MLS alumni are rapidly filling up front-office positions

MLS original Cobi Jones (left) is an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Galaxy, while Alexi Lalas is the club's president and GM. Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

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By Ridge Mahoney, Special to SI.com, Soccer America

It hasn't been that long since Alexi Lalas ascended from player to team executive, but during those intervening years very few of his peers found jobs other than blowing whistles or moving cones. Coaches, as it were.

Now the president and general manager of the Galaxy bumps into former teammates and foes at every match and function, and that's fine with him.

"It's about time," he says with the usual mix of jest and jab. "I was getting mighty lonely the past few years trying to bring the players' perspective to a lot of corporate types who would just look at me funny.

"I haven't coached. I made a decision. I knew I was one of those types of players who, if I went right into coaching, would be useless. I really needed to get away from the actual playing of the game and have a distance from it. But the more players we can get into the league as something other than coaches, the better. Playing the game gives you a unique perspective on the game and that can be used in so many ways."

Teams are doing just that. A league decree that all teams must initiate youth-development programs has triggered a string of hirings, and there are directors of soccer and technical directors sprinkled on staff lists around the league. Yet Toronto, Real Salt Lake and Houston have opted for different structures, and FC Dallas has interviewed candidates but as of mid-February had not made a hiring.

"We've made a point of sitting down in this offseason and really doing some soul-searching for lack of a better word in an attempt to understand exactly what we want to be and the philosophy that we want to take with us during that adventure," says Lalas of the Galaxy's decision to hire head coach Ruud Gullit and ex-U.S. international Cobi Jones to assist him.

"As the league grows and matures, each team will do things a little differently, but the bottom line will be not how things are set up, but how successful are you. And in pro sports, that's what matters most."

Ranks filling up

In February, the ranks swelled with the hirings of Brian Bliss in Columbus and Jurgen Sommer by Colorado, joining Paul Bravo (Los Angeles), Mike Burns (New England), Jeff Agoos (New York), Peter Vermes (Kansas City), and John Doyle (San Jose) as former MLS players with at least some responsibility for the first team as well as player development.

Last summer, Lalas moved Bravo, who played for Colorado and San Jose, upstairs to director of soccer. That not only cleared out a space for Jones on the coaching staff, it added L.A. to the list of teams tacking on additional playing expertise.

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