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…

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.

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.

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?

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.