The #1 rule of this forum: NEVER argue with TequilaJoel. Anyway, pretty impressive turnout on a Tuesday night. 70% or so were Galaxy fans, which is good to see. To people that are not from London that were supporting Tottenham - shame on you - support your local team! Prices were insane, but I got 4 free tickets from Chad Barrett via a contest on his Twitter page. Never giving that guy a hard time again, this was great. Thanks Chad!
That was a truly weird experience. I found myself, despite being staunchly pro Galaxy cheering just about evenly for both team, though I did yell a little louder for Lopes’s goal. No injuries for the Galaxy. Walker’s injury concerned me, but he managed to walk off. Overall LA were the better team and if we had Landon & Beckham we win that game. Hard to draw many conclusions from the youngsters; they looked good, but Tottenham were playing quite low-tempo. Gareth and Lennon in particular only looked about 60%. BTW team name/nickname Spurs (no “the” in front, this ain’t San Antonio) Hotspur (no “S” at the end)
Good performance by a lot of guys that don't play much. I thought Omar was off a bit but just going for 60 minutes is a step in the right direction. I really like the way Villareal thinks so quickly out there. Very impressive. My god is Bale a player? Very impressive from him.
Let me tell you about my weird experience. Last night I thought I was going to the Home Depot Center, but I fell through a hole in the space-time continuum into a parallel universe where David Junior Lopes could score but Robbie Keane couldn't. In that world, the LAG handed out Tottenham lineup cards with NO NUMBERS for any of the players! Then I saw that the coach of the team I rooted for actually put Andrew Boyens on the pitch. At that point I knew I had to be hallucinating and the only way back to sanity was to walk out (without collecting any chicken coupons), so I did.
I didn't get a chance to watch the game last night, but I'm really happy to read about how well we played. And Lopes scored. Hope this helps him psychologically somehow.
I usually find these exhibition games in the middle of the season annoying, but I feel like this might have been a good thing for the team, in terms of building their rhythm and confidence.
Spot on. Usually these are an injury waiting to happen and do nothing for morale. But not this time. You could see the teams confidence grow especially after we tied it up. It was like "hey, we can play with these guys!" Also I hate to say it but after watching how good this team is with the ball at their feet when they keep it on the ground I have mixed feelings about Becks coming back. Sarvas and others defer to him and then he unfortunately resorts to the long lofted pass way too often. He does so with great accuracy but still those high balls don't play to the strengths of our smallish but technically adept team. Becks - just in case you are reading this in all your spare time - please switch your lofted/ground pass ratio from 80% to 20%. Thanks!
Funny thing about this is that I read the article on Tottenham's side, and it talks about the complete domination by Tottenham, and simply bad luck not allowing them to win.
Interesting. The english/scot(?) announcers I listened to on my internet feed were saying that LA was surprisingly dominating the midfield and were the better team. It was all the more impressive b/c one of the commentators sounded very euro-snobbish at the beginning of the game but came around to praising LA midway through.
I think it's a little overboard to say "we were the better team". In the first half, maybe, we deserved a lead at half time. In the second half, from my point of view, it looked inevitable that we'd concede and I was proud of the team that they held on. Neither team looked great for obvious reasons. LA playing lots of players with less then 90 total minutes of career playing time and Tottenham looking really unfit because of how early it is in their pre-season. Good match. Wonderful to see so much local youth on the field in McBean, Villareal, Garcia. (Not sure if Walker is local) Best thing about the match is that it's another successful "Eurosnob tax" levied on local "football" fans that don't support MLS usually. They got to come see Spurs and pay insane prices for the right to do that and their money flows to MLS. Good business. Let's do it again next Thursday
Well... we should have scored 2-3 additional goals in the first half, but Tottenham should have scored 2-3 additional goals in the second half... so I thought the outcome was probably representative of the match. The one thing that really struck me in this match was the size, strength, and athleticism of the Tottenham players compared to our guys.
Being a … well not neutral, but equally biased(?) I can see that interpretation as well. I suppose it all depends on how one defines domination. My gut reaction was Tottenham were more composed with the ball at their feet and created more shots on target, LA was more persistent/scrappy and created more chances that were sadly off target. I would also suspect we color our interpretation based on context. For a Galaxy fan the fact we played with B even C team players for 45 minutes and without Landon & Becks lowered expectations. For a Tottenham fan, playing your second competitive match of pre-season, massive timezone change, missing many key players and only one recognized striker on the pitch. All in all 1-1 felt a just result.
Yep, agreed. A 1-1 draw was a fair result. Oh, and you are a traitor for cheering Tottenham on. You were probably chanting along with the 500 Strong(?) as well right? "Come on your Spurs..." "Oh when the Spurs go marching in..." sickening...but I wish the Galaxy had something similar
There were a lot of legit Londoners at the stadium last night judging by their accents and attire. (having lived there myself.) Still a lot of poseurs too. I wonder how the Londoners felt when they realized that Carson is not Hollywood and Harrison New Jersey (RBA) is not Manhattan. Hope they rented a car here in LA.
Nope, I avoided any chants altogether partially out of respect, partially out of tiredness. As I’ve said before I’ve been a Tottenham supporter since I was born, my first ever football match was at Highbury in 1982 . Galaxy v Spurs was how I assume many parents feel when their children find themselves on opposite sides of a competition.
I was being facetious everyone. There did seem to be a lot of British folks at Victoria Street last night and I do think having the 500 Strong or whatever their name is doing the Tottenham chants added to the atmosphere. And yes, I realize that these clubs (Man United, City, Real, etc...) have been around just a smidgen longer than the G's so I don't blame the "real" fans of these teams even the ones in SoCal for supporting the teams they and their families grew up following...
Good Game Overall, One thing that did bother me is McBean, As big as he is he is very weak on the ball. Seems to be bodied off easily and falls way to easy. Either he is big but no muscle or he hasnt learned how to use the whole of his physcique to dominate.
Agree. McBean looked like he wasn't ready to bang with the big boys. But Villareal looked like he was right at home....