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

I remember mid-season I quipped “we aren’t getting calls right now so when we do get those calls in the play-offs we can point to ones we didn’t get in the regular season.” It was a tongue in cheek, but it seems to be working out that way. I can see how Seattle fans would be upset, though none of the calls were what I’d call decisive. If the blown offside call happened in 85th minute instead of the 5th minute that’s decisive.

 

FTFY.

 

I caught myself hoping that Seattle would score one more late in the game so the offside call against Johnson would actually count for something, and we could enjoy 2 weeks of exploding heads while we wait for MLS Cup at the HDC.

New rule for 2013: No Playoff Games or MLS Cup Played on Plastic.

 

I'm sooooo glad MLS loves us and conspired for us to be in the Cup final! Whew!

The reason for Seattle overwhelming us had a lot to do with LD not being in the 18. We had ZERO ability to run a counter-attack; thus, they could press all day long without fear of a counter against them. LD is one of the best in the world at running a counter-attack.

Juninho is my MOTM. Complexion changed completely when he entered the game. He is a calming presence, he understood what needed to be done and did it. He and Saunders' excellent couple of saves are a big reason why we came through that.

And Twellman's fixation on Buddle was driving me insane. I almost had to mute it, and probably should have. No offense to Buddle, but he had an extremely poor game; he does not win the long ball - I can count ONE time he controlled it and was able to drop the ball off. The man does NOT win headers; he does NOT jump. He does NOT do what a "target" forward (as Twellman went on and on about all evening) is supposed to do. Sorry.

And they can go on and on and on about Houston is a different team than last year. Hello, Taylor, if you're basing your analysis on LA's game v. Seattle, you're going to be very surprised at how they play come the final. Get ready.

 

On Buddle - a beautiful game he did not have, but it's not like he was the only one out there messing up on the turf. He was getting pressured hard on his receptions as a target forward, and some of them were not delivered well, and we know he's not 100%. Finally towards the end Geiger called a couple of fouls on the muggings he was receiving (not to blame Seattle, you hand out what the ref will allow), and I was pretty surprised because it didn't seem like Geiger was going to call much. I don't think he deserves more blame than the rest of the team for not keeping control of the ball. That was a team effort all the way.

 

A more unique take on The Seattle Handball Incident of 2012:

Geiger explained that Johansson got an advantage by using his hand to make himself bigger on the play in order to block the cross. Schmid argued there was no Galaxy player in the area to receive a pass.

I had no idea that the handball rule was similar to pass interference or intentional grounding in football. Is this really a consideration for the referee? Or is Sigi just venting?

http://seattletimes.com/html/sounders/2019711643_sounders19.html

 

NO GAMES ON PLASTIC, PERIOD!!!!!!

 

I'm not here to defend Buddle's play on offense, but I did notice that he was winning a large number of head balls in the box when we were defending against Seattle corners and free kicks, especially in the first half. At the time, I was thinking that this is what Buddle provided that we wouldn't have gotten from Landon. We're not a particularly tall team outside of Omar and Meyer either doesn't jump as well as Berhalter used to or he gets pushed out of position (or both). When other teams have a great header with size like Johnson, we suffer if our forwards can't lend a hand. Not that this was enough to justify Buddle's presence, especially on the second Seattle goal, but it does belie the notion that Buddle can't win headers or that he doesn't jump.

 

Just watched the disputed offside call again. Montero CLEARLY handles the ball at 10:03 and both Gonzalez and Beckham immediately raise their arms to protest. Gonzalez gets on with business while Beckham continues to raise his arms. When the ball is passed back into the box at 10:10 Zakuani is clearly offside, which is why I think the linesman raised the flag immediately even though the pass went to Johnson. Seattle fans and their northern conspiracy cohorts can protest all they want, but that play should have been called off due to Montero gaining an advantage by handling the ball long before Johnson had a chance to take that shot if you really want to bitch about blown calls.

 

Yeah, I forgot about his clearing headers on the defensive third. And yes, I'll give him credit.

but offensively, I counted 1 header off a goal kick that he was able to knock down and control - 1. And I still have yet to see him actually jump up to receive it. He just is unable to do it; granted, they're hanging on him, but come on, defenders hang on forwards all the time and they manage to still get off the ground. And for me, a forward, offensive player's primary duty is his contributions on offense, not as a defender.

But to be clear, I am not blaming Buddle for our lack of control on offense. As Geneva said, the entire team gets credit for that. I was just more irritated with Twellman going on and on about Buddle fulfilling his "target" man role, when clearly he was not. And I've had this same complaint regarding Buddle and receiving the long ball this entire year. He just doesn't get it done, by and large.

 

Sigi was mistaken about no players in the box, there were two. One occupied by Seattle defenders, but then Magee –I think – streaking in to the box unmarked.

 

My view on this match: pretty much what I expected.

We'd demolished Seattle in the first leg to the point where they had nothing to lose. They played without pressure. I suspected they'd win by a goal.

We played crap, but I'm going to do the unsporting thing and point to their field. It's not a massive excuse, as we've beaten them up there several times, but that surface doesn't make for a good possession game when you aren't used to playing on it.

The biggest take-away here is that this was a one-off under very specific circumstances. It doesn't take away our incredible first leg performance, or what we did to the Smurfs.

I don't think the Johnson offside was a factor as they made amends immediately after it. I don't see the course of the game changing too much if a goal scored a minute earlier stands.

I'm one of the few that I've spoken to or heard from (outside the haters) who thought the handball was a bit harsh. The first touch was ball-to-hand and I even think the position of the right arm was based on trying to keep balance. But then again, I can point to the questionable goal we conceded against the Quakes in the last round, or multiple blown calls that hurt us at the start of the season.

Hell, the calls we lost out on against RSL in the opener and Magee's own blown offside call against TFC in the CCL set us on a major slide that few other teams could have recovered from.

Let Seattle bitch and whine and let the rest of the league hate.

I'm going to depart from my usual affable, sensible ways and go troll the neutral thread...

 

Some people are complaining about the aggregate system and want to go back to pre-2003. Lolwut?

 

Exactly regarding the muggings. Same thing on the other end with Montero and Johnson lunging into Omar and Meyers before the ball arrived on areal challenges. I call it the Leinart style. If a ref lets you get away with that, it really hurts our defense.

 

Plastic is one thing. Rain is one thing, but the two combined do seem to create markedly different playing surface.

 

Thank you! I mentioned that last night and was surprised I hadn't seen anyone mention that in any of the post match commentary on our forum or the main one.

 

I think we even broke the Earthquakes last night. There’s the usual conspiracy nonsense, but it’s so half-hearted, like a boxer out on his feet. It would be sad, but you know it’s San Jose.

 

Man is there a lot of conspiracy talk throughout the MLS world...

• The playoff format is unfair... it gives the away team the advantage
• The reffing is unfair...

People want to attribute the LA / Houston final to everything but quality of of play, but everyone needs to take a step back and look at trends and results.

• Houston has been to the MLS Cup 4 of the last 7 years
• LA has been to the MLS Cup 3 of the last 4 years
• Both LA and Houston have been the better teams in the series just played, and throughout the playoffs

In their combined appearances in the MLS Playoffs, LA and Houston have both gotten their in every possible way imaginable: as heavy favorites, as underdogs, with a little luck, with complete domination, playing first leg at home, playing first leg on the road, with calls going for them, with calls going against them. Th rest of the league can bitch and moan all they want about how unfair it is. Look at the records and the success of these two teams. For every example of how unfair things have broken in their favor, you can find a counter-example of how they have broken against them. LA and Houston have simply been better than the rest of the league in terms of doing what it takes to win this little mini-tournament that we call the MLS Playoffs.

We're not talking the 2010 Rapids here. We're talking about two established contenders. When teams have that history it proves their quality regardless of what kind of breaks they get or don't get. The rest of the league just needs to get over it and try to figure out how to do a better job of competing.

 

While your observation about Buddle is probably accurate, I never thought Buddle was a target forward, he's just the closest player the Galaxy have other than Jack McBean (IMO, a far better target forward then Buddle). Buddle is at his best when he can run at a player with the ball at his feet.

Secondly its not like Sounders is anywhere like an accurate kicker, I cringe everytime he takes a goal kick or punts the ball. He is a solid turnover machine who makes it easy for defenders to block forwards off the ball.

 

^^ This. There were like Zero accurate long balls being played to him all game. There was just a bunch of balls being booted forward out of the back strictly in the name of defensive clearances. The pitch didn't help the situation either as Buddle spent much of his time as target man on the ground due to being fouled or continuously falling down while trying to win headers due to that crap wet surface. Add to that, Zakuani was killing our midfielders. Especially Wilhelmson and Sarvas. Our midfield didn't look serviceable until Sarvas was moved out wide and Juninho came into the game for Chippen. Plus with the defense under siege, the entire backline was playing panicky football and only played possession in spurts near the end of each half. Josh was in my opinion the only guy in the back not losing his head every single time the ball came his way. Beckham had to tell Franklin twice to calm the F#%K down and possess the ball for a minute instead of forcing bad passes.

I said earlier that this game was going to come down to the midfield battle and we were already at a disadvantage without Juninho and Landon to start. I also said in the last game thread that Buddle works best when LD is in the game. When he(Edson) does get the pass from either Becks or Juni under control, he immediately lays it off to LD who then looks for Keane who is making runs off the ball as Franklin overlaps him(LD) in-case Keane needs to play it back out wide for the cross to Magee. If we can't get a shot off after all that, send it back to Becks or Juni and repeat as needed. That's our attack in a nutshell. It's Super dynamic and creates multiple shot opportunities. It can be used to press an opponent right out the gate or it can be run as a counter.

We were not going to be able to press in this game and would need to rely on the counter. We needed Landon in the game as Landon orchestrates the counter. We needed Juninho in this game because Beckham can't create if he is trying to play defense because his partner in midfield is constantly getting smoked by Steve Zakuani. Juninho and Beckham start our attack up then control the center of the midfield, laying the ball out wide to a winger only if Becks can't drift or if Landon is up top. Without Landon in the midfield we have no counter and our attack loses its dynamism. LD up top with Keane works only because they both play an amazing 2 man game (Pick and Roll as basketball calls it). You just need either Juninho or Becks to get one of them the ball and they alone will create the chances. But again we lose ability to counter as nice with LD up top. We got spanked 4-0 in Seattle with the two of them up top, Becks and Juni in the center and no rain. We didn't have enough in the attack then and we didn't tonight. We didn't keep our heads and if not for the PK, which turned the tide, Seattle may well have been able to get the 4 goals they would have needed to get by us. The fact that we were able to get our crap together at the end of the first half gave me some hope that we could hold them to the 2 goals they got.

Now we are going to need everybody against Houston as they now have a full squad that includes a healthy Brad Davis. They are going to want revenge but I am going to call it now. Ricardo Clarke is going to cost them the title as I bet 10 dollars he causes them to go down 10 men early.

 

Cry Cry Cry that all I hear.

The disallowed call in game one has ZERO effect on the call in game two.

 

Sigi is making stuff up or stating that Robbie clowned Johansson (which is likely) but that's why you see defenders in leagues where that stuff is called really tightly (Serie A & La Liga) with their hands tucked behind their backs.

Johansson had his arms out like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Just a dumb play by someone with his level of experience.

There's nothing in the Law, ATR or FIFA Clarifications about relative positions (or even existence) of an opponent in determining whether or not a handling offense occurred.

 

Everyone today is crying and bitching at work.

Never have I seen such a disgraceful and whiny reaction from fans and players as I did from Seattle last night. The city has built itself on complaining about sports rather than supporting. I think most of their fans are terrible and jsut support because its cool but dont know the first thing about the game.

MOST OF ALL: I absolutely hate their elite attitude that they are the best fans in MLS and the rest of us are jokes and the MLS relies on them. I hat e that s omuch

 

From a playing standpoint I only have one thing to say about our performance;

JUNINHO IS CLUTCH! THE KID IS MR. FUTURE GALAXY, SIGN HIM UP BRUCE!