Our resident soccer guru Rev shares his thoughts on Saturday's
loss.
Let’s get the obvious headline-type
stuff out of the way early. The L.A. Galaxy completely outclassed the
Union en route to a 3-1 win Saturday night. A.J. DeLaGarza put the
Galaxy
ahead 1-0 53 seconds into the game. Edson Buddle continued his
outrageous
scoring streak. He poked a ball into the corner of the net following
a scramble in front of the Union net off of a corner kick. He was also
the beneficiary of a patented Landon Donovan run – where Donovan split
and then outpaced the Union’s central defense, played a ball square
to Buddle, who took one touch and then deposited a shot past Chris Seitz
into the corner. Oh, all three of the Galaxy goals were score in the
first 44 minutes.
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As I mentioned in my pregame write-up,
I expected the Union to struggle in this game. I expected Buddle and
Donovan to give them trouble all night. I expected the L.A. back four
to present a significant challenge, particularly considering the fact
they were without leading scorer Sebastien Le Toux, who was out with
a knee injury.
What I did not expect, and what I
thought
they were done with, was picking up awful red cards. Stefani Miglioranzi
was deservedly shown a straight red for a reckless two-footed spikes-up
challenge just before the end of the first half. I know Peter Nowak
wants his side to play hard and not back down for challenges, but it’s
getting a bit ridiculous. They’ve now played down a man down in three
of their five league games. As I said, I did not expect them to go to
L.A. and pick up a win. However, the careless and undisciplined play
has got to stop. It’s enough already.
When they had eleven men on the field
their lineup looked like this: Chris Seitz, Jordan Harvey, Danny Califf,
Michael Orozco, Cristian Arrieta, Roger Torres, Stefani Miglioranzi,
Andrew Jacobson, Shea Salinas, Fred, and Alejandro Moreno. Playing down
a man makes evaluating individual performances a bit difficult. With
that being said I’ll throw some bullet point observations at you.
- The first of what many complete
defensive breakdowns led to DeLaGarza’s goal 53 seconds in. Chris
Birchall, to Buddle, to DeLaGarza for the sliding tap-in. Hmmmm. That
start sucked. - What was Arrieta doing when
he pushed/elbowed Todd Dunivant into the advertising after the ball
was clearly out of bounds for what would have been a Union throw? He
lost possession and gave the Galaxy a free kick from a dangerous spot.Not the brightest foul ever.
- Fred looked completely
uncomfortableplaying in an advanced position. He kept drifting back into the
midfield.
Regardless, he played a few plays where he switched the ball
beautifully.
He was one of many Union players to visibly show his frustration as
he engaged in a couple of pushing matches with Galaxy players. - I
thought Seitz played well.
He did not have a chance on the either the first or third goals. He
made a terrific initial reaction save on the corner which led to
Buddle’s
first goal (the Galaxy’s second on the night). He made another nice
save on a wicked strike from distance by Birchall. - Torres
again failed to play
a full 90 (Kyle Nakazawa, making his MLS debut, came in for him in the56th minute). He again flashed his obvious skill and first
touch. However, no one was able to get onto the end of one of his thruballs, or floated balls into the box. They sorely missed Le Toux’s
timely and calculating runs off the ball. - The Galaxy back four
was
quite sound. DeLaGarza, Omar Gonzalez, Greg Berhalter, and Dunivant
bring a little bit of everything to the table. Speed and skill on the
outside with DeLaGarza and Dunivant. Solid veteran presence in
Berhalter.
Unbelievable size and potential with Gonzalez. The Union had zero
space
to work with. The Galaxy shut everything down and shut it down
quickly. - The lone mistake by L.A.
was by Gonzalez, who turned a ball over in the midfield. Fred made a
60 yard run, slotted a ball across to my mancrush Jack McInerney, who
took a touch and beat Donovan Ricketts for his first career MLS goal.
It was quite a clinical finish by the young striker. By the way 17
year
old Jack Mac replaced 18 year old Torres when he entered the game.
That’s
kind of amazing. - For those of you who stayed
up late, or DVR’d and watched later, you saw Nakazawa play some
incredibly
dangerous balls into the box on free kicks. I think he earned some
more
playing time based on that alone. Maybe with Miglioranzi suspended fornext week he’ll get some more run.
- I thought it was a nice
touch by Nowak, with the game out of hand, to introduce former UCLA
players Nakazawa and Amobi Okugo into the game. - JP
Dellacamera could not
say “Salinas” enough. No doubt that’s his favorite name to announce. - Union
continue to struggle
defending corners. How Buddle got two touches on loose ball in the boxis beyond me. Califf did get elbowed in the face, but they were just
second to the ball all night.
Man of the Match: For no other reason
than he scored his first career MLS goal, it’s got to go to Jack
McInerney.
It bears mentioning that he, not Danny Mwanga, has been the first
forward
off Nowak’s bench. It’s obviously way too early to draw any conclusions
as to Mwanga’s future prospects, but the fact that Jack Mac appears
to be ahead of him is no doubt something to continue to monitor.
News
Things do not get any easier next week
as the Union travel to Utah to face the defending MLS champions, Real
Salt Lake. While they may be defending champions, their name is
ridiculous.
Aside from being a blatant rip-off of Real Madrid it makes no sense.
“Real” is Spanish for royal. Again, the team is located in Salt
Lake City. That’d be Utah. Royal Salt Lake. That’s more outrageous
than Royal Ivey’s middle initial being T. (Terrence); Royal T. Ivey.
In what is becoming a broken record-ish
thing to say the Union need to figure out a way to keep all eleven men
on the field. I don’t necessarily expect them to win each game, but
I do expect them to learn from their mistakes and improve. Nowak needs
to instill some discipline into these guys.