Galaxy beats Chivas USA, 4-0, to win SuperClasico again
The Galaxy went into Sunday’s game on the heels of humiliation, still wounded from its worst regular-season loss in five seasons under Coach Bruce Arena, which it suffered the previous week.
But then it faced its in-stadium rival, Chivas USA, a rival in location, not competition, or so their years of head-to-head matchups had come to show.
The timing proved cathartic for the Galaxy, which pounded Chivas, 4-0, at the Home Depot Center to seal its fifth consecutive SuperClasico title and help the club bounce back from a 4-0 thrashing at Seattle the weekend before.
“Every game is different,” Arena said, shrugging with a smile as he explained his team’s play between the two games.
Galaxy captain and forward Landon Donovan kept busy, assisting on all four of his team’s goals: Robbie Keane’s score in the 27th minute, Juninho’s scores in the 64th 74th minutes, and Omar Gonzalez’s score in the 83rd minute.
Keane’s goal was his team-high 10th this season and Gonzalez’s was his first. The 23-year-old Gonzalez, the Major League Soccer defender of the year in 2011, had off-season knee injury that kept him out for the Galaxy until the second half of the season.
As for Donovan, his four assists marked a career high and gave him 105 all-time, good for fourth place on the all-time MLS list.
Donovan’s four assists tied an MLS single-game record. Three other players have had that many assists in a game, most recently in 2006, when Houston’s Dewayne De Rosario had four against Colorado.
And as for the Galaxy (11-11-3, 36 points), the club distanced itself even further from Chivas (7-9-5, 26) in the Western Conference standings, dimming Chivas’ chances of a playoff spot.
Chivas is tied for sixth place with FC Dallas; only the top five teams advance to the postseason.
The Galaxy is in contention for the third spot with Seattle and Vancouver.
Remarkably, Sunday’s blowout would’ve been worse for Chivas had goalkeeper Dan Kennedy not been brilliant, making diving save after diving save. But he could not stop them all.
Though Chivas was technically the host team, its fans were silent by the end. Galaxy fans chanted “This is our house!” as the minutes wound down and as their team won the season series against Chivas, two games to one, to earn the SuperClasico trophy for the seventh time in eight years.
“That was embarrassing,” Chivas Coach Robin Fraser said.
Chivas won the first matchup between the teams this season, 2-1, before the Galaxy went on to win the next two meetings by a combined score of 7-1.
The Galaxy played without star midfielder David Beckham, who was at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics.
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