I’ve got three words: Galaxy vs Wizards post-game analysis

I’ve got three words. And those words are: Disappointed and frustrated.

I’ve had season tickets to the Los Angeles Galaxy for four years now, including some of the worst years in franchise history. But even in the injury- and Alexi Lalas-ravaged fiascos of 2007 and 2008, the Galaxy managed to put a product on the field that connected with the fans. Even the games in which the team was eye-bleedingly bad – with midfields anchored by Pete Vagenas and Josh Tudela and defenses featuring Troy Roberts and Abel Xavier – they played with something that was completely missing from Saturday night’s flat and mediocre performance.

Heart and grit.

But let me back up a minute.

I was out of the country from August 5th through the 22nd missing the Galaxy’s away win over Red Bull and their semi-shocking away loss to San Jose. But I still remember the embarrassment of losing a CONCACAF Champions League series to the Puerto Rico Islanders including a 4-0 home shellacking close on the heels of US Open Cup elimination to the hallucination-green-clad Seattle Sounders. And those are just the lowest low points in a full-fledged swoon that started with the return of Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle to the Home Depot Center from the World Cup.

There is no denying that the current edition of the Galaxy is among the most talented of the teams that have donned the uniform and it’s certainly better than anything put on the field since 2004. But it is not without flaws, despite its impressive form for the first half of the season. Even then I warned that it wouldn’t last, though I didn’t think the stumbles would be as pathetic or the slump as protracted. The problem is personnel.

Don’t get me wrong – the nucleus of the team that challenged just last year for the MLS Cup remains and was decently upgraded over the winter with Juninho and Michael Stephens especially providing new creativity and energy in the middle. I think that the combination of a strong core and new talent put the Galaxy over the top for the first part of the season. The core remembered 2009’s season of unexpected achievement and the new talent was unscouted and surprisingly good. This, combined with consistent breaks going the team’s way, was enough to surpass the rest of the league.

But by summer, the rest of the league had significantly upgraded their rosters and jelled as teams, with the exception of teams that have imploded, like DC United and Chivas USA, or suffered through epic injury bouts like New England Revolution. But the Galaxy did nothing during this time and so far their only major move has been to off-load Alan Gordon to Chivas for allocation money (though many have argued that this is a form of addition by subtraction). This leaves two singular challenges unaddressed, the lack of a second consistent striker to pair with and take the pressure off Edson Buddle and another talented and dangerous winger to contribute now. Eddie Lewis and Chris Klein are now limited to role playing and there’s no obvious replacement for Juninho, who himself still needs to gain more experience before he can truly join players like Javier Morales and Dwayne DeRosario in playmaking roles.

There’s one other positional problem the team needs to sort out: center back. Leonardo has talent and he gets better with every game. But he lacks leadership and he makes a lot of mistakes based on not being mentally quick or on getting caught in possession. The team without Gregg Berhalter in back is much less effective defensively despite his lack of pace and increasingly brittle body. Omar Gonzalez hasn’t stepped up to fill the leadership gap, leaving it to Donovan Ricketts who has shown an erratic streak during the slump that might be a result of having to adjust to Berhalter’s absence. Or it could just be a reversion to the form that left him without a contract in the lower divisions in England prior to his joining the Galaxy in 2009.

Finally, there’s the tactical situation from Saturday’s game against Kansas City. The Wizards came out in a 4-5-1, announcing an intention to clog the middle and counter-attack in numbers (switching to a 4-3-3 on the fly). And for the first 45 minutes the Galaxy couldn’t adjust. They played without rhythm, with no shape, with little sustained possession, and with an increasing desire, born of frustration, to dump the ball forward as quickly as possible. Kansas City used their speed to pressure the ball in all parts of the field, contributing to the Galaxy’s lackluster and frustrating play. Landon Donovan, assigned the playmaking role in the middle promptly disappeared for the entire first half providing no linking at all to the attack while his teammates could not help him break free from the shadowing Stephan Auvray put all over him like a cheap suit.

But overall, the team played without the grit and heart that sustained it through the dark days of 2007 and 2008 and made it so difficult to play against in 2009 and the first half of 2010. They were beaten to almost every 50-50 ball, they played sloppy passes, they were a step slow, they were uncreative, and it simply looked like Kansas City wanted this game more than did the Galaxy.

The 2009 team showed that owning and living your team identity can give you the intangible you need to consistently outperform better teams. This year the Galaxy has been largely the better team, but has let its identity as the gritty team that plays with heart and refuses to lose slip away as its points total climbed. That fact, combined with the club’s failures to address the positional weaknesses still dogging the team, has led us to yesterday’s dispiriting 2-0 loss to one of the worst teams in the league.

If the team hopes to recapture the form it showed in the first half of the season, it needs to remember what got it here in the first place and start playing again with the grit and heart of a hard-done-by underdog. Otherwise 2010 will be known as the year of the Galaxy’s Epic Collapse, rather than that of the Galaxy’s 3rd MLS Championship.

Man of the Match: Chris Birchall – the only Galaxy player to exhibit a nose for goal and to play with inspiration and determination.

What others are saying:

MLSSoccer Game Recap
Luis Bueno at MLSSoccer.com with the Galaxy perspective
Andrew Wiebe with the Wizards perspective
Jo-Ryan Salazar at Bleacher Report
Jo-Ryan’s play by play
LA Soccer News
Scott French at the LA Daily News family of papers
Nick Sloan at the Kansas City Kansan
Josie Becker at SB Nation Los Angeles
Adam Serrano’s play by play at Soccer By Ives
Adam Serrano’s match report
Nick Green’s 100 Percent Soccer
LA Galaxy official blog notes
LA Galaxy official blog quotes

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Category: Player News