Galaxy Falls Apart in 5-2 Loss to Burn
Don’t bother calling for anyone to break up the Los Angeles Galaxy; the team is doing a fine job disintegrating all on its own.
The latest dismal effort came Wednesday night at the Cotton Bowl, where the Galaxy was not only soundly defeated but looked decidedly ordinary in a 5-2 loss to the Dallas Burn. It was the team’s fourth consecutive defeat.
What has gone wrong? How does a 12-0 team suddenly find itself 12-4?
“I don’t know,” Coach Lothar Osiander said.
Is it time to start yelling?
“Yes.”
Two goals by Jason Kreis and another by former UCLA forward Zak Ibsen gave the Burn a 3-0 lead after 48 minutes.
Eduardo Hurtado cut the margin to 3-1 with his 12th goal of the season in the 66th minute, but Dallas responded immediately with an excellent goal by Brian Haynes for a 4-1 advantage. One minute later, Cobi Jones scored to make it 4-2, but that score was flattering to Los Angeles.
Gerell Elliott’s 83rd-minute goal completed Dallas’ largest scoring run of the season in front of 17,665 on a hot, humid and altogether miserable evening for the Galaxy.
For Los Angeles goalkeeper David Kramer, making his first Major League Soccer start in place of Jorge Campos, who is on Olympic duty for Mexico, it was a night to forget. Of course, the same applies to the rest of the team.
“When you play walking soccer, you can’t win anything,” Osiander said. “You’ve got to sprint with these guys, you’ve got to battle with these guys; they’re quality players. They all worked very hard, they all wanted to beat the Galaxy, and they accomplished their task. This time.”
Despite the score, three of the former U.S. national team players on the Dallas squad were not about to write the Galaxy’s epitaph.
“We knew they were a strong team and they showed that in the way they came back and fought the whole way,” said Burn goalkeeper Mark Dodd, who made several excellent saves on the few occasions the Galaxy managed shots on target. “They’re a very smooth team, well-organized and well-coached.
“They put some nice things together, but I think we came at them with just incredible intensity. We pressured together as a team and we really went at them and the goals came tonight.”
Said defender Mark Santel: “I think maybe we caught them off guard a little bit. I don’t know if they expected to come in here and get a win, but since we had kind of hit bottom, I think they expected a little less [from the Burn]. Any time you give up two goals on the road like they did, I think they might have felt they were overwhelmed a little bit. I don’t know. In the second half, they played a lot better.”
And from former Bruin Ibsen: “I think we finally put it all together. Everyone said all along that this was probably the most talented team in the league, maybe other than L.A. Gerell Elliott is the fastest guy in the league. Leonel Alvarez basically took [Mauricio] Cienfuegos out of the game. Cobi [Jones] was nonexistent. We just had a great game. I still think they had a good game, but we weren’t going to be denied tonight.”
Dallas Coach Dave Dir, who coached the Colorado Foxes to successive American Professional Soccer League championships, said Los Angeles probably should still be considered favored to win the Western Conference. Maybe.
“I don’t know if there is a team to beat, but I’d have to say, yes, they’re still the one. They’re still far enough ahead that they’re the ones you’ve got to beat if you want to get to first place.
“But it’s a long season, 32 games. They’re a good enough team that they’re still going to be there at the end, I believe. They’re just going through a rough time right now because they’re starting to hit stretches like we had early in the season. It’s very difficult when you have three or four games in 12 days.”
