P/I/P: #17 - LA Galaxy vs Chivas USA 07/11/09 8:00 PM PDT

I don't know. I get this feeling that for that game, I might need a few bottles of tequila to go with it.

Red Bulls first They are currently one of the worst teams in MLS history, this streak better not end against them.

's impossible for me to be objective about these games, but I thought we put together a mature performance. we lost the plot from minute 60 to 75 and again for the last 5 minutes or so, but in stadium it didn't feel like the onslaught it did last week. I'd probably call it an ugly win if I watched from home, but any win against chivas is sweet especially in their "home"

thought Landon played his nuts off.

Ugly win.

I'll take it.

Those points were vital.

I thought Miglioranzi had a poor game after showing improvement the past few weeks.

I think in two years Omar Gonzalez is going to be the Chad Marshall of the league (and Chad Marshall will be someplace in Europe).

On to NYRB. They are dreadful and we need to got those 3 points as well because it gets tough after that....

Wow I hope that was the last we see of Kirovski and Migs for a while. With Beckham and Birchell pencilled in.

Now, can Arena stand up to the "Machine."

We all saw Timmy talking to Beckham.

3 more points. Still tied for 4th place with Colorado. Maybe if they lose next week we will get that spot finally. This team is getting better and better. Migs and Kiro still suck though.

I was thinking a little further with Omar Gonzalez, my thinking is, is Omar going to be on the radar of the USMNT in two years

I just hope the G's don't take the Red Bulls lightly and Thursday is going to be a Circus (not in a good way)

ill take the win but man i thought it was a boring game on both la and chivas not much action and wow only 1 card in the whole game for a casico that off lol but hey 3+ points

I'll have a lot more to say tomorrow, but I just wanted to hit a few high points:

- 3 wins in a row. 3 clean sheets. Tonight was by far the most convincing. Very exciting stuff.

- AJ grows and grows and grows. Crosses, passing and contributing in the attack has been his greatest weakness (not unusual at all in young fullbacks in MLS) and tonight he took this part of his game to a new level and put in a wonderful cross and assist. Good for this kid!

-Omar is so very very good. His pace still scares me but he's getting better and better at reading the game. If his eventual partner in defense is someone quick (thinking Franklin) we're set in central defense for a while.

- Bruce doesn't like to change a winning team, I know, but if you're going to take last weeks team and insert Landon, how does kiro stay on the field at the expense of Lewis? Kiro was so f'n awful tonight. His turnovers lead to Chivas' most dangerous opportunities. He blew so many nice buildups. He sucks so bad. How can Arena not see this. Any journalist who reads this, I BEG YOU, ask Arena what he is seeing in Kirovski that I can't. How on earth does he play 172 minutes in the past two weeks? It boggles the mind. I'm praying that Arena told him he had two games to prove his worth or he'd be cut when we add reinforcements on the 15th. I pray to god that is what is going on. I want him cut and I want him cut now.

- I assume that Beckham and Birchall will start on the bench on Thursday. That is awesome.

-Landon did below par, for his standards. Great to win when he's not at the top of his game.

- Best win of the year, by far. Much better team for 55 minutes. Very unhappy with how we managed the lead in the last 30 minutes. I guess we're not that used to having a lead but we must do better then just giving it back again and again and again will hopeless long punts. POSSESS the ball, damn it.

- I always get the feeling that the refs in these superclassicos think they look better if they let a lot go and don't card a lot of people. But man, if the game is a hack fest and there are fouls, you got to call them. The ref was not doing us any favors tonight.


-Life feels great tonight.

I talk to the players during the game. My advice to Kiro is often: "Jovan, try not to suck." He does some good things. In fact he's been doing more good things every game. But the rate of turnovers to good plays is Mind-Blowing. Capital M, Capital B. Do you think Kiro will be a starter after Becks & Birchall join? I don't.

When Real Madrid played here and Zidane played at the HDC, didn't Jovan match up against him? Didn't he look pretty fearless and better than most of our players? I was having a flashback on that tonight. Dunivant had to be here then, too.

So that would be 2 field players starting today for the Galaxy who played against Real Madrid and Zidane, the same number who played with Beckham last year, although they were a different two.

I want to thank Ante Jazic for doing what he does best -- dropping off and giving his opposite number more room to operate than any other Left Back in the league. Thanks for giving AJ 15 yards of free space and plenty of time to do the cross to Buddle. May you have a long career with the Goats.

Ditto. A win is a win and after last season and early this one, I will take it anyway we can. Nice to be streaking and I hope that we can continue this against NY. Nice to be finally moving in the right direction.

Wins > Draws > Losses.

Tonight > A month ago > Two months ago.

Arena = A very able tourniquet.

Galaxy = Getting its soul back. Little by little.

Yeah no kidding. I was thinking to myself while watching this game, "You see Ante, that is why Bruce sent you packing."

In the post game interview i noticed that Bruce looked the best I've seen him look since he took over the team.

We are batting .625 right now , we would be in second place in the East with our record.

Just got home from nightmare traffic.

haven't watched the highlights, but don't know why people are saying it was an ugly win. From my moderately unbiased point of view, we were the better team for most of the game.

Our goal was beautiful, and chivas did not appear at all threatening.

On a side note, I swear I saw Josh Wicks there in a DC cap with a short white girlfriend. It was either him or an evil twin. No joke. In spite of his problems with the Galaxy I wish him the best, and he has been doing well lately.

DC had the weekend off. Does he live in SoCal still?

By the way, I parked in a further outlying parking lot this evening than normal and, JOY, BACON WRAPPED HOTDOGS. Apparently if you can escape the gravitational field of HDC, BWHD are available.

First half was awesome for LA. Goats Jr. had no shot on goals. In fact, I think they had no shots. Second half was rather ugly but I think it's cause LA was trying to adjust to the Goats' speed. That or LA kept giving up the ball a lot.

I'm toasted.

Great to get 3 wins in a row. Best run since 2007! And it is mainly because our defense gets better and better.

Defense -

Omar and AJ: Their improvement has accelerated in the last few games. AJ is growing in confidence and is becoming a tough little bugger. Omar's positioning is getting better and he isn't getting caught ball watching like he occasionally did earlier in the season. The two have great chemistry and don't panic.

Berhalter and Dunivant : Doing a good job at killing threats on their side of the field but don't work the ball out as well as their rookie counterparts

Saunders: He's no Ricketts but he is getting the job done and made a critical save on that deflected shot to the upper corner.

Midfield -

Migs: Had a pretty mediocre game, and that is generous. Made a lot of bad passes and some were almost costly.

Magee: The usual knock on Magee is that he shows great skill but isn't active enough. Pretty accurate description tonight.

Donovan: Whoever said Donovan had an off night didn't watch the game I watched. Sure he didn't score, but damn he played his ass off. And he showed more speed tonight than he has in a long time (well I guess only since that breakout goal against Brazil). The one play where he "lapped" (the anouncers apt term) the Chivas player to take the ball off his foot was unbelievable. And he played box-to-box and both sides of the field and never looked winded. I tell you - the guy isn't human!

Kirovsky: Bruce HAS to be sleeping with Kiro. There is no other explanation of why he is getting so many minutes while Lewis and Klein are riding the pine. True Kiro's work rate is much better than it was earlier in the season, but his turnover rate unfortunately is just the same - godawful. He also is one of the dirtiest players I've seen play the game. Jovan's specialty is the cheap shot when the ref isn't looking or is shielded. Tonight I saw at least 3: twice he went out of his way to make sure his cleats came down on his opponents foot/ankle grinding it into the ground (bizarrely the ref gave us a free kick after one of those). And then there was his knee-plant-into-the groin play along the sidelines. I am amazed the goats didn't make a bigger deal about some of his dirty fouls.

Forwards:

Buddle: What an amazing header! He had to come back away from the goal to get to that ball but still got off a perfectly placed powerful snap header. He played with more confidence and hustle than he's shown in awhile, and looked like the goal-scoring Buddle we saw for parts of last year.

Esky: Great hustle again tonight. Less effective though and started a little of his yammering at the ref which is a problem he has had in the past. But liked his spirit and I think the team feeds off of it. And way out-talked Marsch in the pregame 6-for-6 segment!

Bruce: Has the team organized and hustling to keep numbers behind the ball when we don't have the ball. Needs to break up with Kirovsky though. And bad use of subs - Klein should have been on the field by minute 60 and Lewis should have started. And why Sanneh? Also I don't know if he told the team to just boot the ball long every time for the last 30 minutes, but that was really bad tactics and ugly to watch. It was downright embarrassing, though the win wasn't.

Team: Really improving as a whole. Totally dominated Chivas for a half and continuing to be solid as a rock on D. With Becks replacing Kirovsky (pleeeeeasssse god) and Birchall replacing Migs and Ricketts replacing Saunders, and Dema and Gordan getting healthy and back in the rotation, wow! LA could be a really good team! An MLS Cup team, perhaps? ;-)

Hope is one thing that you don't need against the Red Bulls right now. Their fans are pretty much just hoping for draws these days and Osorio is hoping to keep his job for another day.

Man they are so like the Knicks, it ain't even funny.

Haven't always been an L.A. fan like most of you but as a US fan I usually tune in to see how LD plays. Having watched the many Galaxy games over the last few years through the Beckham circus and all that.

The L.A. Galaxy looked better last night then they have in a very long time. I hadn't watch since before the June round of WCQ's and man have they come together. They are working together and have a good understanding of each other and it is leading to a firm defense and opportunities on the other teams goal.

I thought some of their passing combination was the sharp and quick. It showed remarkable improvement. I hadn't seen De La Garza play much, he was pretty sharp. I like the addition of Eskandarian, he's a tough player. Buddle looked the best I've seen him in a while.

I also liked that while LD was back and the clear captain he wasn't Mr. Everything for them. Magee took corners, free kicks were shared etc...
I think this take some of the pressure of LD and lets him do what he does best. He also looked to be playing with the same fire of the Confed Cup, a good thing for the Galaxy.

Hopefully, the Galaxy can whether the Beckham circus as it seems that it couldn't come at a worse time. Perhaps they will take form past experience and handle everything accordingly. I hope so for the Galaxy's sake as the guys there have worked hard to get where they are.

a couple more observations:

i thought positionally we played very, very well last night. very disciplined and not the chicken with its head cut off play we've seen so much in the past few years. that style might provide a few "holy shit" hero moments, but it's not a winning strategy.

i was disappointed that too many times last night – kirovski being the prime culprit, but there were others – we seemed surprised to get the ball. chivas players were always expecting/ready for the ball and so they seemed to transition or advance the play much faster. i think had we been a bit more alert we'd have put a few more goals away

btw

chivas home games suck, yeah there's a lot of noise (when they're told to cheer), but crikey do they seem to do everything but focus on the game - sending the strippe– uh cheerleaders around the pitch for 20 minutes, announcer guy telling the fans to cheer, and i swear in the second half everytime i looked up at the jumbotron there was either a video chicks with big tits and low cut tops or guys holding up their kids/babies in chivas gear.

Just to defend my Landon comments, I didn't mean to imply he had a bad game. I agree completely that his "balls to the wall" attitude and the 110% he was giving, especially on the noted defensive hustle plays were top quality. I simply meant that in the attacking third, which is his bread and butter, his final shot or cross was often very poor by his standards. So to win a game when he wasn't the difference up top was a fantastic achievement. He was still the best Galaxy player, in my estimation.

One other note, I don't think enough of us are appreciateing Migs role in this 3 game winning streak. I think he had a tremendous first half last night. Unfortunately he often fades in second halfs and last night was no different. Still, he really helped out the back 4 and broke up a lot of attacks. It was just noticeable in the second half that he kept giving the ball right back to Chivas.