Galaxy Misses the Points With Opening Victory

Had Kevin Hartman played for 90 minutes the way he played for five Saturday night, the Galaxy’s 1998 Major League Soccer season opener might have had a happier conclusion.

As it was, a Rose Bowl crowd of 36,251 saw the Galaxy defeat the San Jose Clash in a shootout after the teams had played to a scintillating 3-3 tie in regulation.

But it should never have come to that.

This was a game the Galaxy should have locked up long before. But it allowed leads of 2-0 and 3-1 to get away and eventually paid the price.

Instead of three points for a victory in regulation, it earned one for the shootout win.

Instead of stamping itself immediately as the class of the Western Conference, it showed that while its offense is more than promising, its defense is suspect and its goalkeeping even more so.

Hartman, a former UCLA keeper who inherited the starting role from Jorge Campos, was superb in the shootout, blocking scoring attempts by Eric Wynalda and Eddie Lewis and forcing Jeff Baicher to fire his shot against the left post.

Only Ronald Cerritos beat him, and that was not enough to overcome shootout goals by the Galaxy’s Greg Vanney, Clint Mathis and Paul Caligiuri.

But in regulation, Hartman was far less sure of himself.

Only one of the goals could be directly attributed to him, but he did not show the fire necessary to dominate his area, intimidate opposing forwards and boost his own defenders’ confidence.

“There are some things I need to work on and some things the team as a whole needs to work on,” Hartman said. “We should have had this game in hand and even have run away with it.”

Galaxy Coach Octavio Zambrano echoed the thought.

“This game got away from us a couple of times,” he said. “I thought we created enough opportunities to put it away early. These are the things that happen in first games. We need to tighten up a few things and work on some details.

“I think were the better team out there. We played decent soccer at times. We certainly wanted to go forward.”

It took the Galaxy less than 18 minutes to score its first goal of the season.

The Clash, whose defense appears to consist of little more than goalkeeper David Kramer and center back John Doyle, failed to properly clear the ball on its left flank after a series of Los Angeles raids.

Galaxy right wing Cobi Jones latched onto it, drifted a pass into the goal area and Martin Machin darted in to power a header into the roof of the net from close range.

The goal set the Rose Bowl faithful into a loud celebration, the volume of which was doubled when Eduardo Hurtado scored a second only 10 minutes later.

This time it was Mauricio Cienfuegos who created it, timing his pass well and finding Hurtado on the left with only defender Tim Martin to beat. The Ecuador striker, who has abandoned the No. 29 jersey he wore for his first two MLS seasons and now sports No. 9 with the name “Tanque” on the back, made a couple of feints and then shot.

Kramer had the angle covered, but Martin stuck out a leg and the ball took a cruel deflection off his foot, leaving the former Galaxy goalkeeper stranded and sliding into the net inside the right post.

Kramer earlier had made two fine saves, once thwarting Welton by rushing out to block a point-blank shot set up by Cienfuegos and Hurtado and later denying Jones with a good save.

At the other end, Hartman was seldom troubled in the first 45 minutes. He was, however, partially at fault when San Jose cut Los Angeles’ lead in half with barely two minutes left in the half.

Wynalda dribbled past a somewhat static Vanney, the Galaxy right back, and curled a cross toward the far post. Hartman could not stretch high enough to reach the ball--a sign of poor positioning--and it fell to Lawrence Lozzano to head in at the far post.

Jones, who played a superb game, helped restore the two-goal lead three minutes into the second half, providing the pass from which Welton scored.

After that, San Jose began its rally.

Substitute Victor Mella cut the Galaxy lead to 3-2 in the 61st minute, and Wynalda tied it in the 78th with a 20-yard shot that snuck in just inside the left post.

The Galaxy was playing with 10 men at the time, defender Dan Calichman having come off for treatment of a cut above his left eye that required six stitches.