I’ve got five words: LA Galaxy vs. Columbus Crew post-game analysis

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And those words are: Not the time to tinker.

Let me be clear at the beginning. I’m not a coach, I’ve never been a coach, and I don’t have access to the kinds and amounts of information an MLS coach has at his disposal, nor the skills to interpret it. But, having said that, I just plain didn’t understand Bruce Arena’s starting lineup yesterday. Or, let me be more precise, I didn’t understand why the supposed tactical advantages of the midfield (Landon Donovan on the left, Chris Birchall and Stefani Miglioranzi in the middle, and Sean Franklin on the right) and forward alignment he chose were superior to one that included either Eddie Lewis or Chris Klein from the beginning. And, while everyone raves about Bryan Jordan’s speed and gameness, I still find his decision-making suspect and his ball-handling weak. What made these choices particularly baffling to me was their implementation against the league’s best team playing in a stadium where said team hasn’t lost in 23 tries. Really not the time to tinker.

The fact of the matter is that the loss of David Beckham for a week due to what is being portrayed as a minor Achilles heel injury was big enough that no matter what team Arena put on the pitch it stood a strong chance of walking away from Crew Stadium with no points. But to compound that set-back by installing a midfield that had little experience playing together in their assigned roles seemed a bit audacious at best and disastrous at worst.

If you watched the game, you saw a cohesive Columbus team, playing a number of reserves in an unfamiliar 3-5-2, comprehensively beat the Galaxy in every part of the game. Their midfield was faster to the ball, won second chances, made precise, accurate passes, stifled the Galaxy’s passing lanes, frustrated Landon Donovan, and was the springboard for applying pressure on the Galaxy’s defense.

The Galaxy, on the other hand, could not maintain possession, built few attacks through the midfield, were rarely dangerous, lost most second chances, gave up more balls than a San Francisco bath house, and were rarely dangerous on offense. A first-half groin strain to Migs compounded the midfield’s problems as Arena chose to insert Jovan Kirovski as center mid, moving Birchall back to Migs position. Everyone knows how I feel about Kirovski. And, honestly, Sean Franklin as right mid in his second game back from injury? He’s not a right mid. He’s a defender. He plays like a defender, he thinks like a defender. Chris Klein, the veteran former international playing his natural position is the obvious option here. And while I love Jordon’s passion and fire, he hasn’t shown anything all season. He must have had a massive week in training to get the call over Mike Magee. Or Mike Magee had an atrocious week in training. And its not like I’ve been a huge fan of Magee’s in these postings, but the skill level and futbol intelligence he has right now is acres better than Jordan’s. Plus I think he compliments Edson Buddle’s game better because of his passing.

So what happened in the game? Precisely nothing if you are a Galaxy fan. If you are a Crew fan you saw a team play a tenacious and smart game while resting some of your biggest players or not having them available for selection. The Crew team that comprehensively took the Galaxy apart was missing Chad Marshall (knee strain), Robbie Rogers (rest), Alejandro Moreno (rest), Adam Moffet (recovering from injury) and Guillermo Schellotto (rest) from the starting line-up. And they still controlled every aspect of the game. Oh, and did I mention that the starting keeper is nursing a groin strain? I didn’t? Well, its not like you would have noticed since the Galaxy rarely put him under pressure.

The other thing you would have seen was how shallow the Galaxy’s bench really is. Once Migs went down, there was no holding/defensive midfield option off the bench, nor was there a proven attacking, offense-coordinating midfielder. And the initial choices of Jordan and Franklin left Bruce with strange choices to make going forward. I would have preferred to have seen a starting lineup of Dunivant – Berhalter – Gonzalez – Franklin in the back, Lewis – Birchall – Migs – Klein in the midfield, and Buddle and Donovan up top. Then you can sub in Kirovski for Migs when he gets hurt and Magee for Klein when he tire, putting Landon on the right and Magee up top and then if you want to go 4-3-3 to try to tie the game, you put Landon in the middle, Birchall on the right, and put Magee and Gordon up top and take off Kirovski. But, like I say, I’m not a coach.

Back to my depth point, though. With Dema Kovalenko out, there’s no back-stop to Migs. With Becks out, there isn’t anyone to really orchestrate the offense. And with Landon facing double teams at every point, he was effectively taken out of the game, giving Buddle nothing to work with. All this just shows how fragile the Galaxy’s success this season has been. Its a gritty team with players fighting for each other all over the pitch, but it doesn’t have a lot to counter with when it finds itself in a hole, even with the return of Buddle. Magee, Jordon, Gordon, and Kirovski have struggled all season to put balls in the back of the net and with just one injury to a major player, the team finds itself unable to over come the dearth of offense that has been its biggest problem all season. It is precisely this kind of game that shows how important David Beckham really is to the ultimate success of the team.

Saturday’s game was a playoff pre-view. A rising team against the league champions. This is the kind of game where a team makes a statement about its post-season intentions. Barring a complete collapse over the last three games, the Galaxy are most likely in the playoffs. But these last three games, two against for-sure playoff teams, are playoff previews. The Galaxy will have to beat teams of this quality (Columbus, Houston, Chicago) to make it to MLS Cup. The team that showed up in Columbus yesterday would have had a hard time beating a bunch of egg whites to make waffles.

And, a final note to Arena: Dude. Now is not the time to tinker. These three games are going to set the tone for the playoffs. Jordon isn’t ready. Gordon isn’t the answer. Franklin isn’t a midfielder. Kirovski can’t direct cars around a traffic circle, much less run an offense. Lewis provided instant impact off the bench. And you broke Chirs Klein’s consecutive game streak for a failed experiement. Be a coach. Learn from your mistakes. Make amends. And make sure Becks stays healthy. Otherwise this team is going to crash out of the first round of playoffs in a spectacularly ugly fashion.

Man of the Match: Ugh.

What others are saying:

Craig Merz with the MLSNet game summary
Craig Merz with the MLSNet Crew perspective
Craig Merz with the MLSNet Galaxy perspective
Game recap from Goal.com
Shawn Mitchell at The Columbus Dispatch (You can also find his excellent Crew-oriented blog here.)
The Sports Network in the Centre Daily Times
AP in the Los Angeles Times
Game notes from the official LA Galaxy blog
Locker room reactions from the official LA Galaxy blog

Game highlights

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Category: 2009 Season