Galaxy manages to end a six-game losing streak
Two-thirds of the way through its confused and corrosive Major League Soccer season, the Galaxy finally got a break Saturday night.
A 3-1 victory over the Colorado Rapids at the Home Depot Center ended a six-game losing streak for the Galaxy, momentarily lifting the gloom in Carson and even bringing a few postgame grins.
So what if the second of those goals was scored from a palpably offside position. The linesman didn’t flag it and referee Ricardo Salazar didn’t call it.
So what if the first two goal-getters -- Alan Gordon and Edson Buddle -- each limped off with injuries shortly after scoring. The Galaxy has been overcoming injuries all year and two more won’t make much difference at this point.
What mattered was that the team won an MLS game for the first time since the Fourth of July. The three points it added to its embarrassingly bleak total of 14 meant that, while still in last place, the Galaxy is now only one point behind Real Salt Lake, which lost at Houston.
By the time the third goal arrived, courtesy of midfielder Kyle Martino, it was enough to cause Martino to do a celebratory dance in the corner and for the announced crowd of 22,881 to believe that a rare victory was not only possible but probable.
The first 45 minutes did nothing to suggest that. They provided probably the most turgid soccer seen this season, with the teams one as inept as the other.
David Beckham and Chris Albright, recovering from injuries and watching in suits and ties from one of the stadium’s event suites, could only cringe.
Thirty-six seconds into the second half, things started to change.
Gordon put the Galaxy ahead, side-footing the ball into the net after beating goalkeeper Bouna Coundoul to midfielder Pete Vagenas’ long and rather hopeful downfield delivery into the penalty area.
It was the first goal the Galaxy had scored against the Rapids in 588 minutes, a barren spell dating to September 2005.
Buddle, who was at least a yard offside when Cobi Jones passed the ball to him, scored the second, chipping his shot over backup goalkeeper Zach Thornton in the 63rd minute. Thornton five minutes earlier had replaced Coundoul, who suffered an abdominal strain.
Gordon left the game just after his goal, with an undetermined left leg injury, and Buddle followed suit after scoring. A left hamstring injury caused his early departure.
Martino’s goal, in the 70th minute, came when he stooped to head Chris Klein’s deep cross from the right into the net. Thornton attempted to fist the ball clear but succeeded only in driving it into the side netting.
Colorado (7-10-7) got an 89th-minute goal from Mehdi Ballouchy, who fired a line drive into the Galaxy net after goalkeeper Joe Cannon’s punch, like Thornton’s, failed to clear the ball.
By that point, however, the Galaxy was unconcerned. It was about to “improve” -- the term is used loosely -- to 4-11-5. With 10 games left, the inevitable had been postponed and the impossible was still alive.
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