Match Day 18: LA Galaxy at FC Dallas
July 26th, 2008 . 6:00 am . By: Jason BenfieldLos Angeles OverviewThe last time the Galaxy came through Dallas, they looked like they were on the cusp of turning the corner as a team. Dominating offensive performances against FCD, KC, Colorado, and San Jose had fans in LA brimming with confidence. Since then, however, the defense has once again leaked goals as the quality of opposition increased, and LA are looking to regain their form. With the recent availability of Ruiz, LA have been tinkering with their personnel choices, although they have stayed with the 4-4-2. The philosophy at the back has changed significantly as the season has progressed. At first, the outside backs were allowed to overlap and fly up the wings at will in support of the attack; now, however, the fullbacks are more restrained. When they do receive the ball, they will generally opt for the deep cross from about 35 yards out. Occasionally, Klein still ventures all the way to the line, but this is happening much less frequently than earlier in the year. The central defenders have pushed up, holding a higher line than in the past as well. LA knows that the strength of the team does not lie in the central midfield, so they attempt to compress the space and make it less of a factor on the game. As the game moves forward and opens up, the defensive line can be held back, but for the most part they try to push up. While the flank play has been pretty solid on the year, the central midfield has been horrible. LA simply do not have the quality players needed in the center to maintain possession and take pressure off of their defense. The central midfielders are asked to play a holding role, linking the defense to the attack. The outside midfielders are allowed to run the flanks or dive into the middle to get the ball at will. The Galaxy are at their best when the wingers come inside, but they go through stretches where they outside and wait in space and do not have as much of an impact. The real concern with the team is in the central midfield. None of the players are very athletic or creative. They do an okay job of feeding the balls to a forward checking back or to the outside, but other than that are not effective. The Galaxy defense gets a lot of press for their poor numbers, but the fact is that even though the central midfield doesn’t join the attack, they leave a huge gap between themselves and the defensive line when the opponent pushes forward. There are large spaces for attacking midfielders to roam free, and these players absolutely tear up the Galaxy. If you look at the teams that LA concede a lot of goals to - Columbus (Schellotto), DC (Gallardo), New York (Rojas), Colorado (Gomez) - these are teams that have the personnel to take advantage of that space. As beautiful as the offense is to watch with its swarming attack and numbers pouring forward, the defense gets exposed because of a lack of support from the midfield. Up top, the Galaxy are searching for a combination that works. The Buddle-Donovan thing was going well, but the addition of Ruiz to the mix has caused some problems. Donovan, Buddle, and even Gordon are all very active players who come meet the midfield and create a lot of problems through abstraction and movement away from the ball. Ruiz is static; with him in the lineup the team becomes more reliant on counter attacks and flank play to generate opportunities. For all of the goals scored, the Galaxy actually go through significant stretches of a game without creating scoring opportunities at all. LA Galaxy Roster Just a reminder of the rating system: 1 = Developmental player Ely Allen - 2 - Rookie got a lot of time in the preseason when Donovan missed a few games and at the beginning of the 2008 campaign when Randolph was in the doghouse for not being fit. Has also seen some time in recent matches. Has played forward, central midfield, left mid and right mid. Makes quick decisions for a rookie. Has some athleticism, nice work rate, and does have some speed. Not overwhelmed when in the game, just doesn’t make much of an impact either. Alvaro Pires - 3 - Brazilian import is a first choice for one of the central midfield spots. Hard tackler and very strong on the ball. Good passer. Not a lot of speed and lacks athleticism. Does not have the fitness to track back defensively. Was improving for a while, but then picked up a knee injury and missed some games and his performance has dipped back down. David Beckham - 6 - Has been absolutely fantastic for the most part this season. Hit a lull a couple of weeks back where he was leaving his free kicks and crosses short, but has been strong for the most part. Work rate has been outstanding all season, checking back in the middle to bring the ball up as well as racing down the wing. Has had a couple of games where stays too far wide, and is not involved enough. Two games ago, was started in the middle; although he did well, there was no presence at all on the wing and he was pushed out at halftime. Great on long balls during the run of play. Edson Buddle - 5 - Can somebody tell me where he went for the past few years? Has always had decent tools - nice size, decent speed, and was a strong finisher as a youth, but game regressed since his first days in MLS. Always was a poor passer, very lazy off the ball, and hadn’t had good fitness for years. Now, suddenly, Buddle decided to get serious. The strongest part of his game right now may be his work ethic - the guy is relentless out there, fighting for every ball, never giving up if he loses it and getting it right back. He is a true bull on the field. Doesn’t have great speed, but accelerates well enough to create shooting lanes or get to a ball first. Nice size, and is strong in the air, although he doesn’t jump particularly well. Has finished his chances extremely well this season. Besides his work rate, the other massive improvement in his game is his passing ability, which is strikingly evident when he plays next to someone like Ruiz. He has great touch on the ball. Often likes to come back for a ball on the left side and send strong diagonals to Beckham on the right. Really has a good all around game and his goals haven’t come from luck. The goal he created last week was a thing of beauty - dribbling through players and then a great feathery chip. Hats off to him, he has been a true all star for the past couple of months, whether he scores or not. And for the most part, he has. Steve Cronin - 2 - Starting keeper simply isn’t ready for MLS. Has good size and hands, but lacks confidence. Has no understanding of when to come out and when to stay home, so often gets caught in the middle. Has been overly aggressive the past two weeks, coming out too much. The Galaxy defense is not great, but he makes it look worse, and has not made any game-changing saves this season. Worst starting goalie in MLS. Eduardo Dominguez - 4 - Okay, so maybe this is a bit early since I haven’t seen him play yet. But the guy has been starting for top tier clubs in Columbia and Argentina for the past several years, and is still only 29. Obviously coming to LA for the chance to move to Europe if he performs well, so he will be motivated (ala Toja of last season). The pedigree indicates he should be very good. Probably will start against Dallas. Landon Donovan - 6 - Donovan has been fantastic all season long. Is much more consistent, and is extremely aggressive on the ball. Speed is back from two years ago. Making quick decisions now that he has a partner in Beckham to drive the speed of play. Has finished chances well, and has shown a much, much more aggressive attitude. Not afraid to take players on, will show for the ball, turn, and push straight up field. Is looking to take more shots from distance for the first time. Is showing the attitude and confidence for the first time of a player that is ready to succeed and excel in the European environment. Has been moved around between forward and outside mid based on need. Joe Franchino - 2 - Defensive midfielder was buried on the roster in New England for a reason, but is a part time starter right now in LA. Provides some bite in the midfield, but is not a great passer and doesn’t have the speed or athleticism to recover defensively. Is not fully fit. Is bypassed when transition to the attack. Not really an effective MLS player anymore. Sean Franklin - 3 - Central defender is a first choice in the back, but picked up an ACL injury. Coaches rave about him, and the reviews have been good. Has decent speed. A little short for a central defender, and it hurts him on crosses. Decent tackler, but can be reckless and commits fouls near the box. Speed allows him to cover for others, which makes him look good, but lacks discipline marking in the run of play. Young player and will continue to improve. Michael Gavin - 1 - Left back started against Dallas earlier this season, but is really a third or fourth choice at the position. Decent pace, but is overwhelmed by the speed of play. Extremely nervous on the ball and can be beaten pretty easily in 1v1 situations. Not ready for MLS action, which showed as he made Bobby Rhine look like an all star in the preseason. Alan Gordon - 2 - Target forward is really fourth string behind Donovan, Buddle and Ruiz. Good size and does hold the ball up pretty well - has soft feet for a big player. Lacks athleticism and speed and is not really effective other than a target. Has shown the ability to score some nice goals, but not often enough. Not a great jumper, so he doesn’t use his frame that well. Ante Jazic - 4 - First choice starting left back is one of the best in the league. Finally back from injury and has improved the defense. Has all star potential once he shakes the rust off. Can get forward, but has been at his best simply defending since the injury. Was tried at left mid and defensive mid but is best at left back. Good crosser of the ball when gets forward. Bryan Jordan - 1 - Rookie forward is athletic with good speed, but hasn’t shown much in the league so far. Behind Allen at this point in serving as a backup. Chris Klein - 3 - Converted right midfielder is the first choice at right back. Gets a lot of praise because he likes to get forward and his defense has improved. However, he still lacks speed and gets torched in 1v1 situations. Got caught forward early in the season too often, and now that he is hanging back is getting exposed a little more often defensively. Defending needs to improve a little more before move up to a 4. Brandon McDonald - 2 - Started several matches at central mid, but got injured and saw the bench once other players recovered from their injuries. Good size, but is inconsistent on the ball - sometimes he looks comfortable and composed, other times he panics and gives it away. Doesn’t provide much offensively. Doesn’t have great speed. Will be taken advantage of by a veteran midfield. Has looked very mediocre most of the time with flashes of something promising. Mike Randolph - 3 - Made his mark at the end of last season as a left back, but has really struggled this season. Has been played at left back and left midfield. In the back, makes poor decisions on distribution and puts the rest of the team in a bind although his speed allows him to recover from a lot of his mistakes. In the midfield, is not a good enough passer to be consistently effective. Shows great crosses and quick decision making at times, but gives the ball away too often. Is also not effective in the Galaxy scheme because the mid opposite Beckham should be crashing the box and he just doesn’t have the size or offensive abilities to be effective in that role. Still has a lot of athletic potential, but it has been a disappointing season. Troy Roberts - 2 - Has been on the verge of breaking into the starting lineup for a couple of years now, at both center back and right back. The bad news is that he has not been able to break through on one of the worst defenses in the league. Physically, he looks the part because he has good speed and good size. However, he is a bit of a soft player, makes mistakes with his positioning, is not a great passer. Held up decently last week. With all of his issues, he seems to have pushed past Vanney in the pecking order because of his recovery speed. Carlos Ruiz - 3 - Finally back from injury, it will be interesting to see if he fits the team or is pushed out. Has not been all that effective this season, and was not good last year either. Has never been overly effective in a two forward lineup. Does not combine well with other players. The Galaxy scheme of movement off the ball and quick combination play does not fit his style of sitting in the middle and serving as a target. A good target for Becks, but at the cost of disrupting the offensive flow. Plays as a target, but doesn’t have the height, work rate, or passing ability to be effective at the highest level, and lacks the speed to play as a second forward. The improvement in the speed, size and athleticism of MLS defenders over the past few seasons has caught up to him and rendered him much less effective. Josh Tudela - 2 - Defensive midfielder saw quite a bit of time in the preseason last year, and all reports were that he looked very good for a rookie. Was not used much once the season started. Finally saw time at the end of the season, and looked like he had potential. Strong tackler and an underrated passer who doesn’t panic on the ball. Made his share of mistakes as a rookie, but generally played sound in the middle of the field and served as a good transition point in getting the ball out to the wings on the attack. Has been strangely absent for most of this season, but may have had some injury concerns. If he has truly fallen behind Pires, Vagenas, MacDonald and Franchino, that isn’t a good sign. Has seen some time in the past few games, but is not really part of the team. Peter Vagenas - 2 - Two way central midfielder has been injured for most of the season thus far. Is the first choice to pair with Pires, but they have not played well together. Is not quite fit and has little to no impact on the games he has played this season. Has a good first touch and is a solid passer, but doesn’t make his impact felt on a consistent basis. Is not a very physical player and his lack of size is probably a reason for his injuries. When healthy, has a good work rate and should be a good fit for this system as he will just be asked to link into the attack and not be creative. But is not fit yet and has not played well over the last two games. Greg Vanney - 2 - Former US International covered at left back for a while, but is really a central defender at this point in his career. Has never been a great marker, which hurts him in the middle of the field. Is a very strong crosser, an attribute that is wasted in the middle, but serves him well when he plays on the outside. Lacks pace and doesn’t turn his hips well, however, which is a liability out left. Played okay for most of the last game, but was absolutely torched twice in 1v1 situations. A major liability if isolated. Adzemian, Alamo, Bolkan, Higgins, Sesay, Valentin, and Wicks will not factor into the match. EXPECTED LOS ANGELES LINEUP
EXPECTED DALLAS LINEUPOkay, so this is a pretty wild guess. The preview isn’t even up on mlsnet yet, so my guess is that even FCD have no idea who will be available with all the rumors out there. I’ll go with the de facto starting lineup 3-5-2, then explain what I think the changes would be. Dax is out for the Olympics; Saragosa is suspended; and Lambo, Wallace, & Shea are gone with the U20s.
If Cooper is unavailable, then Abe obviously fills in. If Toja leaves, things get a little more complicated. In my mind, there are two options with Saragosa out. First is that Avila could slide up for Toja, and a banged up Bobby Rhine or inexperienced player like Dello-Russo has to play so Rocha can go central, or someone unexpected has to come into midfield like Pitchkolan, or Serioux (with Wagner at LB). Outside of that someone like Ricardinho has to play a-mid or wide, or Wagner left so Alvarez can go central. On Friday Dallas worked in training on a 4-4-2. Just in case they play that way against LA here’s a likely set up based on what they worked on. With Saragosa suspended it means Hyndman isn’t quite ready to trust Avila to start, or maybe it’s just to try and stop the great LA flank play.
So is Schellas finally ready start the changes? KEY TO THE GAMEThe key to the game is the Dallas midfield. They played their best game of the season last weekend against Colorado, and it showed with FCD able to maintain possession and keep offensive pressure on the other team. The weakness of LA is the central midfield, and that normally is a strength for Dallas. If they can stop the flow of play defensively and prevent LA from establishing a rhythm, Dallas will have a chance of getting points out of the game. PREDICTION 1 - FCD have Cooper and Toja availableLast weekend was a pretty good performance by the FCD team. A bad play by Serioux and a brilliant goal by Gomez and Casey were all that kept Dallas from taking the three points. And that good performance came against a team that came into the match playing good soccer. The defense was much better organized than usual, and we saw energy in the midfield that had been absent for a long time. Unfortunately for FCD, they always make a few mistakes per game, and LA absolutely jump on mistakes. Neither team can shut anyone out, so this should be an entertaining game to watch. FCD 2 - LA 2 PREDICTION 2 - No Cooper, no TojaSorry, but there is just no way that Dallas can keep up with the LA offense with the team FCD will put on the field on Sunday. Funny things happen in soccer, but we could be looking at a repeat of the debacle earlier this season. FCD is in for a very bad spell. Abe isn’t talented enough to start in the league, and Oduro isn’t consistently effective. I love the potential of Avila, but he hasn’t shown his flashes over ninety minutes and could be thrown into the fire. The midfield will still be strong, but with no dangerous players up top, LA will push forward in numbers. LA 2 - FCD 0 12 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I would really like to see Avila in the A-Mid role and Toja moved back to play destroyer along side Pablo. I think I was the first to call for Toja at A-mid last year, and for a while it worked, but this year has shown that he is just not an A-Mid. This team needs to just start playing guys where they are most comfortable.
Sunday is going to interesting to say the least.
Would it not make more sense that Toja would be gone before Cooper?
I think that both players will be available for tomorrow, but I would put Ricardinho up top with Cooper and see what happens. If it bombs, bring on Abe in the 2nd half. Dom is getting better, but must learn to finish at this level consistantly. In the midfield, why not play Serioux next to Ricchetti? Wagner needs to play to get better anyway, and Serioux is the kind of destroyer that would wreck havoc in the middle of the LA attack.
Either way, at least Saragosa is not available…I am looking forward to seeing how much better the flow is without him bringing the ball up the flank.
I really think you are being overly harsh on Cronin. Speaking as a Galaxy fan that had huge reservations about Cronin this season I think he has performed well above pre-season expectations.
I can only really think of a few goals this season (and obviously there have been tons) that I really blame him for. There was goal 1 and 2 early in the season against Toronto at home and goal #3 later on at home against Columbus. Those mistakes cost us points. I defy you to point to any other errors he has made. Then, find me any other keeper who isn’t at fault on 2-3 goals so far this season. There are not many.
Not saying Cronin is a star or anything but LA’s problems in leaking goals this season have been on Vanney and Xavier and Klein getting caught up field and us having poor possesion in central midfield, not the rookie keeper.
But please, use specifics and prove me wrong.
Mbar
Specifics, you say?
4-0
thats what I like about soccer (and hate). Its so random, once you think youve got things figured out, the roles completely reverse. We raped them, for no good reason either.
FCD scores first, they don’t lose. Cooper scores and FCD has lost only once in about 24 games. The lesson: Have Cooper score the first goal.
Good effin’ call about the 4-4-2 setup - other than Avila for Toja, that was spot on.
Hey guys I just heard that Dallas signed a midfielder today…
Cronin was at fault for at least one fo the goals in the new york game. And honestly he should have done better yesterday. He is athletic and gets down well, but he is horrible on positioning and when to come out.
I thought Avila and Ricchetti were both fantastic yesterday. That was the best Ricchetti has played in a long time. Maybe moving out of the 3-5-2 will free him up again. The 4-4-2 is a great matchup to close down space against LA on the flanks, it will be interesting to see if we stick with that. With Toja leaving, there is not as much of a logjam in the middle.
This is the second straight good showing for dallas. Don’t discount the last game against a colorado team playing good soccer. This could be an interesting turnaround if we hold on to Cooper.
Got to give credit where credit is due to Hyndman. Still give it some time, but I wonder how many of the early naysayers (just about everyone) have had a turn of heart:?:
I agree that credit goes to Hyndman and I would count myself as someone who was very skeptical, if not an outright naysayer. What I like is that the players are doing what he asks and that the team is improving. He mentioned in an interview that the team needed more width and we are getting more width; he mentioned that Oduro needed to be better at combination play, and both his goal and his assist came from good combination play. He’s letting guys who perform play — with Avila being the best example, and one that’s paying off handsomely. There will, I think, be some bumps in the road, especially with all of the players out for the next few weeks, but so far the early returns are encouraging. They have gotten progressively better.
Both Cooper & Thompson are up for MLS Goal of the Week…for my money Abe’s goal was by far the better shot - but the other alex is right about the team’s record when Cooper scores. Solution? Vote for Thompson…bet on Cooper!