is screwy. Really not sure anyone except GM’s who work with it all the time understand the ins and outs and there seem to be a lot of loopholes and weird ways to get things done if you care enough and can shuffle players.
if = his
If wife was in a band called “Sunblock”. He has needed a lot Sunblock recently with stints in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and now Southern California. Hmmmm…
I have no idea where I am going with this. Oh yah, I agree she’s hot.
I think your idea has been in effect for a few years now.
ok he made 253,000 i guess from the comment above, guess that would make a little more sense.
Yeah, I’d say he makes a healthy living.
Oh boy Chad Barrett…
Guy gets by fine no?
Chad Barrett earned $253,333 in guaranteed comp from the Galaxy. Valerenga now pays his salary. That leads me to believe the Gs had a quarter million dollars in cap space lying around.
Claudine Keane, Posh Spice and Oksana Andersson. LAG WAGs!
But wouldn’t that accomplish the opposite of what the Cap’s supposed to do?
LA saved some money on the Barrett move but i dont know if thats enough to obtain this guy. What was it like 175,000? Nesta signed for 200,000 supposedly so i’ve seen weirder things in MLS.
Someone could make a lot of money if they wrote an authoritative and accurate book on exactly how the MLS salary and roster rules work. I know RBNY catches a lot of flak for being able to sign players like Henry and Cahill seemingly at will, but LA’s roster moves always confuse me. Didn’t they lose somebody, only to get him back via a loan? And if MLS has a salary cap, how can clubs continue to add players late in the season without cutting others? (That would go for that portion of Cahill’s salary that counts against the cap as well.)
Or he could be right…never seen a blown call, right?
HOT WIFE!
Or they could have just been tight calls.
I think the Galaxy are looking for good service into the box, now that Buddle is back.
“Like I said, there were four controversial offside calls that we didn’t think were offside…”
I always love these quotes. These calls are controversial because the biased coach doesn’t agree with them. It basically makes the word controversial utterly meaningless, he might as well say he repudiates them because he certainly doesn’t bring any evidence to convince anyone else.
I really don’t care about the salary cup, BUT I’d like to know how the LAG makes it all work. It’s becoming pretty clear that the cap is outdated and is holding this league back. Many teams are willing to bust out of it.
Idea: salary cap for poor clubs and no cap for the richer ones??
He looked ok in the euros from what I remember. Could be useful for the Gals.