Black Hole
May 19th, 2008 . 7:59 am . By: John Carlton
Last season’s SuperLiga match between Los Angeles Galaxy and FC Dallas saw the Galaxy jump out to a 4-0 lead in the first twenty minutes of play. But in a thrilling comeback bid, FC Dallas rallied to score five goals, only to lose 6-5. Incredibly, on Sunday in Frisco, the Galaxy again jumped out to a 4-0 lead, but this time FC Dallas could not escape from the hole. With the temperature hovering around ninety degrees, the field was fast and so was the action. Galaxy midfielder David Beckham, the man who ensured the Pizza Hut Park sellout of 22,331, showed his quality right away. In the 5th minute he served a perfect ball to forward Edson Buddle in the penalty area, but early in the game Buddle did not yet have the quality to put away the morsel. Meanwhile, the Hoops spent most of the early minutes chasing the ball and giving it away quickly. They showed the same lack of imagination in the final third as in the past few games, forgoing any sort of build-up play, knocking long balls forward, and hoping for the best. Despite all that, a good chance came from Kenny Cooper in the 8th minute who shot from close range on the right side but found side netting. Los Angeles created dangerous offensives throughout the first half. In the 12th minute, the ball stayed in the FC Dallas penalty box for an eternity, bouncing from one player to another, before being mercifully cleared by Hoops center back Duilio Davino. Forward Arturo Alvarez picked out Cooper in the 18th minute and he ran at goal, but nothing came of his shot. Then defender Drew Moor headed a shot just wide from close range. A minute later, Cooper cheekily tried a forty-five yard effort when he saw Galaxy goalkeeper Steve Cronin off his line. Cronin had to backpedal and force the goal-bound bomb over the crossbar. Loud appeals for pressure came from the FCD bench in the 20th minute, when the fast pace of the game was a kettle coming to a boil. Five minutes later, the Galaxy served tea when defender Chris Klein ran onto a perfect through ball on the right side of the box and beat Dallas ‘keeper Dario Sala for the game’s first goal. Beckham continued his fabulous passing, and Landon Donovan continued to burn up the track. But the Hoops got their opportunities. In the 28th minute, Dallas midfielder Anthony Wallace found Arturo Alvarez down the left flank and all that stood in his way to goal was terrible one-on-one defender Abel Xavier. Rather than take on Xavier, Alvarez hurriedly shanked a cross across the byline. And on it went. When Edson Buddle skated through four defenders on his way to scoring in the 31st minute, it seemed probable that the home side was in for a long day. Duilio Davino’s unlucky own goal in the 34th minute confirmed that fact. Galaxy midfielder Alvaro Pires was awarded a yellow card in the 37th minute for a rough tackle on top of persistent infringement. It was notable because Pires could have garnered another yellow card in the second half, but the referee declined to ticket him. The next minute a corner kick from Donovan launched a mad scramble in front of goal that found Sala turned around while Edson Buddle sneaked in unmarked at the far post and tapped in the goal. Dallas midfielder Pablo Ricchetti then had a good try from long range, but the Hoops shamefully headed to the locker room down 4-0, completely sucked into the Galaxy’s black hole and into another dimension. No word on if there was a Knute Rockne speech at halftime, but it may have sufficed to remind the team of that SuperLiga battle last year, or clawing back at DC United to earn a 3-3 tie. Whatever was said, it wasn’t enough. Buddle completed his hat trick in the 85th minute when Beckham floated a ball over the head of Sala, who came a bit eagerly off his line, and Buddle headed down into an open net. Prior to that, FC Dallas did show better possession and patience, and created several real chances in the second half. The insertion of forward Dominic Oduro after 45 minutes gave the team some much needed speed up top, a counterbalance to the rampaging Donovan. The move paid off in the 54th minute when Kenny Cooper lofted a short cross from the left wing that Oduro headed in at point blank range. Prior to the goal, Oduro was running hard and finding the spaces that the player he substituted, Abe Thompson, could not. After the aforementioned hard challenge from Alvaro Pires, Galaxy boss Ruud Gullit wisely took him off, not wishing to risk playing with 10 men against a suddenly invigorated Dallas side. Dario Sala, who had an uncomfortable day in the net, did make a fine leaping save in the 56th minute to keep it 4-1. But most of the action in the second stanza took place on the Galaxy end. Cooper and Alvarez created a few good chances, and Cooper hit the crossbar around the hour mark. Columbian midfielder Juan Toja was pushed forward in the formation, and found himself with a golden chance in the 72nd minute, but his indecisiveness led to a sloppy shot with his right foot that missed badly. Despite the six goals scored, the most telling moment came in the 75th minute when Adrian Serioux slid in behind Beckham and upended him. A minor scrum ensued and Beckham and Serioux exchanged harsh words. The result was a red card for Serioux and yellow cards for Alvarez and Beckham for their misconduct after the tackle. The challenge by Serioux was out of frustration, symbolic of the team’s zeitgeist at this point in the season. Late in the match the Hoops could even be seen arguing with each other, in particular Andre Rocha and Bobby Rhine. Dallas coach Steve Morrow called it “an embarrassing performance. We’re all very much ashamed of ourselves in the locker room.” In front of the largest sellout crowd in Pizza Hut Park’s history, it could be fairly called a monumental letdown. The fact that neither Beckham or Donovan scored, and it could be argued that Beckham wasn’t even a big factor in the match, was perhaps the crueler aspect of the result. Midfielder Pablo Ricchetti, who put in a solid performance for the Hoops, summed up the game and the state of the team in the most basic English, “It’s the worst play I ever saw here.” Los Angeles Galaxy (2-3-2) vs. FC Dallas (2-2-3)May 18, 2008 — Pizza Hut Park Scoring Summary: Los Angeles Galaxy – Steve Cronin, Chris Klein, Sean Franklin, Abel Xavier, Greg Vanney, David Beckham, Joe Franchino (Josh Tudela 46), Brandon McDonald, Alvaro Pires (Troy Roberts 53), Edson Buddle, Landon Donovan, Substitutes Not Used: Ely Allen, Ante Jazic, Mike Randolph, Carlos Ruiz, Josh Wicks FC Dallas — Dario Sala, Drew Moor, Duilio Davino, Adrian Serioux, Andre Rocha, Pablo Ricchetti, Juan Toja, Anthony Wallace (Bobby Rhine 46), Kenny Cooper, Abe Thompson (Dominic Oduro 46), Arturo Alvarez (Ricardinho 79). Substitutes Not Used: Eric Avila, Mike Graczyk, Aaron Pitchkolan, Marcelo Saragosa
Misconduct Summary: referee: Baldomero Toledo 22 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arturo Alvarez once again showed why he gets cut from the Youth National Team. More often than not, he is solely looking for his own shot rather than sharing a good pass. How many times could he have sent a through ball for Cooper instead of holding it too long? He is a selfish player in a similar vein to Ramon Nunez.
Did Richetti wake up on the wrong side of the bed? I have never seen a professional player give away so many balls in one game. Passes were behind their targets 90% of the time. One easy swing pass to the right back went about 10 yards off to the right. I don’t think he had one positive play for FC Dallas the whole game.
And I really dislike Serioux. Ever since he was on Houston, I haven’t liked that guy. When he was with Houston, he tried to hurt our guys. Nothing has changed even though he is on our team. I don’t stand for dirty players like that even if they play for us. I wish Becks had punched him in the face. He really could have broken his ankle similar to what happened to Eduardo de Silva of Arsenal.
Cooper really changed the momentum of the game for us. In the first 15 mins, it seemed like it would be a slaughterfest for FC Dallas. But Cooper blew about 4 easy chances. So instead of it being 4-0 Galaxy, it REALLY should have been 4-0 FC Dallas. Once his little flurry of shots went haywire, we never really got our mojo back except for Oduro’s goal.
One last note, how porous can our defense be? Anyone else notice the extreme lack of effort, passion, and focus by Davino? Is this his farewell tour, because I’m pretty sure he could have done a better job on two of the goals if he had simply tried harder to play defense. He was sagging off the ball and easily let Donovan into our box numerous times. I don’t get it. It was almost as if Davino and Richetti were trying to sabotage the game for us. But that’s just my opinion.
Overall, I got my money’s worth yesterday. 6 goals and a soccer fight?? That’s what I call a great Sunday.
I think Abe’s Goal that was called back is worth a mention as well. My seats are right there and the contact looked incendintal. To go ahead early in the game may have been a momentem change..Not to defend 75 minutes of stinky play..but thats my 2 cents.
I actually thought that Beckham had an influence on both of the first two goals, even though he was nowhere near the ball. On the first goal, Beckham knew that Wallace was supposed to follow him everywhere, so he hung back in Klein’s position at right back and Wallace stuck with him. Klein went and Wallace wasn’t in the space to pick him up. Alvarez didn’t track his man (in the highlight you can see that he realizes ten yards too late that he was supposed to go with Klein) and by then it was too late. I noticed that the Galaxy players went and congratulated Beckham on Klein’s goal — it looked like a prearranged play on their part, where they took advantage of the extra attention Beckham gets to sneak Klein into space.
On the second goal, my guess is that the defenders were thinking to themselves “don’t foul, because we don’t want to give Beckham a free kick here” and so Buddle just marched right through.
And, of course, even though it was 4-1, the red card was another key Beckham moment, though the card was completely deserved in my opinion (the guy has his back to the field 60 yards from goal, so what’s the point of coming in like that?)
An utterly abysmal effort from the whole team, with almost no one deserving a rating above about a 3. I thought Richetti and Toja where spectacularly ineffective and that Gullit outthought Morrow by a wide margin — the 3-4-3 just did not work.
I forgot to mention, this was my first game at PHP this year. I was impressed with Rocha and Toja. Both looked very confident on the ball and showed good aggressiveness. Cooper and Oduro impressed me as well.
I’m glad Ruiz didn’t play…..
Are you kidding? Toja looked everything but confident, I thought. I can recall two missed opportunities because of his discomfort, in fact. One because he wouldn’t take the shot with his left foot, and the other because he seemed to look to pass instead of shoot and ended up missing wildly when he finally took the shot.
FC Dallas did what no team in MLS history has ever been able to do:
make Edson Buddle look good.
Also, kudos to Serioux for summoning the ghost of Chris Gbandi. This team has gone way too long without a needless red card based on a ridiculous slide tackle.
I should add: not that the red card mattered.
I don’t think one bad shot should discount Toja’s overall day which was pretty solid. Don’t forget on that move, that when he faked the shot with his left foot, the goalie completely bought it and dove for the ball. He obviously shanked the ball, but I doubt you’d do any better in that type of situation. Cooper missed 4 easy shots, too. It just wasn’t our day.
We looked so bad it looked like FC Dismal threw the game on purpose. But to what end? How can every player have a bad day like that? “It just wasn’t our day?” Ha ha, how many times have I heard that. There is something wrong with this team: coach? discontent about something (i.e. salary)? loss of assistant coach? All I know is when players are happy and pulling for each other they play well and with passion. There’s no passion out there.
i am season ticket holder for FC Dallas and love em to death. The red card was more than warranted and Becks’ reaction was actually refreshing! What if that ruiz, or rocha, or c. ronaldo? would they have gotten right up and in Serioux’s face? NO! they would have rolled around on the ground like their leg was cut off and take up 5 minutes to milk it. Instead, Becks did what we applaud in our american sports (football, hockey, baseball, basketball). He said in actions, “you can take a cheap shot on me and im going to bounce right up and not back down!” In other sports, players that take a hard knock go out of their way to show they are ok and cant be hurt. in soccer, and it pains me to say bc its my love, players do whatever they can to show how weak and fragile they are. makes me sad.
I applaud it and wish OUR team would show that much resilience.
Toffee, your posts made my day. I totally agree.
As much as I dislike selfish players, Alvarez gave a perfect ball to KCJ who shanked from 5 yards out into the side of the net. And that was minutes after Wallace put a Beckham-quality ball on his foot that he blasted into the keeper.
We should have been up 2 or 3-0 and the game went to crap for us from there.
Could Luke be onto something? Was there an effort made by some of the players to embarrass the coach and front office? This thing was such a joke that I kept expecting to hear the theme from Benny Hill piped in over the loud speakers as the game was in play.
I don’t think that Yahoo was attempting to injure Beckham, I think he was trying to send a message to his team and the fans and I appreciate that.
That message being peace out I’m getting an early shower?
Or was the message, “Hey, Anthony Wallace, do you want to start the next three games?”
It was a stupid foul with no tactical reason behind it. Game was already lost, so it just made it look cheap. I’m all for getting stuck in and showing some passion, which FCD sadly needed yesterday, but that’s not the way to do it, especially when the game is essentially over. How about just winning the occasional 50/50 ball?
I was so disappointed watching this game. The game was pretty wide open and fun, which doesnt usually happen when its 90 degrees around here. there were lots of chances and LA was the only team willing to put them away.
KCJ had 3-4 in the first 20 minutes that couldve changed the game. one passed the far post, one into the side netting while trying to shoot near post, one straight at the keeper from 5 yards, one into the wall, one the keeper saved from 45 yards. Woe is me who’s been asking for a major striker that can finish a chance for the last 2 years. i dont care who it is, i just want someone that doesnt have his nuts in his throat when looking at an open goal.
i want a referee that wont be afraid to send a player off that deserves to be. a second yellow to Pires is a match-changing decision and that was the definiiton of a professional foul against Oduro in the 2nd half. i guarantee you he got slammed in the post-game debrief for that. he wasnt afraid to give the foul on Abe in the 2nd (it was a foul that takes some balls to call against the home team taht early on). he wasnt afraid to show the red to Serioux (which was right in front of the FCD bench in a danger area for the entries game). he wasnt afraid to give a yellow to Rhine (the nicest guy on the field) 4 minutes after he came on the field. disappointing he didnt show Pires the second yellow there.
I’m glad Serioux stepped up and showed something. Every team needs that player or two that is gonna be a DAWG!!! the Mavs dont have one, the Stars got a few (Ott, Morrow, Ribeiro), the Cowboys had them (Nate, Erik Williams, Larry Allen, Teague, Ike Holt, Mike Irvin, Ken Norton, etc.) Gbad Gbandi was stupid with his. But Adrian is a DAWG that will stand up and do something to defend his turf. I need more from people on FCD to do show that this is important enough to fight for.
Serioux was too much of a punk to stay with it to the end and wanted a early shower. Stand up for the team when it’s still a game not when it’s over like he did.
twotone has a great point. The ref. actully went for his 2nd yellow on Pires when he saw the foul but as he ran up and saw it was the player he allready carded he moved his hand away from the pocket.
What good does a red card do? Now he is out for at least the game against RSL? He’s a jackass and a coward.
Anyone can make a dirty tackle. How about standing your ground and not letting them score.
I accidentally deleted a comment by DK… I managed to save the texts so here it is…
“I still don’t understand everyone’s love of Sala in goal. He stands there like the statue of liberty. This is the second game at PHP this season for me and I think I have seen one decent save out of the two games. For all four goals yesterday he was on the wrong foot, watching helplessly as the ball goes past him. Not that the defense was helping him much. But I just like a more mobile keeper. One that is involved in the play, not just watching.”
Yes DK, It seems to be a trend for Sala to start the season on fire and then to fall apart. The fire didn’t last so long this year.