Had to record this one and watch it back this morning, by which time I knew the result. So rating this might be devoid of some of the exitement that a victory over one of Mexicos premier sides would normally entail. CANNON: 8 Finally showing something of the talent that led FY to sign him. Dependable. HARDEN:8.5 Getting better by the game. Is learning, so I've probably marked him up. But he has played two teams of better quality than he probably has before and stood up to it. MAN OF THE MATCH JAZIC: 6 Unimpressive, just gives the ball away too much, and his lack of pace is astounding for a left back. Beaten every time and commits too much to 50/50 balls. ROBERTS: 7 Not a natural right-back, but he did okay. Suffers from a lack of pace. XAVIER: 7.5 Good performance. Ever solid, but could have done more to prevent the goal. DONOVAN: 8 Performance that was desperately needed. For once he looked hungry and chased everything. Richly deserved goal. GRAY: 7 Largely down to the fact that we were on the back foot for a lot of the game, but I think Harmse's prescence is needed in midfield, as Grays strong points are not bossing the midfield. KLEIN: 7 Getting slower by the game, and I still think Kirk is a better bet. Did okay though MARTINO: 7 Hope the injury isn't a bad one. Not as good as against Chelsea imo, but did pretty well. GORDON: 7.5 Took the goal well, but he needs to work on control and composure. Is looking fitter which is testament to FY's work with him, but isn't looking sharp, which can only be achieved by playing. PAVON: 6 Still haven't made up my mind about Carlos. He's a proven striker which makes performances like this one all the more disappointing, but on the other hand he's not a willing enough runner to make him popular in English football. Hopefully he is still getting to grips with the team, and the goals will come. Still looks a bit porky and play generally reminds me of Emile Heskey. USED: Cobi: 7.5 Put himself about as only Cobi can. Top effort Kirk: 6 Just a straight replacement for Roberts. Still undecided on his position, but the fact he came on for Troy and not Klein who possibly deserved to be brought off more, shows that FY seems to consider him an RB. Vagenas: 5 Classless. I feel sorry for him now. I keep willing a good performance, but as long as we are dominated in midfield then he adds absolutely nothing. Tries hard and always a willing runner, but technically lousy. Glinton: 5.5 Not getting enough minutes to make an impact on games. TACTICS/FY: 7.5 Defensive tactics and attacking on the counter really work for this team. We've matched superior opposition on two occasions now and thoroughly deserved at least one win. FANS: 7.5 Decent attendance for a friendly and fans sounded impressive. Hopefully the newbs can get involved in the atmosphere in future and really make HDC intimidating.
Re: My ratings Not exactly sure what you're talking about here. Pachuca's goal did not get between Cannon and the post. It was to the far post. The 6 rating for him is wayyyy too low IMO. He was phenomonal.bThen Gordon's goal wasn't a handball. He played it off his chest. I just watched the replays of his goal and Pachuca's again BTW. I can understand how you see things you're not quite sure of at the game though. Replay makes life muuuuuuuch easier. Besides those 2 things I pretty much agree with your rating and your reasoning however I wouldn't give Yallop a 1. He could have done LOTS of different things, but he did a few good things so I'd give him a 4 or so.
This game was not a friendly. It was a SuperLiga Match. A competative Tourny with a million dollar prize for the winner.
Quavas played right mid today. He came in for Roberts, but Klein moved to right back and Q took Klein's spot. That's why you kept seeing Q up near the endline so often and looking to cross from so far forward on a regular basis.
Let's not get too excited! It was a good and much needed win by the Galaxy but it was hardly a full strength or in form Pachuca team. Pachuca was missing 3-4 mexican national team players and are still in pre-season. The Gordon goal was pretty but that was about the only thing he did besides sit down on the pitch claiming injury and cause a bunch of Pachuca players to get their jockstraps in a bunch. I was glad to see Donovan finally score but it was really Cobi's goal. He still hasn't buried any in the back of the net for quite a while. That brings up another point. Besides Cobi, our wingers are dreadful. It's not good when one of the best players on the team is several months away from retirement. The center backs played well and Xavier was again a monster. He did allow Pachuca's only goal but he saved quite a few more. I agree with the Leeds United guy about Ty Harden. He had another solid game. The Xavier tutoring is paying off in spades. Myself and my buddy from Liverpool were debating at the game whether an early venture with a euro club would help or hurt Harden. We decided that it depends on the club and the playing time. Also, our RB looks shaky. Chris Albright is sorely missed. Klein played it during the second half. No. 7 for Pachuca torched Klein 4 or 5 times. Who is that guy? He created Pachuca's goal and was frightening every time he touched the ball. Finally, when is Pavon going to show us something?
Here was the starting lineups for the Galaxy vs Pachuca match: Goalkeeper Jorge Campos, FULLBACKS Mark Semioli, Robin Fraser, Greg Vanney, Arash Noamouz, HALFBACKS Jorge Salcedo, Chris Armas, Mauricio Cienfuegos, STRIKERS Cobi Jones, Harut Karapetyan Eduardo Hurtado ============== U would think that would have played alot better. Oh well, maybe next time!!
Had to make do with highlights, and beckham close ups, on the news. Great stuff and glad to read that Galaxy played well for the second game running. Not so good about Pavon though. If Galaxy can find a half decent outlet for beckhams long balls over the top, they won't lose again all season
I just saw the match (thank god for DVR's) and although I'm very pleased and relieved that we won, Pachuca kicked our asses. Kind of ironic really? I mean how do you win, but still get your ass kicked? Answer: You get a beautiful pass a from Donovan and an even better finish from Gordon. Then a strike from Cobi that hits Donovan's foot to redirect the ball in. First half was completely dominated by Pachuca. The entire first 45 minutes. Hell the whole game was dominated by Pachuca. How is this possible? And from what I understand, this wasn't even Pachucas full team. They had better passing, control and vision. However, goaltending was key tonight and ours was much, much better. I'm going try to stick with the positives. Cannon, Xavier, Jazic and Harden. Harden sort of got nutmegged on the goal and Xavier lost the coverage, but up until that point, they were holding it down. Jazic was pretty solid as well. Cannon showed up and kept us in the game. Period. On to the negatives. Everybody else. Yes everybody else, including the goal scorers. We have no control in the middle at all. Well at least not tonight. It's like we were running out there in every which direction with blindfolds on. Running into each other, over passing, under passing, slipping, trippping, slidding, WTF? Do we need better cleats to keep from falling? I mean, yes Pachuca was putting the pressure on, but we couldn't even get a few touches to relieve the pressure? C'mon. I've seen AYSO kids with better one touch passing. This was truly frustrating to watch. On the flipside, we didn't pressure Pachuca enough. They had open spaces throughout the whole game. I mean semis could have driven through these spaces. Gordon: nice gol, looked lost prior to that Donovan: nice pass, nice redirect, we know you can ball fooker, stop disappearing Cannon: good saves (MOTM) Xavier: solid Harden: looking better every game Jazic: got the job done Martino: to indecisive Klein: to slow Pavon: no comment, yet Gray: looked good Roberts: no comment I hope this win is a confidence booster for everyone on the team. We really need it. 'Tis all. On to the next match.
I may be in a minority with this one, or even on my own, but I would put it down to decent tactics by Frank Yallop. He knew that even a Pachuca missing several key players would be a strong attacking team, and played the right tactics. Very conservative, but it did the job. It nearly worked against Chelsea as well. You have to give him credit, compared to the managers who would have played 4-5-1 and just sat back and told Pachuca to try and break them down. Yes we may have scored a large percentage of our total attempts but that is to be expected. He knows that our wide men lack pace, and our defense is slow. If we had played 4-3-3 or even an attacking 4-4-2 we would have been torn apart.
I like your answer better than mine. Conservative play can betray you in a minute though. I see your point and in this case, I have to agree with you.
15 minutes into the game and I thought we were completely lost. After the opening play, where we shot into the crowd, the only touches we got on the ball were weak clearances. My impression was that we were doomed. After we began to pick it up a bit, or Pachuca relaxed, I started to think we at least might get a lucky break or something. But clearly Pachuca was the better team. Thier passing and positioning are what we ought to aspire to. I kept thinking "why can't we do that?" Even when we were pressing them, thier players were clearly more adept at dealing with the pressure, both as individuals and as a team. Time after time, it seemed like we worked ourselves into deadend situations. You could look around and see how our positioning was off. Most of what impressed me with Pachuca wasn't the tricky passing or nifty quick combos, but just the solid positioning. Players having 2 open men to pass to if they found themselves blocked. Hopefully these things start to iron themselves out with more cohesion and time together. And these matches are not easy ones to do that.... it's hard to work on your positioning with the ball when you don't have much of it. Defensively. Hoo-boy..... Xavier saved our butts. Seemed like the only guy really capable out there, though Harden didn't get burned as often as I thought. None of our back line except Xavier seems to be able to start an attack. Weak clearances are the only consistent element. Perhaps it was a bad night against a really quality opponent, but Jazic and Roberts were outmatched. Giving the ball to them might as well have been giving it to Pachuca. I watched them lose possession nearly every time they touched it. And our defensive line, excepting Xavier, can't seem to get control and get the ball to our midfield at all. Pavon and Gordon.... Save Gordons goal, which completely surprised me, I was starting to wonder if either of those guys were capable of putting a shot on net, nevermind scoring. Glad to see Gordon finally kept one down and got his goal. It seemed to pick up his confidence. But I still have my doubts as to whether he will be able to really play at a higher level. Pavon is not doing it at all. He seems capable, and maybe once he gets a good goal he will start playing better as well, but last night he was ineffective. Overall, I thought we showed great heart last night and pressed well, but outside a few moments, I think Pachuca was the class. I found myself wishing we could play like that. Thier movement was really effective. I don't know where exactly the problem is..... is this a coaching issue? or is it a cohesion issue? or do our players just lack the footballing smarts?
You have to understand the excitement (at least for me) is not really about winning the game or about possibly winning the tournament. It's that we looked half-decent for spells of the game...and when I say decent, I mean MLS decent. With the way we played tonight, we would have beat all but 4 MLS teams. And what does that mean? It means that we have a chance at making the playoffs. It means we are improving...because man have we sucked over the last two months. It means that with Beckham brought into the fold, we'll have a hell of a team for the first time in four years...if we can just work out a few kinks and with a little more time to gel. This team WILL get better in the next month. Hopefully, it gets better in time to make a playoff bid. Pachuca is obviously the better team, even in preseason form. But they actually have players returning from last year.... unlike us.
Some still drink the cool-aid and give him 9+ ratings... but the goal is an example of how he has frustrated me from the beginning. There are times that he is not close enough to the runners and this time he got punished. I understand that some times he wants to be free to make the easy clean-ups, but on that play he has to be close enough to challenge, because Harden had the man on the line, he should have had the man in the center. Anyway, that is Yallop/Kinnear ball at its finest, well not exactly. I think that they had the defend and counter portion. But they were a little sloppy on the phase where the counter isn't there, possess and don't lose it in your own half. Which I thought Dallas did the best on the night, short passes, hard working in the middle. MANIACAL LAUGH... how'd that work for them? More laughing... Look ma, no hands!
As expected, in the Mexico forum thread on Superliga it's filled with " this is just practice for Mexico's teams.... and the Mexican teams don't care about this thing... etc.. etc.."
But it is still nice... join me on the chorus! First place in something! First place in something! We're finally first place in sssuuuum-thing!
Leeds I enjoy your posts. You have a knowledge for the game and you seem to genuinely be interested in the Galaxy. I actually look forward to reading your player ratings but I had to laugh at your rating for Harden. I agree he had a solid game but it was not even close to MOTM. He still was pulled out of position too often(albiet less tonight than against Chelsea) and his defending on the goal was absolutely atrocious. Why was he giving his man 5-6 yards of space in the box? How does he let that ball go between his legs? It almost looks as though he pulled his right leg out of the way as to not get hit. An improvement from his debacle last week which is what you want to see from youngsters but really after Tigres there was nowhere to go but up.
Good games from Cannon, Xavier, Donovan, and Jones. Not sure about Harden; I didn't really notice him for good or ill. I thought Alan Gordon was awful, but I missed the goal, which I understand was very good. Still, other than that, I can't think of a single thing he did well. Sort of the opposite of Xavier: one mistake resulting in a Pachuca goal, but other than that very solid. To me this Galaxy team illustrates the problem some MLS teams have where they have a few outstanding players surrounded by a lot of below-average ones. If your star players play well you can still win, but if they don't, you can look very bad indeed. Has anybody ever checked how many times the Galaxy have scored a goal that was not directly affected by Landon Donovan, either by scoring, assisting, or making a defense-shredding pass? I swear, every time they get even a half-chance on goal it's because of something Donovan does. And that, in my opinion, is their biggest problem: if Donovan doesn't do it, it doesn't get done.
Lets be honest here...most of us could have made the shot Pavon rifled over the goal. He is getting paid good bucks. Things like that should have been put away by now, like Alvarez did in the FCD game. I hope he has shaken his last ghost off and does well the second half of the season.
Congrats to you fans out in LALAland.....great game, nailbiter ! LD gets alot crap sometimes, but I like watching him play, Cobi is the supersub and is having a great send off year. Keep it up guys.....looking like your team is coming together when they need to come together. Matthias kansas city
I have rifled that shot over the goal a lot in my time! I hope Pavon gets that 1st goal soon though. Don't need another Pando. That goal Alvarez scored was class.
Is there highlights of the game anywhere? I would like to see the replay of the Pachuca goal. On the replays last night, it looked to me like Pete V. was marking the goal scorer and peeled off of him for whatever reason at the top of the goal box. By the time Xaxier saw him running through, he was too far out of position to react. Not sure who's responsible, but I think Pete is more to blame as he stopped marking him inside the box.
Funny, the Mexican teams weren't saying that about the MLS during the CONCACAF Champions Cup...after all, it was our pre-season....