Overall a good game. I don't feel that frustration like last year. And we look more dangerous than Dallas.
power couple Without Landon this team will only struggle. This team is all about Beckham, Donovan, Ruiz playing at least 25 games together this season. if not I fear teams like RSL and San Jose this year.
I liked the performance... Chances created. Defense played probably better then usual (not saying a hell of a lot) Donovan had a bit of an off game or else we score a few goals. Can't wait to see Ruiz combined with the team out there. I know nobody likes Gaven, and I was amongst the first to say as much, but I think he's gotten better with every performance and I think he's the starter on opening day in Ruud's mind. I think that job is Jazic's when he gets back from injury and that randolph has a future in the midfield.
All of you who are dissing Vanney and Gavin have lost your collective minds (IMO). Last season in a game like this, Cannon would have been called on to make about 20 zillion saves. Finger tip saves, kick saves, and the old reliable cross bar saves. Have you forgotten so soon? On opponent's corner kicks the ball would bounce in the box or Roberts/Harden would lose their marks and the opposing forward would have an open header from about 8 feet. I give this defense credit. They make mistakes but they do seem to have a solid understanding of the game. While it is true that Dallas' offense is not that great right now, the bottom line is that Cronin was never really tested. How many games last season could you say that about Cannon?
That was a fairly entertaining game. We had some good sequences...some bad ones-especially when the younger guys got involved. That is mls. But overall it was great to see us retain possession, string some passes together and make some chances. Should have been a pk but, oh well. I can't help but think that Ruiz would have poached one of those. Good for Piiires to back up his captain. And he's not rolling around like a baby anymore when he takes a hit. Maybe Ruud had a speaking with him? Anyways, he's looking like a good pickup. The good thing about Ruud's style is that you never know where Donovan or Beckham will show up. We won't be predictable over the season. I won't say anything bad about the defense...but..we beetter learn how to finish chances. And we better have the better of possession every game...
Re: power couple that's like saying Houston will struggle without derosario on the pitch. that team is all about de ro, ching and davis playing 25 games this season. I don't think there's an MLS team out there that wouldn't suffer tremendously if you took off three top-tier first team players. MLS teams just aren't deep enough to handle losing 30% of their starting line-up
Can anyone tell me whether they think Ricardino is that good (as I gathered he seemed tonight from some posts) or was he just apparently really good against LA's backline? Was he really good tonight or did I just infer that from some sarcastic posts? thanks.
You think he can keep it throughout the season? I'm only asking b/c I'm trying to fill out my MLS fantasy team and I need a bench player with potential. Thanks btw... Although I'm not a galaxy fan i really hope y'all have a good year this year as a Galaxy run due to actual results rather than beckham-mania would be really beneficial for the league
I think the players look more comfortable to be on the field, more confident to pass, to tackle. There are mistakes but they are not afraid to take risk and they indeed improve.
Too bad this one wasn't on the air. 0-0 huh, well not much to sing about, although the website says we outshot them 14 to 11 overall, with six shots on goal for us compared to their grand total of zero, on their home turf, so I'd like to think that we were running the show. First (MLS) test, C+/B- range
Great game. The G's are a totally different team then last season. This was probably as close to the starting line up we've seen yet(sans Ruiz) Looks good. Things are coming together nicely under Ruud. Imange when this team gels in a month or two, they'll be very dangerous. The defense has approved by leaps and bounds since Hawaii. Gavin still makes those rookie mistakes but he is a rookie. He's gotten a little better with each match. Give these guys some time folks,we're in for a fun season. I think Tequila Joal really is TJ Simers
I would say fair. He plays hard and has speed, but combination passing isn't his strength. I honestly think Ely Allen may be more dangerous on the left side. (And I am a Randolph fan.)
As someone who's been watching him since he came to Dallas last year, he really came into his own over the offseason. The kid is going to score probably 5-10 goals this year and will absolutely work slower defenders. The key to stopping him is not letting him get the ball at his feet with space because he's deadly with that. That being said, I was behind the goal and that Gavin guy sucks major ass. Seriouxly, he was burned on speed by Cooper a couple of times and Cooper is slow. He couldn't handle Rhine's overlapping runs at all and Ricardinho put a bunch of moves on him. Dallas is not one of the better offensive teams in the league and once he has to go against really good right mids he's going to be exposed badly.
Didn't get to watch too much of the game, and what I did see was hard to assess since it was a postage-stamp size screen with the bottom third covered up. Can't wait for our Dallas-based fanbase to report tomorrow with first-hand accounts....
Re: power couple Really? Last season, DeRo played 24 games, Ching played 20, and Davis only played 17. Seems like it turned out ok for Houston, though. I think your point about most teams relying on their top 3 or so players may be accurate, but not so with Houston. They have Clark, Mullan, Holden and Mulrooney who can all take up the slack offensively. And they have a great defense (assuming Boswell doesn't screw it up this year) But in comparison to most MLS teams, LA is going to be so much more reliant on the top 3 of Donovan, Beckham, and Ruiz, because of the salary impact of those three which prevents LA from being able to have very many other experienced, quality players. I actually hope those 3 all stay healthy, as I want to see the best players out there. But if they don't, LA could be in big trouble.
Re: power couple Dynamofano.... exactly!! I think our attack only worked on a beckham longball over the top to a running forward. Becks relatively wasted all our corners and set pieces, and only donovan had the most dangerous chances specifically in the 2nd half. Unfortunately for Los Angeles was only missing Ruiz tonight. But that doesnt solve our defensive woes, and our pretty anemic midfield. By contrast Dallas was missing Toja, McCarty, Alvarez (although he came on in the 70th) & Dulio Davino. There midfield and ball control was pretty good, but there finishing was awful, and I suspect Kenny Cooper is the most over-rated flop to put on a US nats jersey. If Houston, DC United, New England, Chivas USA are the class of this league. there wasnt much between Dallas and LA. And they can fight out the middle of the table positioning between teams like RBNY, Kansas City, Chicago.
Steve Davis on the Galaxy and Beckham this year. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=517183&root=mls&cc=5901
Re: power couple I think our other players wasted Becks corners and set pieces. Ruiz usually finds himself near them and acts on them (who ever is the kick taker), but our other guys werent within 10yards of his lobs. 9 or maybe 8 of our players still lack vision, and that can hurt us. Ruud cant tell Becks to play a different game, otherwise he'll become Joe MLS. The other teammates need to learn vision and learn some real football.
I think by means "wasted corner", TJ wanted Beckham to shoot the ball into the net directly from the cornor. That's a pretty high expectation even for Beckham, I think. The Galaxy need to practise their corner kick. It's not very useful to cram in the front half side of the gate while leave the other half empty without one single soul being there. If there is one or two players standing a little bit further from where Becks sent the ball, we could score one or two. They need to spread a little bit.
Got back from the game at 3:00 a.m. so I didn't post then. It was a fun time. Beckham got lightly booed at his introduction; Donovan got heavily booed on his; the rest of the team was ignored. During warmups, when Becks bent over to stretch, there were catcalls and whistles. Beckham and Donovan warmed up side-by-side, much to the delight of my picture-taking daughter. During warmups, Beckham got serenaded by some guys singing "God Save the Queen" and he took much delight in that. Then they were chanting "David Beckham for England" and he turned around and gave them a thumbs up and a smile. His interaction with the crowd was great. At the end of the game, he walked to the center (after having a good apologetic laugh with the ref) and clapped to the crowd...acknowledging our section first (yea!) and the crowd responded appropriately. We didn't look all that bad. We looked OK, in fact. Had some very good passing sequences and some botched passing sequences. Beckham being called offside 3 times in the first half: I don't know what it looked like on screen, but being there in the stadium, it seemed the linesman got the call wrong all 3 times. Becks clearly waited each time till after the ball was sent before he took off. In the 2nd half, Dallas was also called offside by that linesman and he messed that one up too. From what I'm reading, Donovan appeared "invisible" [can you appear invisible?] [course, since I watch him ALL the time, he won't be invisible to me ] in the first half, but being there, you could see he was very active. Making good off-the-ball runs, but Gavin and Randolph were having a hard time working the ball to him. When he got the ball, he was very dangerous. When he's running at the defenders, he had some fantastic meneuvers at speed, in and around defenders, that was wonderful. Also, Mike Randolph....I don't know. I wasn't as impressed with him as some here were. But I'm giving him a break, as he's playing in a relatively new position for him...but the midfield tandem of Tudela/Randolph and then Pires thrown in there really didn't do it for me. Randolph and Tudela played the ball too slowly. And Randolph, especially, took too many touches to control the ball, especially when interacting with LD, that it just killed the play. However, there were times when they all connected beautifully, and it was a pleasure to watch. It's still a major improvement, I think, over last year. We were much more dangerous in and around goal than Dallas was. Some of our passing in there was spectacular, one free kick in particular (I think it was a free kick, might have been a corner). Beckham and Donovan read each other, and as the kick took place LD raced to the end line and headed it back into the box to Xavier that he headed toward goal - can't remember if it went over, barely, or Sala made another one of his great saves...but that was a beautiful play. Also thought LD's shot from outside the box was going in as well, but once again, Sala made the save. Nice to see him shooting, and it being outside the box is also a nice sign...how many times in the past has he opted not to shoot anything?! Dallas won't miss Ruiz's diving....Ricardinho fills in quite nicely. What a diver! Dallas fans wanted a PK there that one time, but no way is the ref going to award that: (1) it was too close of a call to really tell and (2) given the track record of all his previous dives, he's not going to get rewarded. Unfortunately, that hurt the Galaxy, because we should have gotten a PK there towards the end after another gorgeous sequence of play by us, but there was no way they were going to give us a PK after denying Dallas one at the other end. We had great fun heckling Kenny Cooper. He thinks he's a ballerina out there, trying to appear light on his feet....and he's just not. We had a lot of good-natured back and forth with the drunk Dallas fans sitting around us, especially the one who loved Kenny Cooper! It was delightful. Really thought we were going to get our goal there at the end with the Becks to Donovan pass, then he chipped the keeper, but Sala was up to the challenge and made a fantastic save. It was hard to tell who got the shot on the rebound. Who was that? All in all, we are improving. This being our first matchup against an MLS team, we met the challenge and, IMO, had the better of play overall. We are trying to play "sexy" football and it's getting there. We are infinitely more dangerous on attack. I cannot wait until Ruiz gets out there. I've got to believe we're going to score some goals. Our defense and central midfield combination is still a little shaky (Gavin is definitely a work in progress), but we're getting there. At least this year should be entertaining! Sorry for the long post. Oh, and I can't wait until the Galaxy hit Texas again!