Galaxy’s Plan Leaves Them at a Loss

They had made up their minds to put the New England Revolution away early, to play like wizards from the start, and pass, cut and run the team with the worst record in Major League Soccer back to Boston.

And every Galaxy player did just that Thursday night, baffling the Revolution for the first 20 minutes. It went perfectly, except for one detail. Los Angeles forgot to score.

The result was a goal by New England’s John Kerr in the 24th minute, followed by a frantic close, and ending with a 1-0 Revolution victory before 62,703 at the Rose Bowl.

“I though we owned most of the game,” Galaxy Coach Lothar Osiander said. “We tried to push as hard as we could. But we were just very unfortunate.”

And the Revolution was fortunate, beginning with the game winner, a strange goal that belonged as much to Kerr as it did to Galaxy defender Dan Calichman, and ending when Alexi Lalas was ejected with 11 minutes left to play, forcing New England to go with 10 players.

First for the game winner, which came when New England (6-8) caught the Galaxy midfield pushing forward. Revolution forward Darren Sawatzky took a long pass and found himself alone on the left side. He sent a ball across to a sliding Kerr, who barely got a foot on the ball, sending it slowly bouncing toward the goal.

Calichman looked as if he would get it, but could only kick it as it was crossing the goal line, sending it hard into the corner of the goal.

“They caught us on a counter and the guy [Sawatzky] made a dangerous cross,” Calichman said. “[Kerr] went to the back post, and I think he sort of mis-kicked it. There was no doubt it was going in, it was just a question of whether I could get around on it; 99.999% of the time I get around on that ball.”

And 99.999% of the time the Galaxy bounces back from a 1-0 deficit, but with leading scorer Eduardo Hurtado away with the Ecuadorean national team, the smallish Galaxy players were controlled by a sizable New England defense, which included 6-foot-3 Lalas, 6-2 Kevin Wylie and 6-0 Francis Okaroh.

But even with its formidable defense, New England, in eight of its 10 games before Thursday, had given up a goal in the final 15 minutes, including during its shootout loss to the Galaxy on June 6.

Los Angeles banked on a repeat, and took measures by switching to a four-forward attack, including Jorge Campos, for the final 27 minutes. The alignment worked to an extent as Los Angeles pelted goalkeeper Jim St. Andre with shots.

Jorge Salcedo’s shot in the 67th minute was punched wide, Mauricio Cienfuegos’ just missed the mark in the 80th minute, minutes after his cross with goalkeeper Jim St. Andre out of the goal grazed over the head of Jorge Vasquez.

And the closest of all, with less than five minutes remaining, was Cienfuegos’ penalty kick from just outside the box that hit the crossbar.

That came with Lalas waiting in the tunnel for his teammates.

He was ejected in the 79th minute after kicking a ball at someone behind the endline, who he believed had thrown the ball at St. Andre.

“The ball went out of bounds and Jim went to get it and this guy threw it at him,” Lalas said. “I lost my composure and I’m sorry, but Jim has enough things flying at him from the Galaxy in front of the net to have people throwing things at him from the sidelines.”

The Galaxy (12-2) threw everything they could at St. Andre at the start, and again at the end, but were shut out in the first half for only the second time this season, the other being Sunday’s 2-1 loss at Colorado.

“We had a meeting after the loss at Colorado,” Vasquez said. “We played so bad there, and all of us said that if we are going to loss, we are going to lose playing well. That is what happened today.”

Galaxy Notes

Galaxy goalkeeper Jorge Campos was called up to the Mexican Olympic team. The first round of Olympic play is July 20, and the gold-medal game is Aug. 3. Campos could miss four games, and possibly five if he leaves early to practice with the team. David Kramer, credited with the victory June 16 against Tampa Bay, would start for Campos. The team brought up John Pascarella to back up Kramer.