FC Dallas 2-1 Galaxy. OR: THAT Was Sad

By: Laurie | April 12th, 2007

You know, the more negative things Wynalda said about Landon Donovan, the more I wanted to give Wynalda the finger and say That is so not true! Alas, can’t do it. Wynalda was more or less right. Donovan’s crosses (free kicks, corners, fill in the blanks) did actually pretty much kind of ~~suck~~ not show Landon’s true potential.

If you could take a scalpel and surgically cut the game off right before the Ty Harden handball in the box that led to the first Dallas goal (when did that happen? about the 18th minute?), and eliminate everything right up to the one good Landon Donovan corner kick (in the 86th) that went straight to Robbie Findley’s head and then straight into the net… Well, if you could cut out everything in the middle, we’d have a not terribly bad game. The one thing that gave me a teensy bit of satisfaction was that the goal came immediately after Wynalda had said Landon couldn’t do accurate corners and Findley couldn’t do headers. Neener neener, Waldo.

I’m going to let this one percolate in my brain overnight and see if I have anything intelligent to say tomorrow. For now I’m thinking I’m loving Ante Jazic at leftback. Strong and aggressive, good at driving the ball up the left side and good at crosses, and he also did a solid job of placing himself where he could make a difference. I’m also liking Kevin Harmse, whose visa paperwork came in at 3:30 this afternoon and who got his first yellow card seven minutes after making his debut. Chris Albright started at right midfield, but I think he benefited the team more at his usual rightback position second half. Kyle Martino had an excellent first half — always right in the thick of things and battling for the ball — but kind of faded after that. And Ty Harden looked fantastic right up until that handball. Tough luck. And was he also the one who was supposed to be marking Kenny Cooper before the second goal? Man, what a tough night. I hope he can shake it off, because I really like this kid.

All in all, this game left me unsettled. They weren’t operating well as a team and weren’t controlling the ball. Dallas played solidly, but they weren’t unbeatable. They were just unbeatable by us, tonight. I think they wanted this more.

The one thing that gives me hope is that after the Findley goal the team came together and really started fighting for it. Too bad it didn’t happen about eighty-five minutes earlier.