PIP: Western Conference Championship Game 2; LA Galaxy vs Seattle Sounders; 11/18/12; 6 P.M. PST

You know, it still feels great knocking the smurfs out of the first round in front of their home crowd. Sssssssssuck it.

 

BOUGHT MY TICKETS THIS FRIDAY! MLS CUP HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This is completely an interpretation. If a defender stands in front of an attacker with his arms spread wide, and the attacker deliberately lifts the ball into the defenders hand, it will almost always be called a hand ball because the ref cannot tell whether or not the defender spread his arms to deliberately obstruct a potential path of the ball. That's why I thought both calls were right by the ref tonight. On the first non-call, the Seattle player had his hand in close to his body. On the second call, he had one hand spread wide down low and the other arm raised high. Both arms hit the ball. The ref has little choice but to call that, otherwise defenders would always get crazy arms in the box to hope they would "inadvertently" block a cross. I thought both calls were correct.

Now the offside call on EJ in the 9th minute... Seattle got screwed on that one.

 

Sorry, but no. At least 80% of this "bad" play was due to the plastic abortion of a "pitch." Another 15% was due to the rain on the slip-n-slide "pitch." With 13 days to prepare and playing at home on a REAL pitch, they will be fine.

It should be a very good game. Biggest advantage, I think, is that Houston has been very ordinary on the road this year. I'm not sure how they combat that reality.

 

Hot damn, flashbacks of 2003 were coming to haunt again. Had Seattle not been screwed over with the 1st disallowed goal (it was onside), who knows what would have happen. Thank goodness a PK for us; so weird how it touched both hands.

But seriously LA, stop giving us fans mini heart attacks.

 

We did enough tonight. The better team won tonight but we are going to the finals and were the better team over two legs. Nough said. Wow, finals at the HDC. Planning my first game of the season to be the finals. Unbelievable.

 

If as a defender you see a cross might be coming then you have time to think about how your body is positioned to defend the cross, you'd better make an effort to keep your hands in - if you don't then you've deliberately put your hands in position to play the ball. I don't think that interpretation of the laws of the game is groundbreaking.

 

Before we move onto the final, I just want to say... WE ARE FREAKING LUCKY! I'm glad it all worked out.

Keane and Beckham are warriors. I thought Becks had his best game for us in awhile. Our defenders played very nervous and I swear Dunivant wasn't even on the pitch. Saunders did a good job. Juninho is a god. I know people are blaming the 2nd Seattle goal on Edson, but he was there to clear at least three corner kicks before that. I thought he played OK. Mike Magee was the only one playing excellent possession football. We need Landon back for the final.

I'M SO EXCITED FOR THE FINAL! GO GALAXY!

 

It's a good thing I was able to payoff the ref and Don Garber so that MLS would give AEG their going-away party at Home Depot center. I love rooting for a team that is guaranteed to win a trophy every year. It's so fun to see other fans whine and cry about how hard done-by-they are. Too bad Drew Carey is so small-town. If he weren't such a bit player, maybe he could afford to buy Seattle more than just a few Open Cup trophies.

 

I thought Alonso showed a big lack of class as a captain in going after the ref. Deserved red, and depending on what he did it may be more games. He set a bad example for EJ, who continuing berating Geiger.

That said, I thought Geiger had a very weak game. He let too many fouls go, on both ends.

 

Yes. The whole character of the game changed when he came on. That may have been Bruce's best substitution of the whole year.

 

I didn't have a huge problem with Geiger. The game wasn't that rough... it didn't get out of control. As I said earlier, the only real big error was the offside call, and that's on the linesman.

 

We are very lucky to go to the final. bunkering does not work and it was obvious that if not for a couple of calls that went our way we lose this game. I will not understand why we came out without a shred of possession. The good news is that we will be playing at home and we are the Barca of MLS at home.
Should be great.

 

Well peeps it wasn't pretty it wasn't ideal without LD. But we are in the final again my fellow galaxy brothas and sistas. Gonna buy my tickets 1st thing in the morning. Happy travels to the fans coming home hope to see you or at least know you are gonna be at the final.

 

The pitch was a large reason for the lack of possession. It's hard to play a detailed technical game on a slip-n-slide.

 

How can we possibly field a team like these munchkins and get to a final? Thank god for Garber and the refs rigging this thing because our players, coaches, training staff, facilities and city are a joke. Nobody wants to play for us or even live here. It's really horrible. I wish I could move to San Jose every day of my life. I keep telling my wife one day, but she's losing hope and becoming depressed - it's sad really. Oh well. We'll muddle through some how.

 

Funny thing... I watched the UK version of Fevered Pitch yesterday (with Colin Firth), and in the final scene he's watching Liverpool play Arsenal in the last match of the season on tv. He kept threatening to leave (putting on his coat and standing by the door).

I felt that way in this match. It was KILLING me. I had it on with no sound, and I was working on other stuff while it was going, because otherwise I was going to kill myself. I love watching this team, but it's so much easier when the expectations are lower.

 

Never in doubt.

That pitch in any weather conditions sucks. That pitch in pouring rain sucks most. We will look way better on December 1st.

Am I the only one who noticed that montero handles the ball in the build up to the goal that was wrongly disallowed for offside? Makes me care much less about that.

Ugly performance but expected. Kudos to Seattle for giving I their all. I think taking montero out was a huge mistake. They were much less dynamic with him on the bench.

We have seen this year that only the Becks-juninho pairing or the Juninho-sarvas pairings work in central midfield for us. Sarvas-Becks doesn't work.

 

From the USSF Advice to Referees:

12.9 Deliberate Handling
"Deliberate contact" means...that the player's arms were not in a normal playing
position at the time

As with most fouls, there is a sliding scale. What Johansson did would not be called in most Youth Rec Leagues on a U12 or younger player.

As players get more sophisticated, the standards for handling tend to get tighter.

Starting around high school age, a player with both arms spread that wide from the body making contact with the ball like that in PA is going to be fortunate not to be called for handling.

Johansson is a 10 yr+ pro and member of the Swedish National Team. I guarantee he would have been called for handling 10 times out of 10 in a competitive International match.

Geiger would have been under a lot more pressure to justify not making that call to MLS and USSF than what he got from the Seattle fans for calling it.

 

Everyone should relax. We did get lucky tonight but for me not having Juni at the outset and playing on that pitch were the two major factors in our poor form. Let's celebrate tonight, get healthy and finish this thing off at the HDC. My first game is going to be the final. How lucky am I.

 

That was a legit Handball call and we should have had 2 PK's as a matter of fact. They still would have lost the series just as your team did. LOL