LA Galaxy season trends: late slump, road struggles

Photo by Ted S. Warren // Associated Press

Photo by Ted S. Warren // Associated Press

The Galaxy season officially ended Wednesday night, and it was the first time since 2008 that L.A. failed to reach the conference semifinals.

“In seven years, to be out this early, it’s disappointing,” Omar Gonzalez said. “It feels different. We wanted more. But we put ourselves in this situation. We didn’t finish out the year the way we wanted to.” Continue reading “LA Galaxy season trends: late slump, road struggles” »

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Weekly 100 Percent Soccer column: How Red Bull New York became the model MLS franchise

jesseBull Run: New York Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch — no stranger to budget constraints at cheapskates Chivas USA — has reunited with former teammate Sacha Kljestan and molded the once much-maligned franchise as a matter of necessity into a model for MLS (Associated Press file photo).

Read more about the New York Red Bulls’ run to the top of MLS in this week’s 100 Percent Soccer column.

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Morning after: Thoughts as LA Galaxy take an early vacation

Photo by Ted S. Warren // Associated Press

Photo by Ted S. Warren // Associated Press

I want to preface this by writing that I, like Steven Gerrard, Giovani dos Santos and Donovan Ricketts, was a midseason addition to the Galaxy. I took over the Galaxy/soccer beat in August and since then, I’ve been frantically trying to learn as much about this team as possible. There’s still much for me to learn.

I can’t wrap up the entire season, because to be honest, when this season started, I was still in college. But here are some of the things that stood out to me as the season came to a close: Continue reading “Morning after: Thoughts as LA Galaxy take an early vacation” »

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(VIDEO) Bruce Arena on the 3-2 loss: “We gift-wrapped that game for them”

Opening thoughts: I think Christmas came early in Seattle. We absolutely gift-wrapped that game for them tonight. Our play in front of our goal defensively was atrocious. Just gift-wrapped the three goals for them. Give them credit, they jumped on the mistakes, but we were shockingly poor on those goals. The officiating didn’t help. We have a second goal, we have maybe the best tackle of the night and somehow he calls it a foul and it ends up in the back of the net. That’s our fault. We still need to defend better. We gift-wrapped the game. It’s a game we should have won.

How surprising it is that an experienced group could make those mistakes: Not good. It wasn’t good. Shocking mistakes.

Donovan Ricketts’ game: A lot of mistakes back there, no question about it.

On the offensive performance: We played pretty well. We should have won this game tonight. We literally gift-wrapped the game tonight. If you’re going to give away goals like that, you don’t deserve to win, that’s for sure.

Surprised the season ended so quickly? Yeah, this game was there to win tonight. For us to concede a goal right to start the game, come back to get a goal and give another one, which wasn’t helped by officiating, but we still are at fault there. And the third goal, we can certainly do better there. You’re giving a home team goals, that’s not the way to play on the road. We should have come out in the second half, you knew they would come at us a little bit and get ourselves into the game, and try to find a third goal or get into extra time. But to concede the three goals that we conceded is absolutely poor.

On the second goal, does Stevie need to stay with his man or does Donovan need to claim it: Both, and the referee doesn’t call a foul. Ridiculous call. That wasn’t a foul. It was a clean tackle, all the way. We have to do better, a lot of mistakes.

How disappointing is it that the season ended this soon? Of course it’s disappointing. You think we’re happy about it? But we have no one to look at but ourselves. As I said, I think we gift-wrapped a nice goal for Seattle.

On if there will be changes: Like every year, there’s going to be changes. It’s not any different from one game to the next.

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By the numbers: LA and Seattle meet again in MLS Playoffs

Photo by Steve McCrank // Staff photographer; Design by Thuc Nhi Nguyen // LANG

Photo by Steve McCrank // Staff photographer; Design by Thuc Nhi Nguyen // LANG

Things we know for sure: Robbie Keane is doing just fine this season. The reigning MLS MVP has scored more goals this season (20) than he did last season, and did it in fewer games. After he scored the equalizer against Sporting Kansas City on Sunday, ESPN broadcaster Adrian Healey asked on the broadcast: “Robbie Keane, where would they be without him?”

It’s probably best for the team to not even think about the answer to that question.

Sebastian Lletget is the next leading scorer on the team with just seven goals. Lletget hasn’t scored since Aug. 23 against New York City FC.

Continue reading “By the numbers: LA and Seattle meet again in MLS Playoffs” »

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Galaxy game day: Links for knockout round vs. Seattle

Robbie Keane's goal in the 37th minute was enough for the Galaxy to clinch a playoff berth against Seattle on Sunday. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Robbie Keane’s goal in the 37th minute was enough for the Galaxy to clinch a playoff berth against Seattle on Oct. 4.
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Today could be the last Galaxy game day of the season. It’s win or go home in the knockout round of the MLS Playoffs.

Vitals: Kickoff 7 p.m. at CenturyLink Field // Broadcast on Unimas

Here’s your pregame reading list:  Continue reading “Galaxy game day: Links for knockout round vs. Seattle” »

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Robbie Keane on Ireland, LA and his career

Galaxy captain Robbie Keane.  (Photo by Brittany Murray / Daily Breeze)

Galaxy captain Robbie Keane. (Photo by Brittany Murray / Daily Breeze)

 

As Robbie Keane leads the team into the playoffs, I wrote about the Galaxy’s captain’s life in L.A. and just how a kid from Dublin becomes the king of the Galaxy.

An excerpt:

Even now each goal, each assist feels just as sweet as it did when Keane was a 17-year-old making his professional debut.

“I think that (feeling) is why things have gone well for me here,” Keane said. “That’s why I continue to want to score goals, wanting to do well for the team, wanting to get assists. If I continue to keep doing that, I can play here for a long time, there’s no question about that.”

 

Continue reading “Robbie Keane on Ireland, LA and his career” »

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