Dutch icon Ruud Gullit has been a winner almost everywhere he's stopped in his career -- both as a player and as a coach. German Alegria/MLS via Getty Images

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

There are more pounds around the middle and less hair up top these days as perhaps the most powerful yet graceful player ever produced in Europe slides toward his 46th birthday, his playing days long past and an oft-aborted coaching career in its fourth phase.

Along the sidelines, Los Angeles Galaxy head coach Ruud Gullit is removed from the action only by the rules of the game. His gaze is just as keen, his voice is just as sharp, and his demeanor just as combative as during two decades of play for clubs in the Netherlands, England and Italy, and 66 appearances for the Netherlands.

"Ruud Gullit could play left back and probably be as good as Paolo Maldini," says Houston Dynamo assistant coach John Spencer, a teammate of Gullit's at Chelsea more than a decade ago. "He was that good. He's the type of player who could play right back, or as a central defender, or he could play wide left, and he would be world-class in that position. He was just such a complete soccer player, to sit back and watch him play any position and know he could excel in any one of them positions was phenomenal."

Michel Platini, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff were visionary artisans, yet their builds were toothpicks compared to the tall, rampaging, muscular, dreadlocked and inventive son of a racially mixed liaison between a black Surinamese teacher and his white buitenrouw (literally, outside wife) who played in a zealous fury leavened by exquisite control, impeccable touch and extraordinary vision.

And nobody, before or since, not Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Platini or Maldini or anybody else you can name, played so many positions so expertly. Sweeper, midfielder, striker, his vast range has nothing to do with the "total football" played by the Netherlands -- dubbed the "Clockwork Orange" for their rhythmic, precise play -- in the 1970s and mythically reconstituted ever since.

Gullit was a total footballer who grew up inspired by a collection of audacious, daring players who twice came agonizing close to a world title. To date, the only trophy-winning Dutch team is the 1988 European Championship squad led by Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Gullit.

Gullit's resume is impressive: three Serie A and two European Cup titles with AC Milan; an Italian Cup with Sampdoria; an FA Cup with Chelsea as player-manager; a Dutch League and Cup double with Feyenoord; the '88 European Championship with the Netherlands; World and European Player of the Year honors in '87.

"He was 6-foot-3, 6-4, and he had the balance and poise of a Diego Maradona or Gianfranco Zola, the way he could move like a small guy," says Spencer. "And he had everything: left foot, right foot, he was great in the air, his touch and his technique and vision. He had everything. He was a world-class soccer player. He came to Chelsea as a sweeper and ended up in midfield and occasionally up front."

Managerial muddles

Yet world-class players, with the exceptions of Cruyff, Beckenbauer and a few others, rarely mature into top-class managers. In Gullit, confidence, arrogance and stubbornness coalesce. Disagreements with club chairman Ken Bates drove him away from Chelsea, a bust-up with legendary striker Alan Shearer punched his departure ticket from Newcastle; and a fourth-place finish wasn't good enough at Feyenoord. None of his stints lasted more than 18 months.

"It didn't work out with the chairman. It was unlucky," Gullit says of his time at Chelsea, which won its first trophy in 27 years under his tutelage. "I was flabbergasted but I had to deal with it. The only security you have as a coach is that you get fired."

He's come here to America, as did his idol and mentor Cruyff, to taste the American game. Nearly three decades after Cruyff played for NASL teams in Washington and Los Angeles near the end of his playing career, Gullit has landed in L.A. to revive his coaching aspirations.

"Our philosophy is about a passing game," says Gullit of an approach he hopes to adapt for MLS. "We need to pass the ball and go forward and hold position as much as possible. Of course, nowadays that is extremely difficult to maintain that all the time, because players get more athletic, they get stronger all the time, so that was very difficult to keep the ball all the time.

"It's in our system to do it so if we combine it a little more with reality, because sometimes you cannot always resolve a problem like that, then you may have the right cocktail."