Galaxy-Rapids Post-Game Analysis

This is how my viewing went (via MLSnet’s $20 internet viewing package while I was stuck in suburban Chicagoland hotel hell during a 4 day staff meeting).

Wow. Josh Saunders and Omar Gonzalez look horrible!

Wow. Landon Donovan connecting with Gonzalez! That’s fantastic!

Wow. Sean Franklin jukes by three players and sets up a Donovan assist to Alan Gordan! Awesome!

Wow. Gonzalez and Tony Sanneh have no communication and can’t run an offsides trap, setting up another goal and making Saunders look bad. Again. That’s horrible!

Wow. Kovalenko really is a card magnet, what with those studs-up tackles and all.

Wow. Sean Franklin gets his lunch eaten by Colin Clarke, setting up Conor Casey for his third goal of the night. Horrible!

Wow. That was absolutely embarrassing.

That takes me back to the ancient days of April 2007 when the Galaxy had a different coach, different GM, different Director of Soccer, different kits, and an, umm, almost but not quite completely different team, but more or less the same kinds of results, snatching humiliation from the jaws of hard-fought victory.

It probably wasn’t the worst defensive performance of the week. I mean, at least Conor Casey’s hat trick had a third more earned goals than Robbie Findlay’s did against Will Hesmer on Thursday night. (Hmmm… I seem to remember a lad called Findlay playing a few games for the Galaxy a couple of years ago. Couldn’t be the same guy, right?) Hard to believe that Steve Cronin lost his place on the team to Saunders.

But if it wasn’t the worst performance of the week, it was very clearly the second worst. I was skeptical of the signing of Gregg Berhalter earlier this week. I mean, we have the potential for a centerback combo that is a combined 72 years old! These guys were alive to witness the heyday of Studio 50, striped jean jackets, bell bottoms and the first iteration of those horrible disco sungalsses. Sure they were pre-teens at the time, but I’m not sure that is really much of a defense. Oh and, add in Eddie Lewis and we’ve got over a century of human living experience on the back line.

However, after seeing the repeated defensive mistakes and simple inability to play as if they were on the same team on Saturday night, I’m quickly becoming converted to the value of extensive experience. I mean, how much worse could it get? (Oh sure bring up Abel Xavier just to poke a finger in my eye.) But I’m not really being that fair because you could easily argue that it was Sanneh at fault on one goal as he blew the attempt at an offsides trap and then blew the back-up on the last one as he couldn’t offer cover to Gonzalez after he got deked by Casey who then simply blew by Saunders.

The Bruce recently said that his first job was to improve the defense. Well. That’s not going so well is it? Granted the starting keeper is recovering from injury and having a commanding presence in the box organizing the backline is going to go a long way towards creating solidity out of wispy foamy gook.

But enough about the backline, which has been the focus of an amazing amount of criticism for the past three years, how about that left side? Eddie Lewis makes his debut as left back and doesn’t suck, though he didn’t cover himself in glory either, making the second mistake (misplaying the desperate attempt to keep the ball in-bounds after the kick-off pass was horribly misplayed) that led to the second-fastest goal in MLS history. After that, not so bad, but, boy howdy, welcome to left back at the Galaxy, Eddie!

Mike Magee, after having an ineffective game at left wing two weeks ago, played himself off the first 18, not even making the bench for the match. The Bruce went with Kyle Patterson who played like a rookie until he was pulled as part of the tactical shake-up post-Kovalenko red card. (I wonder if we can just call something like that “pulling a Kovalenko”? No need to limit it to red cards, we should definitely include ill-timed hard tackles with studs-up, kind of like Andy Iro did in playing Chivas USA today.) Our long national left wing nightmare continues.

But enough about the bad things, what about the good? How good did Donovan look all night? After playing hard for the National team in two games he came in and played sharp futbol all night long, racking up two assists (that’s 6 assists in his last three games, including the ones in El Salvador and Tennessee). He made Alan Gordon look good, that’s for sure. And Omar Gonzalez looked fantastic soaring through the air to tie the game late in the second half getting on the end of a Donovan corner kick. But that just makes me even more nervous for when Donovan won’t be available this summer. Someone has to step up and be a complimentary offensive engine or its going to be an eye-bleeding June and July.

And, umm, Josh Tudela did okay.

Actually, the entire team looked like it was putting the disastrous first half behind it when it took the lead on Gordon’s goal off of Franklin’s amazing run and beautiful pass to Donovan. The momentum was definitely on our side and it felt like we could really settle down take complete control of the game. Which would have been a great accomplishment against a team with a very deep and talented midfield (how often can a team pull a Terry Cooke off the bench?).

But then we let the Rapids tie it barely a minute after taking the lead and Kovalenko pulled a Kovalenko and it just got worse from there.

I think the only thing to say here is that the team is still a work in progress. Eddie Lewis needs to get match fit. Donovan Ricketts needs to get between the pipes. Someone needs to step up on the left side (Bryan Jordan… paging Bryan Jordan) and Edson Buddle needs to get back on the field. We can’t keep dropping points at home, especially since our schedule is front-loaded with games at the HDC. Pick up the points now because they are only going to get harder to come by.

That’s my two cents.

What did you guys see? Who did well? Who needs to take some blame? What did I get right? Who thinks I was watching a completely different game from the one they saw? Leave your comments and thoughts below.

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Category: 2009 Season, Team News