Soccer Saturday wrap: Gold Cup, Galaxy, Chivas USA

U.S. 2 Mexico 4

i-f0dd5a7591d645d9e0f35ed3194be7a4-rosebowlceleb.jpgGolden boys: Mexico celebrates their win in style Gold Cup victory that featured a dazzling display of attacking soccer the U.S. just couldn’t stay with (AP Photo).

*Staff writer Miguel Mendez has the game story.

But really you could boil it down to this comment from Tim Howard:

“We didn’t get it done – that’s what it’s about.”

The long version of pretty much the same comment from Coach Bob Bradley:

“They have some very good attacking players and I think that we do too. I think sometimes a final becomes a real test of both teams going after each other. That was the way we chose to play this game knowing that it would still require good reactions defensively to deal with those situations. In there, there are some plays where our reactions don’t end up being as good and sometimes there are some plays where at the end you give credit. Dos Santos’ fourth goal is a great piece of skill.”

Watch:

Notable: No reporter asked Bradley if he thought he deserved to stay on as coach as World Cup qualifying approaches. I’ll have more on this in Tuesday’s column.

Earthquakes 0 Galaxy 0

*Read the game story.

Notable: The Quakes out-shot the Galaxy 17-5.

*Watch:

Quotable:

“I thought that the first half was the best soccer that we have played since the team came back in 2008,” said San Jose coach Frank Yallop. “We were moving the ball well and we created a number of chances. We should have been up a couple of goals. You have to give LA credit though because they didn’t buckle. In the second half, their game plan worked and ours didn’t. We couldn’t get that goal that would have changed the game.”

Ricketts reportedly has a broken arm. That’s the sort of injury to one of the dominant goalkeepers in MLS that can see a season begin to unravel for his team.

Union 3 Chivas USA 2

Read the game story.

Quotable:

“The biggest area of improvement for us is we’ve got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Chivas USA Coach Robin Fraser. “We’ve done it game in and game out. We’re giving up way too many leads and either tying or losing games that I think we should win.”

Chivas USA lineup: Dan Kennedy, Zarek Valentin, Michael Umaa (Andrew Boyens 46), Heath Pearce, Ante Jazic, Paulo Nagamura, Ben Zemanski (Blair Gavin 76), Nick LaBrocca, Jorge Flores, Justin Braun, Marcos Mondaini (Chris Cortez 71).

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About Nick Green

South Bay-based Los Angeles News Group soccer columnist and blogger Nick Green writes at the 100 Percent Soccer blog at www.insidesocal.com/soccer and craft beer at the Beer Goggles blog at www.insidesocal.com/beer. Cheers!