Los Angeles 1-0 New England
The New England Revolution gave little resistance to the L.A. Galaxy’s first victory of the season. It was both teams’ first league match and the Revs looked terrible without Shalrie Joseph. Steve Nichols must be asking himself how his side could could look so bad without that one player.
Though the scoreline didn’t reflect it, the Galaxy had many more opportunities to score than their opponents. We were constantly in their half and had a couple of fast breaks that should have been converted. The Revs spent very little time on the attack as they resorted to long balls through to their wingers. These were easily dealt with by a Galaxy backline that looked to be in mid-season form.
The Galaxy took the field in a 4-4-2 formation, with Kovalenko pulling back into the defensive midfield position. This was a good game plan, given that its our first league match. Its good to go with what you know and experiment later.
Buddle Donovan Lewis (Alex 26) Juninho (Stephens 80) Magee (Birchall 67) Kovalenko Dunivant Leonardo Gonzalez Franklin Ricketts
This set-up would push forward into their opponents half with the two wings falling back into a 3-man line with Kovalenko. Buddle and Donovan would have room to run on each side and up top while Juninho roamed right behind them.
The first and only goal (14th minute), from a free kick by Donovan, was a perfectly headed ball by Buddle on the right side of the penalty box into the opposite corner. Buddle is big enough to handle just about any defender in MLS. He made good on his speed and size to get free and place the ball in the goal.
The first accolade I’ll give, and man-of-the-match for me, was the Brazilian (on loan from São Paulo) Leonardo, playing centerback in place for Gregg Berhalter. He had several key stops and kept the Revolution from getting looks at the goal. In fact, I’d love to give MOTM honors to both central backs in this game, Omar Gonzalez and Leonardo. Gonzalez was already looking like one of the best backs in MLS last season and picked up right where he left off. Our central defense will prove to be a key factor to LA’s success this year.
Eddie Lewis came up with a left foot contusion in only the 26th minute (a hard tackle from Kevin Alston), which meant that another São Paulo loanee would come on in the left midfield position. Alex Cazumba had some very good runs down the left hand side and seemed to work well with both Donovan and Dunivant. There’s definitely some potential there in terms of team chemistry.
I’ve saved the last Brazilian loanee for last. I’m sure Juninho has shown some attacking flair and ball control in practice, otherwise Bruce Arena wouldn’t be using him for games. But, he didn’t show too much here. For an attacking mid, he sure did find lots of time to be invisible. And, the times he did have the ball, he was as slow as you could get. I would much rather have Mike Magee (or, when healthy, Clint Mathis) playing in that role, given what we saw in this match.
This game didn’t show too much in terms of what to expect. First, Shalrie Joseph wasn’t patrolling the midfield for New England, and second, this New England formation and team was an experiment that failed radically. The next match, against Chivas, will show more in terms of how well our defense does and how Arena can put a team on the field to work against an opponent. I’m afraid any team could have done the job against the Revs tonight.
Many questions remain to be answered. Will Berhalter be able to win his spot back in central defense? It seems doubtful with how well Leonardo did. How long do we have the three Brazilians? Is Juninho really that slow or was it just jitters? What does Arena do with Jovan Kirovski and Alan Gordon? Gordon will be able to sub in for Buddle but I wonder if there’s any room for Kirovski here. When does Chris Klein take the field?
Next up is the Goats from Chivas USA on April 1st at the Home Depot Center. I hope its not an April fools … for the Galaxy.