P/I/P LA Galaxy vs FC Dallas 4/28, 7:30pm

Don't know specifically why but I love this sentence. Makes me LOL!...

"The Finish: Dallas' inability to score against LA's silly excuse for a defense is just about as sad as Keane's missed PK."

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/soccer/post/_/id/15335/the-report-card-fc-dallas-v-la-galaxy

I think it's the bold part..because it's so true! Well..compared to what we had for the past 2 years... *sighs*

 

Any word on what's wrong with Saunders? Will he be back for the next game?

 

The upside is that, individually, several players seem to be regaining form. AJ and Juninho put in perhaps their strongest performances of the season. If we have everyone playing like this and clicking, I'm confident we can stop giving up cheap goals like that one from last night.

 

It's probably based on location, you're right. So MLS Live assumes you want the FCD feed. Geneva and I being west coasters, we got LA.

 

Didn't say he didn't contribute to the loss. But our offense makes those shots - the ones they SHOULD have made, we would have walked away with three points. We need to score more than 1 goal per game this year.

Robbie in particular needs to quit with the whining and get with the program. Two weeks ago he had his head down and played soccer the full 90. His work rate was excellent. Last night he jawed at the ref all game and let plays happen while he complained. If there's anything that gets my gander, it's that kind of bullcrapola.

 

He's all about the team dynamic rather than his own records. Sometimes that results in the wrong answer. Last night was one of them. The stat is on the internet this morning - he's 30 of 33 in MLS from the spot.

That means you take the damn PK every single time. Don't care who gets their feelings hurt that day. Too bad for the Irish National Team Captain.

Course, I'm sure Landon was thinking, "of course Robbie makes this."

Sigh.

 

Yep. It's not just the goals you give up. It's how confident you are posessing out of the back and moving into the attack. We did blow are chances, though so no doubt there's blame to go around. Still the best chances aren't converted at 100% rate, so the tendency is always to blame missed chances over chances allowed. I thought Gaudette was pretty good, by I blame not having Saunders also for some of the disarray. Saunders finally looked like he was getting back into his groove, and I think the familiarity of having him back there helps cancel out the Lopes brain farts, somewhat. I found Gaudettes distribution at times inexplicable - putting Lopes under pressure. How about booting it or passing to AJ, buddy? Please don't force it to a marked Lopes.

Anyway that said. I can't blame Lopes. He's doing what we expected - be strong add some bite and aerial prowess and make some bonehead mistakes.

What I think we need everyone else to round into form. Guys are starting to show they're ready for the season and put in some good performances. We've had check marks next to Donovan, Keane, Beckham, Franklin, Saunders, AJ. Put a checkmark next to Juninho's name. Paging Mr. Buddle ... Paging Mr. Dunivant. You have a telephone call ...

 

Yes Magee, Landon, Keane, and Buddle should have all scored. But then so should have the Dallas players who got open in front of our goal several times in the first 10 minutes of the game. But offense is kind of a wild variable. And even the best forwards in the world score in less than 1/2 the games they play in.

That's why teams that win over the long haul are built around solid defenses first. That's why Vancouver continues to move up the standings even though their offensive talents aren't producing yet. That's why we won the SS last year with the help of a lot of 1-0 wins.

So the bottom line is that until we get back to having a solid, well-organized, mostly mistake free, "bend, but not break" type of defense we had in recent years we are going to be up and down, up and down, week after week, game after game.

Which brings me to our current defender Lopes.

If he were an offensive player then his mistakes wouldn't be that big of a deal. Because on offense a couple of great plays per game can make up for 88 minutes of failure. We've all seen individual forwards rise to fame and fortune following this exact formula. Hell we've seen Barrett make a good living playing soccer. For forwards moments of brilliance trump consistency. And forwards have another advantage - when one of them has a bad night they may not help their team win but neither are they likely to doom it's chances. Someone else can always step up and help with the scoring.

But on defense the risk/reward ratio is reversed. Just a couple of bad defender mistakes per game absolutely kill a team's chances of moving up the table. Offensive firepower can overcome defensive mistakes in the short run, but sadly bad defense trumps great offense in the long run. (See the "sexy" LA Galaxy under Ruud or more recently NYRB under Backe for proof.)

For these reasons I'm now completely convinced that Lopes needs to go to the bench. I honestly was fine with him getting a third shot despite his bone headed mistakes in his first two game b/c like others I love his size and aggressiveness. But this game his mistakes were as bad or worse than his previous ones. Rather than make a routine clearance in the box his inattention gifted Dallas their only goal. And he tried to gift them a few more early in the game.

If he played a different position we could live with his occasional bad mental lapses or execution errors, and the tradeoff to get his athleticism might be worth it (think a Bunbury type). But he is central defender, and that is one position where a team cannot afford to have a player prone to mental lapses or execution errors.

So it's time now to bring Meyers back in with AJ (and then try Leonardo when he is finally healthy). Meyers isn't as athletic as Lopes but overall has played at least as well when you add up the good and the bad. More importantly Meyer is young and new to the pros so there is good reason to believe he is may improve significantly with more playing time.

Lopes otoh is 29, has played all over the world, and still after all that experience makes mistakes that should make a rookie blush.

IMO it's time to move on - the Lopes experiment has failed.

 

In my opinion its not as cut and dry as you make it. Don't get me wrong, I also thought that was a giant mistake by Lopes. I don't think he makes it again. I also have to say that he has been the most effective partner for AJ.
Meyer and Boyens at this moment are not aggressive and even more mistake prone. I think this is the case of best of what we have available.

 

I agree on Lopes. Just re-watch the first 3 minutes of the game, and marvel that we weren't down two, and wonder what the F Lopes was doing.

 

qft

 

It's time to move on after a win and a draw? I just don't think it's as cut and dry as this either, and I think the dude deserves more time. We are being awfully quick to make him a scapegoat to our backline woes after his insertion has helped calm down our line a bit. (And our chances were much better than Dallas's - we had a PK and Landon had a gaping net where he hit the post.)

Yes, champions are built around defense, but this team cannot sit around and wait until the defense gets it's act together. It's not the reality of our back line - and Meyer, a rookie, is not going to make it any better immediately. The offense needs to pick up the slack until a) someone takes Lopes' spot in training b) Omar comes back c) Leonardo suddenly becomes good. We still look like a better team while Lopes is in, and I just can't get around that.

For all that I question Bruce on offense, I don't question him on defense. It is how he turned the Galaxy around. If he has decided Lopes is the starter and Meyer's on the bench? Then that's who is starting for me until Bruce thinks differently.

With three games in 1 week it'll be interesting to see who Bruce trots out against Seattle. Lopes had some major errors against FCD, but I just don't see Bruce putting the rookie in with the track record of who has played so far.

I'm no big Lopes supporter, but I do think we can't write him off so quickly. He's not going to be Omar, but so far we've got a win (two? can't even remember his first game) and a draw. Remember when we gave up crappy goals to the Revs?

 

I don't think anyone wants Boyens. It's more a question of Meyer vs. Lopes.

 

This season is incredibly frustrating. We are the mirror image of the team we've been the last two seasons. We make stupid mistakes in the back to give up goals, and we squander opportunities in the attack.

On the bright side, we are still in a decent position to go on a run and move up in the table, but we've got to stop leaking goals.

• Defense: I found it interesting that, after the heated debate in the last game thread, Lopes had such a horrible game. I noticed that he was out of position quite often, and then made the mistake that led to the goal. Other than that, I thought we looked solid. Guadett looked good in goal.
• Midfield: I thought we looked pretty good in the mid. Donovan had a great game. He really is the engine that runs this team. Becks did not have a great game. It may just be me, but it looked like he was even slower than ussual, and his free kicks weren't as solid as they've been in the past. Juninho looked pretty solid, and Magee put in a solid, if unspectacular, performance.
• Attack: Second verse, same as the first, little bit louder, little bit worse. We still can't finish, hilighted by Robbies PK. I don't have a problem with Robbie taking the PK. He's THE man for Ireland (like Landon is for the US). He's done iot at the highest levels. However, unless we're well in the lead, Donovan takes the next one. I thought Buddle looked solid, and his shot on the handball no-goal should remind everyone what he's capable of. If either Buddle or Keane get in a groove, we're going to score a ton of goals.
• Subs: First of all, lots of folks have given Bruce a bad time for his subs. He put on three attacking players in this match, and all three contributed to the goal. That goal was vintage Noonan. The guy is not very athletic, but he is a calm finisher. It's too bad you couldn't graft his composure onto Barrett's body.

Overall a disappointing result. I thought we really needed to win this match. If we can win the next two, it will be OK, but if we drop ANY points, we will really miss the two that we should have grabbed in this match.

 

Re: Bovo

Thanks.


(I should have said, "That remains to be seen." )

 

How could anyone have ever been sold on Lopes? I mean, he couldn't even play for Chivas. Chivas didn't want him, and we are expecting him to be golden for us?

That's mighty wishful thinking...

Again, i think we cant get to up and or to down... the goal has always been to just get into the playoffs and hopefully ride a hot streak to the cup.

We knew that with the new "death to the west" unfair and unbalanced schedule that winning the SS was unlikely...

Just keep accumulating points, til guys start to mesh and get healthy.

PS no Sarvas again!?!?! wonder if the dust up has buried him...

 

Re: Bovo

Are you like me and bored by the infighting and pseudo-pedophilific cartoons?

Seriously, it has really turn me off of the board in a big way.

 

Here's what I saw with Lopes this week--he played with the ball too much. The series that led to the goal against us and a few other times that had at least a whiff of danger were occasions where, as Cobi said, he was being "too cute" with the ball instead of booting it clear or playing it more simply and more quickly. The guy's instinct seems pretty clearly to indicate to play the ball out of the back and has no instinct to clear, which can be dangerous when the guys around you aren't moving to provide an outlet for you. To be honest, there are much worse sins than that, but, admittedly, it has the potential to cause trouble for us and it did. I don't like the mistakes that he makes, the goal needn't have happened, but I'm not sure that we can get along without a player like him (as long as the other CB is AJ, that is). We are benefiting from his presence, from his physicality, and our record has been better with him than without him. I think, on balance, we're (slightly) better with him and his mistakes than with the other alternatives, again, assuming that AJ is the other CB out there. If the other CB is Leonardo (and Leonardo's form is good), then I could see bringing Meyer back.

Moving on, I thought the midfield was better in attack but not very solid defensively, other than Juninho. I thought Juninho in this game and the prior game started showing signs of the old Juninho. The guys around him, though, didn't seem to be terribly effective on the defensive side of the ball. Magee squandered some good opportunities, and maybe this was more evident because the ball was on the left a good deal, at least that was my perception, I'll need to check the chalkboard.

Heck, in general we squandered quite a few opportunities at goal. It seems like once we get near the penalty area, we EXPECT to fail. There is no confidence there. Buddle had some really great work, but there doesn't seem to be an understanding developing with Keane, at least not yet. The movement is improving, but ... I don't know what it is. Cheers to Pat Noonan for doing what needed to be done.

Keane also (again) put in some really hard work. His movement on and off the ball and his touches have been great, but nothing in the finishing department. To be fair, we rarely get him a ball in a decent area. I see so many great runs go without reward. I wish that we'd stop playing him into the left corner, which takes him out of a lot of plays and forces him to be provider rather than provided. I felt bad for Keane with his PK miss, but I could almost feel it coming. The curse, the force field that covers the goal. That said, it's not unusual for the policy to be that the person that is fouled not to take the PK, but I don't expect that anyone else other than LD will be doing those from now on.

Two other minor things, I thought that Gaudette did a pretty decent job, no real complaints there. And I commend Bruce for his aggressive approach with subs.

 

Yeah, but why would they think I want the Colorado feed when we played them, the Portland feed when we played them, the DC United feed when we played them? Literally every single game I have seen the Galaxy play has been the opposing team's feed (except when we were on ESPN/NBC) , regardless if they're home or away.

I want my Cobi/Rogandino fix!!

 

But I'm on DirecTV. How in the heck did I not get the Galaxy feed?

It's a conspiracy!

Or else I'm doing something real, real wrong.

 

An astute observer who sits near me suggested at maybe Lopes has such a low opinion of MLS compared to Brazil league that Lopes really believes he can get away with this cutsey stuff. If Bruce can't beat that out of him, Lopes is a mere stopgap until Leo is healthy, Omar returns, and Myers matures.

He's probably a stop-gap anyway. Hard to see us turning an ex-goat into something very useful.

 

Making no excuse for Lopes or the rest of the sub-par defense, I still maintain that defense isn't our main problem. Our expensive offense is not delivering as they should. We gave up one goal against KC on the road and I believe had 0 shots on goal. We scored 1 goal each against Toronto, RSL and NE at home. I'm not advocating a return to the Gullit days of offense at the expense of defense, but I don't understand the panic over the defense while ignoring our problems on offense.