No Party for United as Galaxy Goes to 4-0

Forgive Bruce Arena this morning for not having gotten into the Cinco de Mayo spirit on Sunday. It’s difficult to celebrate much of anything when your team has become the official Major League Soccer pinata.

And how else is Arena, coach of Washington D.C. United, supposed to view what has happened to his club in the first month of MLS play?

Washington, already unhappy at not having been assigned the players it wanted, has lost five of six games, including Sunday’s 3-1 collapse against the surprising Galaxy.

Of those games, four have been on the road, three of them the home opener of the opposing team. Add in an unusual run of injuries, poor weather that has restricted training time and the loss of players to World Cup duty and it’s easy to see why Arena is in no mood for festivities.

Nor has he got much time to mince words about his players.

“We were just thoroughly beaten,” he said after D.C. United allowed a 1-0 lead to turn into a two-goal defeat. “It’s a 90-minute game. If the game were only 40 minutes today, we win. We were asleep in the second half. Their third goal broke our back. We showed a lack of character. They could have scored five or six goals. I’m disappointed.”

Galaxy Coach Lothar Osiander, meanwhile, was quite the opposite. The victory kept Los Angeles unbeaten at 4-0 and firmly in first place in the Western Conference.

But for a while Sunday a Rose Bowl crowd estimated at 16,000 (20,471 tickets were sold) wondered which was the home team. In the first half, Washington (1-5) did all the attacking.

“We were horrendous in the first half,” Osiander said. “We were lucky not to fall further behind. Then we had an admirable second half, even with the many chances missed.”

After assuming control of the game early on, D.C. United took the lead in the 28th minute when midfielder Kris Kelderman floated a cross into the goal area, where forward Steve Rammel, momentarily having escaped defender Dan Calichman, leaped to head the ball powerfully past goalkeeper Jorge Campos.

To its credit, the Galaxy did not panic, despite trailing for the first time at home. Although Washington continued to provide most of the offense, Los Angeles looked dangerous on the break.

The Galaxy tied the score in the 42nd minute off a play that began on the right wing, the ball eventually finding Mauricio Cienfuegos, who sent a square pass to fellow midfielder Mark Semioli. The former Stanford player back-heeled the ball across the face of the goal to Jose Vasquez, who fired a shot through a screen of legs and inside the left goalpost.

Time ran out in the half with the score tied, 1-1, but Osiander realized all was not well.

“After that shaky beginning, I knew something wasn’t quite right,” he said. “I needed to change something. It wasn’t working out the way I planned.”

So off came Arash Noamouz, whose indifferent play in the opening 45 minutes led to his being booed every time he touched the ball. And into the game came Jorge Salcedo, who had scored the game-winner in a 2-1 victory over D.C. United in Washington two weeks earlier.

“Salcedo is our go-to guy,” Osiander said.

The Galaxy also changed its formation, with Cobi Jones abandoning the largely defensive role he had played and taking on an attacking role as a third forward.

Before long, D.C. United was back on its heels.

The Galaxy took the lead to a roar from the smaller but no less enthusiastic crowd on a goal by Ecuador’s Eduardo Hurtado in the 52nd minute.

Salcedo set it up, sprinting to the end line to the left of the net, then sending a sharp pass across the face of the goalmouth. Jones’ run to the near post distracted the Washington defenders and goalkeeper Jeff Causey and the ball ran through to Hurtado standing unguarded at the far post.

A simple side-foot shot gave “The Tank” his first MLS goal after half a dozen near misses.

The Galaxy’s third goal was the best of the game. A defensive header by D.C. United fell in front of Salcedo, about 20 yards from goal.

He unleashed a rocket toward the upper right corner of the net that Causey managed to parry with his hands but only enough to push it into the roof of the net.

Salcedo yanked his jersey up over his head and raced around the field in delight.

It was the final stick in a long day for D.C. United, feeling more like a pinata than ever before.