Saturday, August 30, 2008

Galaxy Earn 2-2 Draw in New England

LA Galaxy 2, New England Revolution 2
August 30, 2008
Gillette Stadium – Foxborough, Mass.

Scoring Summary:
NE – Taylor Twellman 7 (Khano Smith 3, Wells Thompson 1) 22’
LA – Landon Donovan 15 (Peter Vagenas 3) 33’
LA – Landon Donovan 16 (Eddie Lewis 1) 55’
NE – Shalrie Joseph 1 (Michael Parkhurst 1) 71’

Misconduct Summary:
NE – Wells Thompson (Yellow Card) 14’
LA – Eddie Lewis (Yellow Card) 14’
LA – Greg Vanney (Yellow Card) 63’
NE – Jay Heaps (Yellow Card) 90+

Lineups:
LA Galaxy: Steve Cronin (Josh Wicks 46’), Chris Klein, Sean Franklin, Troy Roberts, Ante Jazic, Greg Vanney (Mike Randolph 65’), Peter Vagenas, Eddie Lewis (Eduardo Dominguez 81’), David Beckham©, Edson Buddle, Landon Donovan.

Subs Not Used: Julian Valentin, Josh Tudela, Mike Munoz, Israel Sesay.

New England Revolution: Matt Reis, Jay Heaps, Gabriel Badilla, Michael Parkhurst, Chris Albright, Jeff Larentowicz, Pat Phelan (Sainey Nyassi 33’), Wells Thompson (Mauricio Castro 78’), Khano Smith, Shalrie Joseph©, Taylor Twellman.

Subs Not Used: Doug Warren, Amaechi Igwe, Chris Tierney, Rob Valentino, Brandon Tyler.

Notes:
· With the draw, the Galaxy are now to 6-9-7 on the season, giving them 25 points. The Galaxy are now alone in fourth place in the Western Conference, one point behind third place FC Dallas, who play later on Saturday night, and one point ahead of the Colorado Rapids.
· The draw gives Bruce Arena his first point as head coach of the Galaxy. He has begun his career with a 0-1-1 record with the club.
· Arena made three changes to his squad that lost 1-0 to Chicago on August 21. David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Eddie Lewis were all brought in to the team, while Ely Allen, Alan Gordon and Alvaro Pires were dropped from the starting XI.
· With his two goals tonight, Landon Donovan now has five multi-goal games on the season and an MLS-best 16 on the season.
· Eddie Lewis made his Galaxy debut in the match, starting on the left-side of midfield. He played the opening 81 minutes and had an assist on Landon Donovan’s second half goal before being replaced by Eduardo Dominguez.
· Steve Cronin left the game at halftime as the result of a right pinkie injury. He was replaced in goal by Josh Wicks, who made his MLS debut in the match.
· By exiting the match, Cronin’s streak of playing every minute of every regular season Galaxy game this season came to an end. He had played the first 1935 minutes for the Galaxy this season.
· The Galaxy’s winless streak is now at ten games, tying the mark for the longest winless streak in club history. During this current streak, the Galaxy are 0-5-5 and have been outscored 24-14. The only other time the Galaxy went ten games without a win was in 2006 when the club went 0-8-2 from May 6 until June 24.
· The attendance for tonight’s game was 39,256. This is the third biggest crowd that the Galaxy have played in front of this season. Only the games in New York on July 19 (46,754) and in San Jose on June 14 (39,872) drew more fans than tonight’s game.
· For more about tonight’s game, please visit www.lagalaxy.com.
· The Galaxy are back in action on Saturday, September 6, when they are back home to host Real Salt Lake at The Home Depot Center. The match will kick off at 7:30 p.m. (PT) and can be seen live on FSN Prime Ticket. The match will also be available live on the radio starting on AM 570 (English) and KWKW 1330 ESPN Deportes (Spanish).

14 comments:

charlesj27 said...

With tonights' games over: San Jose has now tied with us in Western Conf standing. Let this be a lesson to current & future MLS teams. When a team takes on HIGH-SALARIED players with the restrictions and twisted league rules as ours... it will ONLY cripple and hurt the-at/those team(s). Even after shedding Carlos (more so his salary against LAG cap) - we were still not in a position to get more 'necessary' players. Yes, we swooped in for Eddie - which, in my mind, is a necessary and worthwhile acquisition. But. we are so crippled by the salary cap. We need more quality, smartness, boldness, fight, and vigor in this team. The youngsters have the eagerness, energy, and speed - but, in the long run: smartness + boldness + positioning + expertise does the team a lot more good (as far as reputation, trophies, and invitations to National & International competitions)!!! And, now even more unsettling news: Chivas USA beat Toronto FC in final stoppage/injury time - so Chivas will now ADVANCE AHEAD of us in 2008 Western Conf standings. We are 2nd-to-LAST PLACE, with Colorado, being the lone team below us. Thus, we have been buried deeper into a ditch we may not be able to dig out of!!! This is why we cannot afford to lend out our most important players to national team duty. I know clubs necessarily don't have a say - but, I'm sure it's clear to the fans, the coaches, the staff, and AEG... we cannot afford losing Landon, Eddie, and David to national team duty. There were a lot of fouls and hard-tackling play from both Toronto FC and Chivas USA in tonight's game. I hope these repeated events of constantly failign and losing will make AEG think very, very hard and long about seeking out "star, flashy, glitzy" players for profit! It clearly hurts the team's chances, reputation, and winning ability in this league! Selling more accessories/ jerseys/ parking/ pricey-food/ seats in a stadium definitely have consequences and down-sides in a burdensome & thwarting league like ours where these insane rules are imposed!!!

Anonymous said...

it was pretty funny me and my boyfriend n his mom were playing fifa 08 against new england and we tied them in there and donovan scored twice i was like wow this should happen tomorrow this is almost like a premonition of the game for tomorrow but we were hoping we won today...but it was pretty ironic that it turned out to b the same as it was last night haha

Anonymous said...

Can you post some pics of the game. BIG ONES!

Anonymous said...

Well.... I thought by the blog comments in the last three months that Carlos was the Galaxy's "Cancer". He is gone or to put it in different words: He was .... goned ( shed, let go, traded, forced out, whatever).
So... here comes the cancer free team to take the league by storm (with greater than life superstar Eddie, who drew Charles' praise for his contribution to the team even before he played one minute with the team) and???? Ooooppss! the farytale is not supposed to go this way...
I'm not defending Carlos, he needed to go. I guess we need another punching bag for our frustrations.

charlesj27 said...

Since MLSlive.tv has this LAG vs. NE archived, I decided to watch it again to study it more closely. I am impressed at how much better the defense and midfield is starting to work together. Greg Vanney & Pete Vagenas did a great job in the midfield working together. The work-rate and back& forth between Eddie & Ante is also very good. We seem to have a much more dependable left-side of field. I urge the players to keep at it, to play with vigor, fight, and heart. Bruce and Dave need to keep at it continuously with our players. I am proud, happy, and thankful for the work-rate and charging of Edson Buddle. I hope that it continues. Landon was spectacular in this game. Folks, we need Landon, Eddie, and David to be with this team during every one of the rest of 2008 MLS matches left. We need them; we really do... Our offensive movement and positioning is so much better with all of them there!

charlesj27 said...

The communicative efforts between the back-line and goal keeper has to be much more better and more reliable. It doesn't matter who is manning the net - the defenders (all of them) have to be vocal and communicative. We get caught in too many split-second mistakes because of it!

lgald said...

Hey Charlesj27
The season is 100% lost, I say let the players focus on national callups, we need Landon on the National team and being that this season is now over, I would prefer to see Landon help U.S team on world cup qualifiers. And to reiterate the point I've been screaming all along....CRONIN F'D UP AGAIN !!! There's no way in hillbilly's that Twellman should've scored ! I hope he's not hurt but I hope he doesnt play again !

Anonymous said...

Yes you are correct in saying that all of the defense has to be more vocal and communicative however they also have to listen to the GK as well. I watched a game recently where Cronin was screaming at Klein and honestly, he didn't listen to his GK. The GK can see stuff that a defender can't if their back is to the goal.

And have any of you who keep saying that Cronin "f'd up" played the GK position? Trust me, it's a difficult position to play and unfortunately the easiest to put blame on even if the GK is doing a good job. Remember, there are 10 other people in front of the GK to get through, if the other team gets past them, what does that say about those players? You never seem to see anyone write "Oh Klein should've stopped that ball" or "Beckham let them go right past him." You can't become good at anything without practice & playing the game!

Anonymous said...

Our brilliant new coaching staff f'd this one up people. You're up 2-1. Injured Vanney gets replaced in the middle with a can't-play-D and tiring Lewis and Randolf comes in to the outside left. One sub and two positional changes which is fundemenatlly dangerous towards the end of a game. If you don't have a caplable replacement then pull Buddle and flood the midfield with 2 extra players for Vanney. Protect the lead and get the 3 points.

charlesj27 said...

Lgald, I know everything points to us losing all and any hope of getting enough points tomake the Play-Offs... I think it's an argument that I will probably end up losing if I chose to argue it. However, I really do feel inside that this team (the whole team) can stand to gain a whole lot more if our star players were there to man the field in this Saturday's game. But, if I'm not mistaken... I think you already have your wish... Donovan adn Lewis have already reported for training with the USMNT in preparation for Sept. 6th & Sept. 10th games. This means, we ill be without Landon, Eddie, and Ante. I'm stil not sure if Capello is going to call in David yet?
Anonymous, you are right communication & vocalization is indeed a two-way course (if one yells, the other is obligated to listen, and vice-a-versa). Subbing in Randolph when Vanney had to be taken out did weaken our left & center. The problem is players like Mikey, Ely, Troy, Josh, Mike, and possibly Brandon - they are all quite messed up and nervous inside. Why? Because, again they have to re-adjust their roles, their thinking, and their decision-making. Unlike the battle-tested, and field-saavy veterans... the youngsters want their darndest to be "perfect", to be "right" in front of the veterans and the coaches. What this translates into is "second-guessing", "jitters", "half-step". "mis-step" on the field. The only thing that effectively corrects that is very good coaching, supportive veterans, and time for the youngsters to learn from mistakes. Unfortuantely, our LA Galaxy no longer has time left in this season for mistakes. Clogging the midfield with defensive tasked players to protect our 2 - 1 lead might seem like the logical choice... but, it very much translates to our opponents and the rest of the league that LA Galaxy employs the "barracading in bomb-shelter" mentality. Yes, we need to protect our lead... but, if we have the will, the spirit, the push from the rest of the team to push forward... we become the stronger (in spirit, in mentality, in stamina) for it. But, again - I totally see your point... protecting the lead means getting the 3 points and advancing in the conference table. These mistakes that our youngsters or our veterans make are valuable in the long-run. And, I believe Bruce and Dave will spend lengthy amounts of time with re-plays to drill them into our players. I just don't know who we have as potent offense for this Saturday against RSL if Eddie & Landon are gone!

Anonymous said...

ok for all of the cronin haters out there he had to make a difficult decision cuz the defense didnt mark the most important guy on the other team n you know complain about him all you want but he is good! it is his first season as a real goalie and now he may be really hurt n we might have to use our backup goalie who only has only 45 mins of professional experience...now let me ask you a question would you rather have cronin who has had from what i seen a lot of experience by now playing with a bad defense n even the commentators on the tv said he is like a young brad guzan n his first experience is with a bad defense so hes taking a lot of heat...or would you rather have a goalie who only has had 45 mins in...personally i would rather have cronin out of those two but once the new goal keeper comes in you will just put the blame on him...goalies have the hardest job of the whole team they take the most blame because "fans" are never happy with what they do but believe me it is hard playing goalie n it sucks horribly when they give up goals n they blame themselves i believe i am a true galaxy fan because i will always believe in them even when they make horrible mistakes even if they are in last place i will love the galaxy till i die! everyone of their players are important to the team and if you really like them you would agree with me n say that the team isnt so bad if they have enough confidence in them and if their fans would do the same!

Anonymous said...

Your post title is incorrect. The Galaxy didn't 'earn' a tie. They dropped a lead and settled for a tie.

Anonymous said...

arena made a huge mistake by subbing in the wrong dude! this could have been our first win in what it now seems eternity, but he screwed up! instead of subbing in randolph, he should've left lewis right were he was and instead putting in munoz in the middle, replacing vanney.


and no our season is not lost- we must win the games to spare us even more humiliation.
im embarrased to wear my jersey to work because I get grief from all my co workers.

Anonymous said...

lgald - well your wish came true, Cronin will not be playing. According to the LAG website he fracture his right hand during Saturdays game (just take a look at Twellman's face!) and is expected to be out 4 to 6 weeks!

Like I said, you can expect someone to become good at their position without letting them play the game, practice. And also, as I stated, the GK is a tough position to play and the one to get blamed for everything so easily.

I, for one, sure hopes Cronin gets back into the game soon (of course after his facture heals!).