Steven Gerrard's 18 Months in LA: Disappointing but Potential Hollywood Ending
Los Angeles Galaxy began their MLS play-off campaign with a 3-1 win over Real Salt Lake on Wednesday, but notable by his continued absence was star player Steven Gerrard.
Indeed, had Galaxy lost the game, Gerrard's time in LA would have ended without him touching a ball for the club since October 2.
Instead, any talk on Gerrard in recent weeks has been surrounding his seemingly imminent return to Merseyside and a potential coaching role back at Liverpool.
Gerrard's desire to return to his hometown club has been clear for a long time, with the 36-year-old frequently taking trips back to England during his 18 months as a Galaxy player, with one as recent as this month and reportedly, per the Liverpool Echo's Chris Beasley, for a second opinion on a hamstring injury.
Galaxy face Colorado Rapids in the conference semi-final, a tie that will be played over two legs in MLS' convoluted play-off process. Gerrard will no doubt be eager to be involved and ensure his time in America doesn't end on a sour note.
When the former Liverpool and England captain joined MLS' most successful club in July last year, he'd have had high hopes of winning his first title as a player, having come so close on two occasions at Anfield but missing out in 2009 and 2014.
But his first season in LA ended at the first stage of the play-offs, losing 3-2 to Seattle Sounders after some calamitous defending from Bruce Arena's team. "If you don't win trophies at the end of a season, it's always disappointing," Gerrard said.
Gerrard is set to depart alongside fellow veteran Robbie Keane at the end of this season, with Galaxy to keen to acquire two new designated players for the 2017 campaign, knowing they must impress Los Angeles sports fans ahead of LAFC's introduction to MLS the year later.
Keane's Galaxy career has been one of huge success, arguably MLS' best foreign import, while Gerrard's has been one to file in the list of ageing players who struggled to adapt to life stateside.
"I would say that although we saw a few flashes from Gerrard in his time with Galaxy he never lived up to expectations," Fox Soccer's Keith Costigan said.
Struggle to Adapt
When Bleacher Report visited LA for Gerrard's unveiling and first training session for the media in July 2015, it was clear to see how his new team-mates respected him and how pleased Keane was to have a player on a similar wavelength in the side.
However, the warning signs were already there. Gerrard is a player who is fiercely competitive and strives for excellence in every training session, and you could sense that he was perhaps struggling with the lower intensity in training. The adaptation to a different training-ground culture wouldn't have been easy.
Gerrard would also have struggled with the conditions of playing in MLS, with the greater travel, to locations in different time zones and altitude.
"Going on the road, playing on turf, playing at altitude, playing in humidity, those are the hurdles that I've had to face over the last three months that I wasn't aware of," he said after his first season.
Quite how Gerrard was unaware of these conditions is perhaps baffling, especially as he sought advice from Keane and David Beckham before agreeing to the move. You'd expect even a modicum of research would have brought up such issues.
But perhaps it was life off the pitch where Gerrard struggled most. Although he enjoyed some aspects of LA life—mixing it with celebrities but also being afforded the anonymity of being able to take in the sights of Manhattan Beach or Beverly Hills without being recognised—his family failed to settle, and his wife and daughters remained in England, visiting only during school holidays. In between times, Gerrard has regularly had groups of friends from back home fly over to keep him company.
A family man who loves his city, perhaps Gerrard struggled more than most with being 5,000 miles away from home.
Role at Galaxy
Speaking at Gerrard's unveiling last summer, Galaxy head coach Arena detailed how he planned to pair the No. 8 alongside solid MLS midfielder Juninho—having sold veteran Marcelo Sarvas to DC United in order to free up space for Gerrard's arrival.
"We don't necessarily define one over the other in the midfield area, they'll share responsibilities, although we would think that Steven will be a little bit more forward than Juninho," said Arena.
The signs were good initially, not least on Gerrard's MLS debut, where he scored one, won a penalty and assisted another in a 5-2 win over San Jose Earthquakes.
But only one more goal followed for the midfielder, and Galaxy looked increasingly disjointed. The Guardian's MLS reporters Graham Ruthven and Graham Parker concluded that Gerrard was the root of Galaxy's problems, having proven "an awkward addition, upsetting the balance of Arena’s central unit."
Gerrard flew back to Merseyside within days of the play-off defeat to Seattle, with some speculation over whether he would return. The Independent's Simon Hughes linked Gerrard with a return to Liverpool saying "he has missed Liverpool acutely as well as the cut and thrust of the Premier League."
No such move back to Liverpool materialised and the 2016 MLS season began in better fashion for Gerrard. In LA's first 24 MLS games of the year he accumulated 10 assists and three goals, playing in 18 matches. The signs were good.
But since then, he's played just 208 minutes, struggling with muscle injuries.
"I think Gerrard's struggled for a lot of reasons—some down to him and others down to broader squad management and team-building," Galaxy supporter Dan Powers explained, detailing how Gerrard's arrival and the dismantling of Galaxy's spine in order to acquire him and Giovani dos Santos unsettled the side:
"While his performances haven't been sterling, they haven't been catastrophic either. The larger disappointment for me resides in the roster moves that followed his signing. His arrival precipitated the breakup of an incredible central-midfield partnership built on a budget [Sarvas and Juninho], the loss of a franchise cornerstone on the back line [Omar Gonzalez], and the signing of Nigel de Jong, a player who could hardly have had a more disastrous spell with the team or the fanbase.
"In many ways, Gerrard was signed to replace Landon Donovan off the pitch, but if anything, his capture meant the Galaxy couldn't replace him on it. While LA's struggles aren't totally down to Gerrard, he's been a big factor in two seasons' worth of a relative lack of cohesion due to the domino effect of bad squad moves his signing set off."
You could say Gerrard has been unfortunate that MLS' wage structure and rules meant his signing for Galaxy inadvertently unbalanced the squad. The further additions of De Jong—who left after just four months—and Ashley Cole didn't help either this year, with other areas of the squad having to be sacrificed.
Gerrard will be desperate to return to play a role in the play-offs, and perhaps we could see a final that hits the headlines, with Frank Lampard's New York City FC also in the running to lift the crown of MLS champion.
Such is the nature of play-offs, Galaxy could yet provide Gerrard with the dream finish, despite his struggles stateside.
Gerrard Back at Liverpool
Regardless of how Galaxy's 2016 season ends, Gerrard's time at LA will end, and he will return to Merseyside, back where he belongs.
A role at Anfield seems to be agreed, with Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp telling the media last week: "Steven Gerrard is always so welcome at Liverpool. Everything that we have already or will speak to each other stays in this talk.
"Nobody should worry that we have no space for Steven Gerrard."
According to the Express' Paul Joyce, Liverpool are in talks with the player over a return and to determine his exact role.
"I think it's a no brainer to have Gerrard involved in some capacity at the club," Costigan said. Costigan has commentated on Galaxy's games over the 18 months Gerrard has been in LA but is also a lifelong Liverpool supporter.
Gerrard's role back at Anfield is likely to be limited and will involve coaching at the academy. It's unlikely he will be among Klopp's staff on the bench on matchdays.
"He represents the biggest success story from the academy, and having him around to pass on his experience to younger local players would be great," Costigan continued. "I doubt that Klopp would offer him a role with the first-team staff as he has a staff he clearly trusts and works well with but there will definitely be a role at the club that Gerrard can fill."
So after 18 months in California, Gerrard will be relieved to be back on Merseyside and back at the club he served for 17 years. The American adventure could yet have a Hollywood ending, but perhaps that would gloss over the disappointment of the rest of the story.
* Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise stated.
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