Major League Soccer announced that LA Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena captured the 2009 MLS Coach of the Year honour after leading his club to its first playoff berth since the 2005 season and a top seed in the Western Conference playoff bracket with a 12-6-12 record and 48 points.
Arena, now in his second season as Galaxy head coach, led Los Angeles to one of the most dramatic single season turnarounds in MLS history. In 2008, the Galaxy finished at the bottom of the Western Conference with an 8-13-9 record and 33 points while also giving up a League-high 62 goals.
One of Arena's biggest priorities during the 2009 off season was to solidify its defense. Arena drafted University of Maryland star defender Omar Gonzalez with the third overall pick in the 2009 MLS SuperDraft and brought in U.S. national team veteran Gregg Berhalter to fill in the center of the backline.
Arena also handed the netminding duties to first-year MLS goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, a 32-year-old Jamaican international who spent most of his career in Europe. Berhalter, Gonzalez and Ricketts were a big reason the Galaxy cut their goals-against average in half from 2008 allowing just 31 goals this season -- the biggest single season goals against reversal by a team in League history.
In addition to shoring up the defense, Arena also brought in a host of new players, meshed them together, and helped reconcile the highly-publicized differences between star players Landon Donovan and David Beckham.
