It Only Gets Worse for Cienfuegos, Galaxy
Mauricio Cienfuegos stood dressing in a corner of the visiting locker room at Arrowhead Stadium, his tiny shoulders never looking so tired.
He had tried, once again, to push his team to victory, but for the third consecutive game an opposing team had taken measures to stop the playmaking midfielder. Saturday it was the Kansas City Wiz, which delivered a 3-1 drubbing to the Galaxy before 17,921.
All things good for the Galaxy run through 5-foot-6 Cienfuegos, but he has been stopped and a team that was once 12-0 is now 12-3.
“I think when he first came into the league everyone thought he was just another Latino player,” Kansas City Coach Ron Newman said. “But I think everyone learned quickly that he is the man who turns the trick for Los Angeles. So we focused on him and tried to disrupt his balance.”
It was the same story line as the Galaxy’s two previous losses--Thursday against New England and last Sunday at Colorado.
The first loss was blamed on the law of averages, the second on bad luck, and for some the single day off between games will be the reasoning for the third. Others will blame the last two on the absence of leading scorer Eduardo Hurtado, playing with the Ecuadorean national team.
But the real problem is in the middle, where for the last three games it seems Cienfuegos is being jailed and his teammates do not know how to set him free.
“I think you could blame it on [the absence of] Hurtado, or on the humidity, but all of those factors are not the determining factor, which is our lack of scoring,” Zambrano said. “All the other things are just part of the game, but not the real problem, which is that we are not connecting.”
Cienfuegos said after the 1-0 loss to New England that his teammates were not recognizing that he was being marked and failed to move where he could get them the ball.
His comments Saturday were guarded; he said his team needed to do more, to play the long ball more, and to finish its chances. All true, but after collecting seven assists in the first 12 games, Cienfuegos has only one assist in the three losses.
“I think as soon as [Chris] Armas comes back [from an ankle injury], Cienfuegos will take his play outside, and as we progress we will be able to do more things in the middle,” Galaxy Coach Lothar Osiander said. “It will be different.”
The Galaxy’s problems have cost them early in each loss. Los Angeles has allowed its opponents to score first in its last five games, after taking the opening lead in seven of its first 10.
Before Thursday’s 1-0 loss to New England, Galaxy players talked about the problem and planned on attacking hard from the start. They did but failed to score, and after falling behind, 1-0, the Galaxy players were complacent until the final 20 minutes.
It took only until the third minute for the Galaxy to fall behind Saturday as Kansas City’s Scott Uderitz redirected a shot from Diego Gutierrez in the third minute.
“I think this game they scored early and we might have said, ‘Oh, here we go again,’ ” midfielder Jorge Salcedo said. “In the past we knew we could come back from that, but because of the past two games I think it may have been a bit psychological today, and we pressed too hard.”
Pushing forward left the Galaxy defense vulnerable, as it did in the 56th minute when Preki scored after faking both Greg Vanney and Robin Fraser before beating goalkeeper Jorge Campos, and again in the 85th minute when Digital Takawira gave the Wiz (9-9) a 3-1 lead, two minutes after Mark Semioli had cut the deficit to 2-1.
“I think in a game like today they scored early and we felt we all needed to do something special,” defender Dan Calichman said. “Kansas City played great, give them credit. But like I’ve said before, it’s not time to push the panic button. We will come back from the break and try and work it out.”
