Steven Gerrard’s first campaign in the United States did not proceed as planned. There were no trophies, the season ended in heartbreak and expectations that he might step in and take over, given his exquisite pedigree, clashed with reality.
It was not easy, not at all.
The challenges the Liverpool legend embraced when he decided last winter to make the move to Major League Soccer often got the better of him, and the LA Galaxy, trying to integrate two influential players into their line-up for the final third of the season, fell apart down the home stretch.
If the Gerrard Experiment was not quite the success he and the club envisioned, it offered enough to boost expectations that next year, possibly his last as a player, could be something special.
He was surely humbled by his first experience away from his hometown club, and that is mostly about adaptation.
MLS might not rival the world’s great leagues such as England’s Premier League, Spain’s Primera Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, and is not the top competition in its region, either, existing in the shadow of Mexico Liga MX.
But it is possibly the most competitive league on the planet, one in which any team can beat any other on any given day, and challenges it poses are quite unlike those found in Europe.
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Gerrard had heard about MLS’s unique tests before he arrived: the long flights; playing in Denver’s or Salt Lake City’s high altitude home grounds, or in the extreme heat and humidity in Houston, Orlando and along the east coast; the cement-hard artificial surfaces in Seattle and elsewhere.
“You don’t understand until you get in the middle of it,” said Galaxy coach and general manager, Bruce Arena, who guided the US at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. “And then you know.”
Gerrard’s first American campaign, all three-and-a-half months of it, was a sharp learning curve, and he promised he will be better prepared when preparations for next season begin the third week of January.
“I’ll certainly be better for the experience next year,” he said after the Galaxy’s season ended with an opening-round play-off loss at Seattle.
“Going certainly on the road, certainly playing on [artificial] turf, playing at altitude, playing in humidity: they’re the hurdles that I’ve had to face over the last three months that I wasn’t aware of. Every away game’s got a different challenge.”
MLS had long been seen as a backwater competition, but David Beckham’s arrival in 2007 and Thierry Henry’s in 2010 brought the league greater attention and, ultimately, respect.
This year saw the arrivals of Kaka, Didier Drogba, David Villa, Frank Lampard and Sebastian Giovinco, in addition to Gerrard.
Gerrard, 35, left his hometown club, Liverpool, for sunny southern California after it became clear his days as an automatic first-team starter were over.
The Galaxy first approached him about a year ago. He signed in early January, an 18-month deal believed to be worth US$9 million (Dh33m), and arrived at the start of July, following in Beckham’s and Robbie Keane’s footsteps to MLS’s reigning dynasty, with three MLS Cup championships in the past four years.
Online poll: Will Steven Gerrard succeed in his seocnd year in the MLS?
It was paradise off the field, and started that way on the pitch, too.
He began seeing action, first in a friendly with Mexico’s Club America and then a US Open Cup loss before his league debut in the July 17 California “clasico” against the San Jose Earthquakes. LA embarked on their best stretch of season, with 12 wins and 50 goals in 15 games over two months across three competitions.
Gerrard contributed immediately, scoring the equaliser and assisting Keane’s winner as the Galaxy pulled away to a 5-2 win over the Earthquakes.
Two weeks later he assisted a Keane goal as LA claimed a first league away win in 11 months. They were atop the MLS table after a 5-1 rout of New York City FC on August 23.
But the results asked some fundamental problems. Galaxy had struggled with chemistry – in great part to an early season injury crisis that counted among its victims Keane, who missed two months with a groin ailment – but more so after Landon Donovan’s retirement after a decade with the club and a January trade that sent Brazilian midfielder Marcelo Sarvas to the Colorado Rapids.
Now the Galaxy were integrating two hugely influential players, with Gerrard stepping into Sarvas’s role and Giovani Dos Santos joining Keane up front.
There were bound to be hiccups as the newcomers, initially in pre-season form, adjusted as the team adapted to their games.
LA won just once in their final nine games as defensive errors repeatedly took a toll, falling to fifth place in the Western Conference, which led to the club’s earliest play-offs exit, and dropping from No 1 to No 5 in the seeding for next year’s knockout phase in the Concacaf Champions League.
Arena, who has been in charge at LA since August 2008, was not surprised that things did not always click.
“When I came here, David Beckham had already been here a season, and it took him probably into his third year to really get adjusted to this,” he said.
“I think that’s hard, that midyear thing. It catches up with you. And we knew it would be difficult.
“In theory, you’d like to believe that means it’s going to be better” next year.
Gerrard had good games, bad games and some in-between, and his partnership with Brazilian midfielder Juninho seemed to improve when Arena pushed him into a more attacking role in the season’s final games.
He says he is happy he made the move. “I’ve really enjoyed it,” Gerrard said in mid-October. “Every team I play against is new for me.
“It’s a new experience, so I’m enjoying it. Of course, I’ll be in better shape and know what to expect more next season when I come back.”
He was impressed with the level of play. “It’s a lot better than what I thought. It surprised me,” he said.
“I think the level is very good. The level’s a lot stronger than what the people’s opinions suggested before I came. I’ve been really surprised.”
Off the field, it was everything Gerrard hoped for. Lots of sun, of course, and plenty to see and do, if you have got the notion.
Gerrard and his family – wife Alex and daughters Lily-Ella, 11, Lexie, 9, and Lourdes, 4 – are living in Beverly Hills, in an $18m, six-bedroom mansion previously occupied by Mariah Carey, and he has found that in a city filled with stars, his wattage is not as prominent as it was in Liverpool. That is a good thing.
“I couldn’t be happier right now. I’ve gone from not being able to walk down a street without being stopped every five minutes to being a Z-lister out here, and that’s cool. I love it,” Gerrard told British celebrity magazine Hello.
“We’re very lucky, I know that. I grew up on a council estate and will always remain grounded and humble. But this is mind-blowing.”
Gerrard has said that broadening his daughters’ experience was a Galaxy selling point, but he did not expect it to strengthen his bond with the girls. It has.
“I’ve become a ‘cool dad’ all of a sudden because I can take the kids out and no one interferes,” he told Hello.
“We can take them to the park, the beach, fairgrounds, water parks and be there for six hours and I might hear one person say my name, and they’re not even sure if it’s me, so I just smile.
“The kids have been shocked I’m around and can do more things with them.”
Next year, he hopes it will be just as good on the pitch.
“If you don’t win trophies at the end of the season, it’s always disappointing,” he said after the 3-2 play-offs defeat. “But you’ve got to dust yourself down and get ready to go again. Before you know it, you’re starting again.”
He said failure makes him more determined to succeed. “Especially for me. It could be my last season of football,” he said.
“I don’t know. I certainly don’t want to feel how I’m feeling now this time next year. I’d love to go out on a high.”
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