Galaxy’s 2-1 Victory Over Fire Is Jolley Important
With an ice pack on his left knee and a smile on his face from here to his home in Virginia Beach, Va., Steve Jolley was in his element.
“Hero” is what his Galaxy teammates were calling him Saturday afternoon, and when veteran forward Carlos Hermosillo crossed the Soldier Field locker room to shake his hand, it was acknowledgment that the 22-year-old had done something special.
And indeed he had.
With a mere 55 seconds left in the Galaxy’s all-important game against the Chicago Fire, Jolley came out of nowhere to score the winning goal and give Los Angeles a 2-1 victory in front of a stunned crowd of 37,122.
“It feels damn good, to be honest with you,” Jolley said, grinning. “I guess I can’t ask for a better scenario for my first professional goal--in front of 40,000 people and a national television audience. The big man was definitely looking out for me.”
So no doubt the big contract will follow?
“Oh, yeah,” he said, picking up the joke. “I already went to Sunil [Gulati, Major League Soccer’s deputy commissioner] and told him I needed a raise. So I’m going to make about $22,000 next year.”
Jolley, a first-round pick and the ninth pick overall in the league’s 1997 college draft, might not be earning the hefty salary of some of his MLS teammates, but the former William & Mary midfielder is on track to do so.
His headed goal, which climaxed a frantic final five minutes, was important for the Galaxy.
By winning, Los Angeles improved to 18-6 and increased its lead in the Western Conference to 15 points over the second-place Fire, which fell to 13-10.
In a surprisingly honest bit of self-criticism, Fire Coach Bob Bradley blamed himself for the defeat.
“I take full responsibility for making what I feel was a bad move at the end of the game,” Bradley said of his 87th-minute decision to move goalkeeper Jorge Campos into the forward line and put Zach Thornton into the nets in his place.
“The substitution took too long [while Campos scrambled to change uniforms on the sideline] and caused a disruption,” Bradley said. “It was a bad move on my part and one I feel bad about because when the players have battled to get back in the game like we did, you don’t want to do something stupid to take the game away from them.”
Chicago, which had beaten the Galaxy twice earlier in the season, almost salvaged this game too. The ABC television audience was treated to the unusual sight of two own goals in one game.
The first came in the 37th minute when Fire defender Francis Okaroh, trying to clear a long pass from Galaxy midfielder Martin Machon intended for Hermosillo, looped a header over Campos’ head and into the left corner of the net.
The Galaxy, playing more defensively than usual and trying desperately to protect its lead in the face of increasingly strong Chicago attacks, managed to do so for almost 50 minutes.
Then, with only 3:20 to play, former UCLA player Zak Ibsen sent a low cross in from the right wing that Galaxy midfielder Danny Pena somehow deflected into his own net.
Bradley then made his fateful move. Okaroh came off, Thornton went on and Campos went to the sideline to switch uniforms.
Campos had barely returned to the field when the Galaxy was awarded a free kick deep in Chicago territory to the right of the Fire net.
Mauricio Cienfuegos sent the kick to the near post, where Paul Caligiuri redirected the ball with his head to the far post. Jolley, using teammate Ezra Hendrickson as a launching pad, leaped to head it into the net, well beyond Thornton’s reach.
“The great thing about it is that I did exactly the opposite of what Octavio [Zambrano, the Galaxy coach] really wanted me to do,” said Jolley, a former United States under-20 national team player and likely future national team candidate.
“I was supposed to make the near-post run and I guess Paul saw that I hadn’t so he went near post. He and [Cienfuegos] made eye contact and it was a wonderful flick [by Caligiuri]. I saw the ball in the air and I was just going to go for it no matter what.
“Fortunately, I had E.Z. [Hendrickson] in front of me to boost me up a couple of feet, so that helped.
“The only way I scored in my junior and senior years in college was off situations like that, so I felt really comfortable going forward in that situation.
“It wasn’t a matter of placement. I was just trying to get my head on the ball. It was very lucky.”
SATURDAY’S OTHER GAMES
Columbus 6, New England 1--Stern John scored two goals and Robert Warzycha had two assists as the Crew ended a three-game losing streak and beat the Revolution before 13,712 at Columbus, Ohio. The six goals were a franchise record for the Crew (10-11). Raul Diaz Arce scored for the Revolution (7-17) in the 89th minute.
Kansas City 3, Colorado 1--Mo Johnston scored two goals and Mark Chung had two assists to lead the Wizards (10-12) past the Rapids (11-12) before 9,380 at Kansas City, Mo. Johnston, who leads the Wizards with nine goals, scored the winning goal on a free kick in the 87th minute.
