I had a choice: listen to a droning lawnmower in the outdoor HDC press box while blogging.
Or opt for the Wi-Fi at the air-conditioned Red Car microbrewery in Old Torrance (and watch the game again on delay).
No contest.
Just watch out for the Turbo Porter.
Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit lamented the “sloppy” defending, “unnecessary” goals and generally crappy finishing that led to the 3-2 defeat he described as a “huge disappointment.”
“It was just one of those days,” he said.
But he insisted the Galaxy were the superior team for most of the game and observed that Toronto had three chances and successfully converted all of them.
Landon Donovan was contrite.
“I’m disappointed in myself because having three chances like that would have changed the game,” he said. “If we were a little better in front of both goals we probably would have had a comfortable victory.”
David Beckham was in a bit of a combative mood in the post-game press conference, but then for the second consecutive home game was subjected to a annoying question from one of the assembled media. Last game it was about the relationship between Beckham’s kids and Tom Cruise’s child (?); this time a radio reporter took an unnecessarily adversarial position regarding Beckham’s midfield contribution (marginal at best, but then Beckham undoubtedly recognized that).
Then, in somewhat of a contradiction, Beckham laid out what had gone wrong today:
“When you don’t keep the ball and you don’t pass the ball well, it brings all sorts of problems and we lost our shape in the second half.
Um, so pretty much everything went wrong, huh?
Then he ripped the media for over-reacting to the results so far.
“We’re three games into the season and maybe people are starting to panic too much.”
Hmm, let’s take stock.
The Galaxy got destroyed by a weakened Colorado Rapids, squeak by the expansion Earthquakes and lose to last year’s worst team in MLS.
Who us? Panic?
One diversion was Beckham’s cameo as a central defender in the 70th minute, when he brought down Jeff Cunningham as the last man back. That’s a red card offense.
“It was definitely a foul,” Cunningham said. “I think it would have been quite harsh to give him a red card to be honest.”
Gullit knew Becks was fortunate though.
“We were lucky there,” he said. “It was the only luck we had today.”
And so did Beckham.
“Thankfully, we got away with that one,” he said.
Quote of the Day comes from Cunningham regarding the trade rumors (again?) surrounding him.
“My career has always been on the move,” he said. “I pack light.”
Game details from a Canadian perspective here.
And here’s the Daily Breeze/Daily News version.
