Galaxy Takes Its Show on the Road
How long will it take for Major League Soccer teams to begin to jell and to start playing better soccer than has been displayed?
“At least four games,” said San Jose Clash Coach Laurie Calloway.
Los Angeles Galaxy Coach Lothar Osiander agreed. “Maybe five,” he said. “Maybe six. Perhaps seven.”
Whatever the figure, it can’t happen soon enough. Of the half-dozen or so matches played to date, none have featured high-quality soccer, which isn’t really surprising. The players hardly know each other.
And it doesn’t help when World Cup commitments rob teams of key starters, as is the case tonight when the Galaxy plays Washington D.C. United at RFK Stadium in the first road game for Los Angeles and the home opener for Washington.
The Galaxy has been fortunate, having persuaded Ecuador to let striker Eduardo Hurtado play tonight before leaving to join his national team for Wednesday’s World Cup ’98 qualifying match against Peru.
United, however, will be missing forwards Marco Etcheverry and Juan Suarez, both playing for Bolivia. The losses will hurt an already struggling Washington team while enhancing Los Angeles’ chances.
Last week, in its 2-1 victory over the New York/New Jersey MetroStars--whose home opener tonight at Giants Stadium is expected to draw 50,000--the Galaxy played an adventurous 3-4-3 formation. The team won but the thin defense seemed a little suspect.
Osiander, after saying he probably would play Mexico’s Jorge Campos at forward and start David Kramer in goal, instead used Campos as the goalkeeper and left Kramer on the bench.
“In the two training sessions before the game, we worked with [Campos] in goal and with [Robin] Fraser sweeping and [Dan] Calichman and [Manny] Motajo a little bit in front of Calichman, and Campos seemed to like that a lot,” Osiander said.
“He said that in Mexico he played with a team that played an identical system, where we throw three guys on top and everybody else is in the middle and with two marking backs and one free. He adjusted to it real quick.”
Tonight, Osiander might be tempted to use Campos as a striker, teaming him with either Hurtado, Harat Karapetyan, a surprising starter last week, or Jose Vasquez, who is recovering from a groin strain.
Osiander said Karapetyan, a former youth national team player for Armenia who last season played for the Los Angeles Salsa, had impressed him in training and thus earned the start against the MetroStars.
“He did some stuff really well, but he also loses a few balls, which he shouldn’t do,” Osiander said. “Right now, this is probably my weakest position, the left outside.”
Meanwhile, two consecutive losses and no goals scored have put United Coach Bruce Arena under considerable pressure.
Washington was beaten, 1-0, by San Jose in the inaugural MLS game April 6, then was trounced, 4-0, by the Columbus Crew a week later. Losing to Columbus was especially galling to Arena since the Crew is coached by Timo Liekoski, the man he replaced as U.S. Olympic team coach.
“It was a very poor performance,” Arena said. “We gave away goals. We were outplayed. The team chemistry is not good at this point. We’ve got to make changes.”
Earlier this week, Arena cut five players, among them two defenders who had started against San Jose. What he has left is an 18-player roster, and half of those players played under Arena when he was coach at the University of Virginia.
“It’s a long season and things will get better,” Arena said. “It will take some time.”
