DC 1-0 Galaxy in Beckham’s MLS Debut

By: Laurie | August 9th, 2007

Good, bad and ugly. First the good:

– David Beckham’s MLS debut! (I have to put that first. If I didn’t, it would violate some unspoken law of the universe and I would end up in Galaxy blogger hell. And Eric Wynalda would be there, talking incessantly. And Tommy Smyth would be there too, saying “Onion bag. Onion bag. Onion bag…” over and over and over. No thanks. Beckham comes first.)

– And he didn’t seem to get reinjured! He wasn’t limping as he went off the field, and no idiot defender took him out at the ankles! O happy day! He put in ~~a couple of~~ one pretty free kicks and one or two long passes. Of course we couldn’t score on them, but there now actually seems to be some hope that some day, at some time in the future, we might cause a ball to go into a net.

– Edson Buddle was back playing and he looked fairly good. Or at least better than Gordon or Pavon. He created several solid opportunities. (Which, of course, we couldn’t capitalize on.)

– We moved the ball better than in much of the rest of the season — definitely the best since the first twenty minutes of the Dallas SuperLiga game. And there was even some action in the DC half of the field this time around.

– Kevin Harmse didn’t get his next yellow, so he’ll still be with us on Sunday. A good thing, since it would be really bad to be missing both Kevin and Kyle.

The bad

– Uh… We lost. I had to run out for fifteen minutes and missed seeing the goal, so I have no idea how we lost. But we lost.

– That whole scoring thing is still just a figment of my imagination. (But it does seem to be getting a little closer, especially with the possibility of Beckham playing an entire game.)

The ugly

– Kyle Martino’s tackle from hell, which got him ejected in the 67th minute. We’re lucky we didn’t add another broken leg to the Galaxy tally. And now Kyle’s out for Sunday.

That’s all that’s coming to mind at the moment (and all I have time to write.) What did you think about the game and Beckham’s debut?

Some Related Galaxy Posts:

Category: 2007 Games, League Game Recaps, Player News

« A Banner To Welcome Becks and Posh | Home | Our Weekly Galaxy Poetry, Dedicated to Beckham’s Debut »

justjack

Oh yeah, I wanted to echo Laurie's nightmare of Eric Wynalda and Tommy Smythe. I ended up turnign off the sound to watch because those two and that other dude with the NASL nostalgia BS were just god-awful and torturous. I hate Eric because I'm an evil ref and he's a buffoon. Oh well, I'm glad I'm not the only one with nightmares of "onion bag" and Eric's drivel.
justjack

What'd I think? Better than Toronto... good god, that was awful. This was a little better though DC was clearly a better side.

ITA with most of ya' who said things improved once Martino got sent off. There was a definite improvement, and Becks was part of that, I'm relieved to say. I'd almost forgotten how smooth that guy plays. He seemed understandably tentative but then was popping the lobs right into the area. I was very impressed with Buddle and Pavon. That Harmse guy... and Cannon?! I'm missing El Gato more and more. Lando even showed a momentary check-in although I think he was there the whole match. I'm so over Landon... but I think there's definitely potential now where before I was gasping repeatedly until my wife smacked me to get me to stop, "this isn't my Galaxy side, this isn't my Galaxy side, where's so and so, where's... who the hell is that guy?"

Finally, Gray... um one pass forward the whole match, everything else the guy backpasses. I'm gonna burn down his barn. I hate that kind of backassed 'Merkaan sahkur nonsense. There's a purpose to a backpass, but this guy, Gray, seems to have taken it to a whole new level... as my old coach used to say, "You can't score goals if your back is always to it." You also can't score goals when you only ever pass backwards (and you never dribble more than a foot, and when your trap has an average distance of 5 m of rebound... sheesh, my kids trap better than him). Okay, if he was having a bad day let me know and I'll watch him again. But he did the same thing in Toronto... bench him.

I'm waiting for everyone to go to bed so I can watch the NE match...
Greybush

I recall one of Buddle's shots being very weak, but at least he tried to shoot.

F***ing Pavon's header was oh-so close!

I think there should've been a PK for the Galaxy when someone got taken down in the box.

Beckham had such an impact when he stepped on the field. Some nice passes & great free kick to Pavon who again missed on a header.

Dammit, I wanted a win.
Doug

The one good thing about last night is that we know that Martino won't be playing on Sunday. That means we have a good chance of winning.

Kiss the playoffs goodbye. We're out (already? yes) but we can at least try to save face, right?

What makes a good team in MLS (and many other leagues) are midfielders who can hold the ball, get out of tight spaces, and find their forwards. As long as Martino is the center of our midfield, we are going to keep on sucking. His workrate is impeccable - not going to argue that - but his first touch is awful, he turns the ball over because he panics (I counted three times before his ejection last night), and he doesn't anticipate the ball well. Want to see what I mean? Pull out the old tapes of Cienfuegos and Armas. Then, you'll know what I mean.

Come to think of it, I'd still take Cienfuegos (at his age now) than Martino or Harmse in midfield.
Jeff Bull

Well...I wasn't going to do this, then you asked me what I thought of the game. Here you go.
Clint

Re-reading all my mistakes in that comment above reinforces the idea that I must have coffee before I type anything in the morning.
Clint

Emilio was fantastic for half the game. The Galaxy looked like the JV team from the California High School for the Blind for most of the game. I've only seen LA play once this season so I'm not sure if that's if this game was an anomaly or not. Martino and Rossi Asti Spumanti was horrible until he put his teammates out of their misery and got tossed. After that, and especially after Beckham entered the game, LA finally got some energy and consistency that was lacking the entire first half.

I suspect the weather and that rotten looking field made it tough on Donovan, who always looks like the best player on the field when I see him (in the U.S., that is), since he wasn't blowing past anyone yesterday and hardly had the ball at his feet at all during the match.

Was Beckham playing central, even a holding, midfield position yesterday? Is that going to be his ongoing role once he's starting?
Inara47

DC United had a good game in that they were more threatening. Ahh and Martino got redcarded! The fans cheered like another goal had been scored when that happened.

I was sitting in a section with a lot of drunk soccer adict college boys. What fun. Anyway, the moment Beckham took off his training jacket, the stadium went wild. And when he got onto the pitch...

I felt bad for Brian Carroll, who got on like a minute before he did and got like a tenth of the applause, despite playing in front of his home crowd. The first time he touched the ball (and we were waiting with baited breath), everyone went crazy. I think people were cheering him more than their own team.

But all the ladies were gratified. For the longest time, people were watching him stretch as opposed to the game. My mother's maternal heart bled for Beckham after hearing that he was playing with an injury (though she was still thrilled to see him, especially when he took his shirt off). Interestingly, she went to see Becks but came back a fan Luciano Emilio.
CentralCoaster

Seemed like the Galaxy started playing better after the ejection and Beckham's arrival. I clearly saw Beckham playing cautiously, mostly wait for passes instead of going for the ball. His appearance worked out well. He played a good ball through to Lando and had a good spot kick. He needs more work but I have hope for the future. I don't know if we'll make the playoffs this year, but if it looks like we can't perhaps we should throw all our eggs in the SuperLiga basket and come back to the MLS Cup next year. Don't forget that the Cosmos missed the playoffs during the first year they had Pele.