Card game or futbol game? Galaxy vs Union post game analysis

Leonardo scores his first MLS gol off a Beckham free kick, sealing a 1-0 victory over Philadelphia Union

In the words of @mattyhuffine’s Twitter stream: “#LAGALAXY win with 10 men in what turned out to be more of a card game than a soccer match.”

Right?

Or as my favorite futbol curmudgeon, Grahame Jones, put it in today’s LA Times, “[R]eferee Paul Ward, … seemed to have only a tenuous hold on the game all evening and relied on cards to keep control.”

That’s because Ward sprayed around 10 cards, including one red each to the Galaxy and Philadelphia Union, plus six yellows to the home team and two to the visitors. Most of which, were, quite honestly, of the softest possible variety including the yellow to Donovan Ricketts for delay of game, the red to Chris Birchall for tackling notorious thespian Carlos Ruiz from behind, and the red to Philly’s Jack McInerney for getting into a shoving match with Chad Barnmisser.

But it’s almost a given that the refereeing in Major League Soccer continues to lag behind the increasing quality of everything else on the pitch so aside from noting that Ward’s game was by far the weakest of anyone on the pitch, it’s probably time to chat about what actually happened on the pitch, futbol-wise. If you read my scintillating and incisive match preview post from yesterday, then you know I was struggling with figuring out which Galaxy team was going to show for the game. Namely, the one that plays defense and scores just enough to win or the one that scores just enough to win but is thwarted by a defense pining for the glory days of 2008’s 60 gol wantonness.

Here were my five keys for the Galaxy:

*Shore up the defense, if Gonzalez and Ricketts aren’t ready to go, then someone needs to put the fear of God in Leonardo.
*Get more production from Juninho. He’s got to be effective even when Donovan is not on the field.
*The ready-to-play Beckham needs to show up.
*Landon Donovan needs to capitalize on his being refreshed and be the dominant player he should be every game.
*Someone needs to step up to partner Angel.

I think we did okay on bullet one: with the insertion of Omar Gonzalez for the first time this season, along with first-choice netminder Ricketts, also for the first time this season, the defense stepped up and shut down what had been a fairly explosive Union offense, one that included three strikers in an offense-first 3-4-3 formation. The team that thumped Toronto FC 4-2 two weeks ago didn’t get a shot on goal in the first half. (See below for Gonzalez’s post-game comments.)

On bullets two, three, and four, Bruce Arena’s tweaking of positions for the game seemed to address all three. David Beckham was asked to play more of a central role, winning and controlling balls in the midfield, with Chris Birchall playing the sweeper role and Donovan and Juninho given more offensive responsibilities. This was an effort to control the middle and stymie the Union’s ability to link with its three strikers. For a time it looked like a 4-2-2-1-1, with Birchall and Becks in the back, controlling tempo and linking up to to Juninho and Donovan who then linked with Miguel Lopez playing in a withdrawn striker role underneath Juan Pablo Angel.

Of course this wouldn’t have mattered if Donovan played the kind of anonymous games he just had the the National Team and if Becks had played the kind of game he had against Real Salt Lake, and if Juninho had been neutralized by Brian Carroll and Stefani Migliaronzi. But Donovan was sharp, Becks became more focused as the game went on, and Juninho found good spots up front regularly (though not enough for my taste – he is till growing into the position). In fact, a second-half link-up between Donovan and Juninho almost resulted in the third crackerjack gol from Juninho this season, but it smacked off the crossbar.

Finally, on the fifth bullet, it looks to me like the pairing of Lopez and JPA is the solution to the strike partner question. Lopez is quick and daring with good ball skills and lots of aggression. JPA is JPA, the MLS player with the most gols over the last four seasons. As they get used to each other they could both score in the double digits this season, which makes me dream of the old Ante Razov – Damani Ralph partnership at the Chicago Fire. But, one game isn’t enough to draw conclusions save for the fact that Lopez looks better than Mike Magee, Barnmisser, or the injured Adam Cristman.

But what is possible to draw conclusions is that if Donovan and Becks continue to play the game they can both play, then the gols for whomever is on the attack will come. Donovan almost had two more assists, one on the Juninho shot and another on a clear header that JPA just pushed wide of the gol. And this was playing a man down. Once the understanding and connections are built here, then the potency of the offense should rise. Which is desperately needed because scoring one gol a game, while distinctly better than scoring no gols a game, isn’t going to be enough to get where this team is clearly aiming to get. That said, Becks really needs to play 90 minutes at his best, not 70. And with a 10-day road trip featuring three matches (DC, Toronto, Chicago), the team is going to need that kind of effort.

The team is also going to need to compensate for Chris Birchall against DC, since he’ll be out because of the soft red he got yesterday. The Galaxy roster lists several d-mids, but none with any game experience, and this is clearly the one spot on the field where there isn’t any depth. The quality of the midfield is fairly high, though, so I expect you’ll see someone like a Paolo Cardozo playing in that spot, or some more radical shift in formation. But Arena’s not that much of a formation tinkerer, so I’m not looking for a 3-5-2 or anything like that.

Overall, the road swing is a crucial test of where this team is. DC is a team on the rise, Toronto is always hard to play against at home (though, honestly they seem several weeks away from gelling), and Chicago’s revamped squad is looking much more dangerous than they did last year. But the Galaxy is a better team than each one of those squads and should bring home points from each contest and should even win at least one of the games.

If they want a serious shot at MLS Cup, then these are the types of games where they need to use their focus, heart and grit (all developed over the 2008-2010 seasons) to allow their superior talent and team play to come out on top. It’s only April, but by the time this swing is over, the team will have played 20% of its regular season games. That’s enough time to figure out how to get points in difficult situations and, frankly, this team needs to take palpable steps towards that goal in every one of these early games so they can deal with fixture congestion and the disruption of the Gold Cup.

Last night’s 1-0 victory while playing a man down for 35 minutes was an indication of the grit and determination that has characterized this team for the past three seasons, coupled with an expectation of winning. Let’s build on that.

Man of the Match: Hard choice this week since there were key performances all over the field and no one player really put their stamp on the game, but I’m going with Omar Gonzalez for leading a defense that shut down the Union’s offense.

What about you guys? What did you think of the match? Who was your MOTM? Who did well? Who didn’t? What did you think of the starting line-up? What about all those cards? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Omar Gonzalez on being back in the starting 11:

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Category: 2011 Season, post-game analysis