Yesterday the Galaxy traded Paolo Cardozo to Chivas in exchange for Brazilian defender David
Junior Lopes.
Before any of you English majors attack me for misuse of the quote above, I am not asking where
Paolo went. He went to Chivas. I am asking, appropriately for the quote, about his true nature.
It's the bitter taste of disappointment. It's the nagging feeling that stays with you that
something that could have been great has been lost. It's the hindsight that leaves you wondering if
it could have been won. It is the shame of knowing that it happened in our house, on our turf.
But it isn't a harbinger of a doomed season.
For the first time in too long, the best team in Major League Soccer won the MLS Cup.
That's great for MLS.
Sure, nobody likes to root for Goliath to beat down David, but there were lots of reasons to
hope and be happy Los Angeles won last night. Now that they've set Houston aside with a 1-0
victory (which would've been 2-0 if Robbie Keane had not been wrongly called offside on his goal),
you don't have to think about some team that played as ugly as Colorado getting hot for a few weeks
and then parading around for a year as your league champs.
By Sean McElroy The Los Angeles Galaxy have a true abundance of riches. They have two of the best
goalkeepers in MLS, Donovan Ricketts and Josh Suanders. They possess a back line of young,
promising (and I might add, mostly American) players, notably Sean Franklin, Omar Gonzalez, and
AJ DelaGarza, mixed in with the veteran [.
If you saw the New England game, you saw a heart-stopping moment of defensive scrambling that
resulted in not one, but two gol-line clearances in rapid succession. First AJ Delagarza, the
Landon Donovan made determined, desperate plays that helped preserve the victory and clean sheet
for the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Juninho battles Shalrie Joseph in the Galaxy's 1-0 win at New England on May 28th.
Three games in eight days has become almost routine for the Los Angeles Galaxy
this season, and for a few other teams as well, as the schedule makes room for not on the US Open
Cup, and the CONCACAF Champions League, but also the CONCACAF Championship, the Gold Cup with the
winner getting a slot in the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2013 in Brazil.
There isn't going to be very much that's pretty about today's clash between New York Red Bulls
and the Los Angeles Galaxy. The Galaxy are not yet last year's fluid ball-handling team and are
still experiencing drop-offs in the defensive end and the offensive third. New York had the best
midfield unit in the league when you combine talent with their ability to work with one
another.
This post didn't go up on Friday like it was supposed to due to problem with Wordpress.
-NHJ
I know this is Friday morning, a time for looking ahead to the next game, not looking back at
the previous one, but we never got a review of the FC Dallas match up due to a combination of lame
amateur blogging and really heinous back-end problems with the blogging software.
The Sunday afternoon clash between the Los Angeles Galaxy and FC Dallas (4 pm FSW and
Galavision) should, on paper, be a wide-open affair. A young team filled with speedsters playing in
a warm-weather city versus a more mixed team of savvy veterans and young developing talent with a
proven set of attackers should provide for many gol-scoring chances and back and forth action.
Landon Donovan scores on a penalty kick putting the Portland Timbers down 2-0 in under 10
minutes.
This post title is courtesy of @jrodius (co-host, along with @jguesman, of the always insightful
Corner of the Galaxy podcast) who tweeted "If last night's Galaxy game were a movie it would've
been Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King.
Today's match-up between the Galaxy and the expansion Portland Timbers is a tale of four teams
and the question is which two are going to show up.
On the one hand we have an expansion franchise (though not completely new the Timbers have
played quality futbol as part of the old USL-1 and other domestic leagues for years) which got a
point out of its first four games and then exploded at home for six points and seven gols.
Leonardo as a brick wall standing up Chicago's attack before his injury.
As we head into Saturday's match-up against the expansion Portland Timbers, who sure seem to
like score at home with seven gols in their two home matches, here are a couple of player
updates.
First, as you no doubt saw on Sunday, Leonardo went down hard right at the end
of regulation (remember Dominic Oduro playing the ass and trying to drag him
upright as if he were faking to kill the game?
Edson. Edson. Come back.
Edson Buddle, How Do I Miss Thee?
How do I miss thee? Let me count the ways
I miss thee to the depth and breadth and height
Chad Barrett's shots do miss with all his might.
The ends of Becks' crosses very well placed
I miss thee as you did speedily race.
Soooo.... you will notice that we conspicuously left last week's debacle in Sandy alone and
concentrated on... other things, like Tony Meola and Jovan
Kirovski's past with Manchester United.
I'm hoping that was the right decision and that by doing so we're relegating one of the worst
games from a good Galaxy team I've seen since the worst games from the bad Galaxy teams of
2007-2008.
Galaxy players in training at ASU earlier this month (from The Bleacher Report)
The 2011 MLS season, the 16th edition since play began in 1996, starts in one month.
No matter how you look at the off-season moves that Arena and crew made, there can be only one
conclusion: Bruce Arena sees this year as the year he brings the Cup back to Los Angeles.
