@ Venue: Toyota Stadium Time: Saturday 6pm TV: Time Warner Cable Sports, Time Warner Cable Deportes Its gonna be a hot one! Forecast for Frisco on Saturday is 100. We lead them by 2 points but, they have 3 games in hand. We need to start really fighting for points. We all know Bruce plans for the late season push. So, watch out Dallas, we're comin' to Frisco! We're comin' out guns blazing! We're comin'... we're close...?
why must it be another scorcher? At least it's not a day game. This is a true test of our mega-star team.
This is going to be a great test for us. We also have a home game left against them so we can really make their games in hand less important if we take care of them twice. They are a top contender to win the West along with KC IMO and I want to see what our team is made of going up against them on the road. It's going to be HOT!
Right. Just as soon as they require Seattle to get real grass. I understand the sentiment, but the cost would be prohibitive. The time to have dealt with this was when they were considering whether to award a franchise to Dallas or not, and given that the Hunts were involved and in for three teams the rest of the gang was not about to tackle that one.
What I would like to see is for Bruce to adjust to being a counterattack team for this game. We will be on the road playing against a fast athletic team in sweltering heat. Our tactics should be to start the game by packing it in - let Dallas run their asses off trying to score through our tightly connected banks of four. Then when they turn the ball over go for the quick counter if it's on, otherwise just use precise passing to keep possession and work the ball down the field. Keep it simple, avoid careless turnovers, and let the ball do the work. Then in the second half, depending on the score, we can adjust our tactics if need be. What we shouldn't do is what we did playing against Houston - trying to press all over the field by pushing a bunch of our players up at once losing all semblance of positional balance, leaving gaping 30-40 yard holes between our front runners and the back line. And what did all of this exhausting running around like chickens with our heads cut off accomplish in the end? A 3-0 loss, with us getting off three shots on goal in 90 minutes, two of which were long range hit-and-hope'ers. We will be fielding a better team this time (against HOU we actually started Romney, BJIV, and Walker and subbed in Maganto, Lassiter and Buddle) but the opponent is better as well. If Bruce would just adjust to defense-first tactics when playing away from Stubhub I think we can win some of these games. But that is something he seems very, very reluctant to do. I can still hope, right?
While we are a very technical team, I sometimes think we are not very sophisticated tactically. I don't know whether it's something we don't work on or it just flows from Bruce's approach, but our attitude seems to be that we'll just play our game and let the chips fall where they may. Of course the one time we tried something special, the 3-5-2, it didn't exactly go well.
It was 110 degrees at 6pm here in Austin yesterday plus 50% humidity. I think Frisco is even more humid than Austin. There better be water breaks.
I would agree. Dallas is a very fast team and we need to play compact and smart on defense. We don't want to turn this into a track meet. I think part of the problem this year has been our lack of players able to run the counter. That part of Landon's game is missed immensely; he is bar none the best counter attacking player the US has ever produced. Now we've got Gio to run counters. I hope we allow him enough of a free role to drop back into midfield (or maybe even play at the point of a 5 man midfield) to get on the ball and bring it forward quickly and with intent. A few gut busting runs from Gerrard wouldn't hurt either.
At least it's nothing like Houston. I haven't really noticed the humidity since moving to Austin from Katy.
I miss soccer. And I want another road win. This game feels like it's taking forever to get here. Hurry up Saturday!
If the Galaxy want to make a statement to the rest of the league, this game on Saturday would be an excellent time to make it...
It’s going to be hot for Saturday’s game. As Skevin said, it would be good to have water breaks. 1. The Back Line I’ve had trouble deciding which of two line-ups the Galaxy should start on Saturday. Here is one: -----------------------------------------Ricketts------------------------------------ DeLaGarza---------------Gonzales---------------Leonardo-------------Rogers ------------------------------Gerrard---------------Juninho------------------------ Zardes--------------------------------------------------------------------------Lletget ---------------------------------dos Santos--------------Keane----------------------- The other option would be to start Dan Gargan at right back and A.J. DeLaGarza at left center-back, instead of Leonardo. One important advantage of the first line-up is that, along with Blas Perez, Fabian Castillo is Dallas’ best attacking player. This season he is an MLS All-Star and has 8 goals and 6 assists. He also is fast, quick, skillfull and a good dribbler. He is good at beating players off the dribble, particularly going around the outside of the defender. On Saturday, he likely will start at left midfield in a 4-2-3-1. So, if the Galaxy start the first line-up, DeLaGarza will be matched up against Castillo. And DeLaGarza is a better one-on-one defender than Gargan. DeLaGarza is quicker, faster, moves better laterally, is better at stripping players of the ball and is less mistake-prone. Another advantage of the first line-up is that Leonardo is better in the air than DeLaGarza. And Blas Perez may start for Dallas at forward in a 4-2-3-1. If Perez doesn't start, he likely will play at some point. This season Perez has 5 goals in only 14 games, and he is good in the air. He also had 11 goals last season and 11 goals the season before. And I remember the Galaxy struggling to shut him down over the years. He scored once against the Galaxy last season. Here is a link to the goal: http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2014-09-20-la-galaxy-vs-fc-dallas/details/video/25879 He also scored against the Galaxy this season. Here is a link: http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2015-05-09-fc-dallas-vs-la-galaxy/details/video/38367 In addition, Dallas can be good at scoring on set-pieces flighted into the box. In addition to Blas Perez, they bring forward their tall defenders, including Matt Hedges. So, if Leonardo starts at center-back, the Galaxy likely would be better at defending crosses in the air and set-pieces that are flighted into the box than they would if they start DeLaGarza at center-back. On the other hand, I think that DeLaGarza is a better center-back than Leonardo, at least if DeLaGarza is playing center-back next to Omar Gonzales. DeLaGarza is less mistake-prone than Leonardo. The former also is quicker and better at playing the ball out of the back. Although Leanardo is better in the air the DeLaGarza, aerial prowess is slightly less important for a center-back than the other qualities I mentioned. For example, Leonardo is better in the air than Javier Mascherano, who is only 5’ 9”. And Masherano is a better center-back than Leonardo. Also, the Galaxy frequently struggled at playing the ball out of the back last weekend against Seattle. Omar Gonzalez, in particular, had a couple of poor passes. Having DeLaGarza at center-back greatly increases the likelihood that the Galaxy will play the ball well out of the back. In addition, Dan Gargan is good at playing the ball out of the back at right back. Gargan also is good at going forward from the right back spot, perhaps equal to DeLaGarza at that skill. In the end, I would start the first line-up (the one with DeLaGarza at right back), largely in order to have DeLaGarza matched up against Fabian Castillo. Castillo is a big threat. If the Galaxy can neutralize him, their chances of getting a win or draw in this match are at least pretty good. However, with Leonardo and Gonzales as the center-backs, I am uneasy about the Galaxy’s playing the ball out of the back. Leonardo and Gonzales are going to have to stay focused on passing the ball well. And it is important for them not to turn the ball over in their own third of the field. If they have to boot the ball forward, then boot the ball forward. But don't give the ball away close to their own goal. Also, they should often try to get the ball to Steven Gerrard quickly. Once he gets the ball, the Galaxy have a good chance of playing the ball out of pressure. I’m also uneasy about Leonardo losing track of Blas Perez. If Perez plays, Leonardo is going to have to be tuned in mentally so that he doesn’t lose track of Perez. Also, perhaps Omar Gonzales, the Galaxy’s best center-back, should be given primary responsibility to shut down Perez. On June 13 against the Columbus Crew, Gonzales helped the Galaxy shut down Kei Kamara, MLS’s leading scorer and one of the best players in the league at scoring with his head. Gonzales might have to focus on Perez in the way that he focused on Kamara. 2. Ricketts or Rowe? Donovan Ricketts is clearly a terrific person and teammate. And he was the best goalkeeper in the league as recently as 2010. But he is 38 now, and he is not that nimble on his feet anymore. He also looked shaky on one or two occasions last weekend. Should Brian Rowe start against Dallas? Rowe is 26 and more agile than Ricketts. He also has played reasonably well for the Galaxy this season and played very well in their 1-0 U.S. Open Cup loss to Real Salt Lake on July 14. I would start Ricketts against Dallas. He is vastly more experienced than Rowe, may communicate better with the back line and perhaps is a better shot-stopper. But I don’t think Ricketts necessarily should be a guaranteed starter for the Galaxy this season. His lack of agility could be an issue, and Rowe hasn’t been bad in the games he has played this season.
We have the personnel to be tactically flexible, so I wonder if Bruce makes an adjustment. I agree with the sentiment of playing for the counter, which we should be able to do quite effectively. I'd like to see something like this: AJ-Omar-Leo-Rogers Giovani-Gerrard-Juninho-Husidic Keane-Zardes I'm indifferent about AJ starting as a RB or LCB as long as we play with two banks of four with two-way defending from the midfield wings. AJ is indeed a better 1-to-1 defender, but it won't matter against Castillo who is hard to shut down even when double-teamed. Particularly for the first half, I'd play Husidic over Lleget to beef up security in front of Rogers on Castillo's side. While Castillo can make very dangerous runs, his final ball is usually terrible. If you look at the kind of goals that get scored against us, it's usually when someone steps into the space behind our attacking wingbacks and the CBs and DMs are scrambling to get into position. The flat-four defending should take care of this and provide some cover for Gerrard's defensive work. Gio may not have the fitness for it yet, but I'd like for him to swap with Zardes when we transition to attack so the latter can be an outlet for long balls that can facilitate a quick counter.
When it's over 100 for a couple weeks straight 95 is pretty welcome. Forecast on Sat calls for 100. Should be close to that at kickoff. I'll sitting on the shade side too so that and lukewarm beer should help.
I'm extremely leery of Gio's ability to defend effectively in the way that Arena's system requires. I know Zardes will do that work, so I'm happy with Gio up top. Sean Steffen wrote a long piece about how Gio played more forward than Keane did in the last match, but I happen to think his analysis is way of the mark on this one. Keane was a much more stay-at-home 9 in that match while Gio roamed all around the attacking side of the field (just look at their touches on the chalkboard, and it's pretty clear). I suspect as he gets more fit, he will drop deeper more often, so he will be able to run the counter in the same way that Donovan did while he was playing forward with Keane. However, in his post-match interview, Keane said that he and Gio would switch a lot, with one or the other dropping deeper to recieve the ball at various times in order to make it harder on defenses to track them. It's interesting, because I think that last year, Zardes was not mature enough in his speed of thought to play on the wing and be effective. I think that's the big change in his game this year. He's faster and more physical than Gio, and I think he has more of a motor. I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a more permanent move to the wing and becomes very effective there.