Do We Care That Galaxy Were Knocked out of the Cup by a USL2 Team?

By: Laurie | July 11th, 2007

I’m trying to decide how upset to be over this one. What do you think?

The Galaxy were knocked out of the US Open Cup by a USL Division Two team last night, the Richmond Kickers, 1-0. What does this mean, exactly?

On the one hand. Damn. In a mismatch like this isn’t an MLS team supposed to, like, y’know, win? Isn’t this why we’re MLS and they’re not?

On the other, though? Whew! No more extra games. On top of SuperLiga and World Series of ~~Soccer~~ Football and various and sundry friendlies. Oh, yeah, and the MLS league games. Almost forgot about those. If we’d won, if I’m reading correctly, the next US Open Cup game would have been on 8/7. Which would have given us games on the 5th, the 7th, the 9th and the 12th. And we have how many players over 30?

Seems Frank wasn’t all that certain how seriously to take this one either. We had a lot of the usual starters, but not enough to win. The back line was the same as in the past few games, except without the cup-tied Chris Klein. Correct me if I’m wrong — I think Quavas Kirk started at rightback? (It was eventually Kelly Gray, followed by Troy Roberts, I think. But was that after the half? This is so confusing.) Steve Cronin played in goal and from what I can tell (remember, I only listened to the second half) didn’t have the magnificent game he did against New York.

The starting midfield, again as far as I can tell, was Kyle Martino Kelly Gray, Josh Tudela, Mike Randolph. And up front we had Gavin Glinton and Edson Buddle. And subbing in we had Landon Donovan, Alan Gordon, Troy Roberts and Pete Vagenas.

For the record, Klein was cup-tied, Cobi was suspended (oh, yeah, forgot about that one) and for some reason Pavon didn’t make the trip — he was in Honduras.

I don’t know. I kind of get the feeling that Frank thought that if the B+ team could win against RBNY, they could win here. And if not, oh well. And it didn’t sound as if the team was giving it 100% either. One of the BigSoccer comments from a Richmond fan: “I was at the game, Galaxy dominated possession, but Richmond had many more quality chances. Your boys seemed lazy even in the final minutes.”

I don’t know. It’s disappointing, it sucks, and yet I’m still pretty much ambivalent.

But the good news? Now I can root wholeheartedly for the team that I am quite certain will be the eventual champions: The Seattle Sounders. You heard it here first.

Some Related Galaxy Posts:

Category: Team News, US Open Cup

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FlatPhenix

I am from the Richmond area and a fan of good soccer. I too went to the game and your source was correct. LA dominated possession but it was primarily between the mids and backs due to the constant pressure Richmond put on every ball. The first half looked like LA was waiting for a goal to happen.

LA looked like a different team in the second half. They came out looking to earn a goal. They figured out Richmond's strategy to trap the wings and avoided the edges of the field. Their was just too much traffic in the center to generate any quality chances. It was a tense final 20 minutes as LA was constantly threatening.

As a follower of the local team and an armchair soccer analyst, I can offer this...Richmond is a solid team. They play smart and have a good work rate, even if they don't have all the talent of other clubs. They are the USL-2 defending champs. They were USL-1 runners-up (loosing in PKs) prior to that. They were undefeated this season until the game before the Galaxy match where they rested all but 3 starters. They outplayed the DC United A team last year until lightning stop the game after 30 minutes. They have beaten the DC United reserves and the USL-1 Railhawks so far this year, both by 2 goals. Richmond has been consistent performers against all competition.

I think it was easy to look past a USL-2 team or LA decided to surrender the tourney in favor of other matches and their season. In either case, the play lacked luster. The local fans here would have been happy seeing quality soccer put their team away. As it is, they are just as happy seeing them advance.
Greybush

I'm not surprised that LA lost. I just had this bad feeling that LA wouldn't take this game seriously & prolly thought they could walk through it, although fan reports from the game said otherwise. I'm a little disappointed that we didn't win cuz it was a chance for a trophy.

I guess we look forward to the MLS Cup or SuperLiga or Supporters Shield now.
Laurie

Lee, I agree with you. The damage is less in the trophy case and more in the mental attitude. Shoulda won this one. Didn't win this one. Now what?
Lee

Personally, I think it's an embarrassing loss for a team
which is underperforming. The danger is that is gets
in the players heads and causes dissent in the ranks.
This going into the SuperLiga and WSOF where the team
could easily loose all five games could be disastrous.