Reluctant Galaxy Begins Anew After Stellar Year
If Major League Soccer were organized in the same way as every other soccer league in the world, the Galaxy today would be its champion.
Coach Octavio Zambrano’s team finished the regular season with the best record (24-8), the most points (68), the most goals scored (85) and the fewest goals allowed (44).
But it was not enough.
Instead of being able to bask in those achievements, the Galaxy tonight begins a three-game series against the Dallas Burn at the Rose Bowl in the first round of the MLS playoffs.
Zambrano would just as soon the league tossed out the playoff format and followed the rest of the world’s lead.
“I think the top leagues in the world--Spain, England, Germany--work that way,” he said. “I am all for that because I think what you do in preseason and how your team prepares for the season and how you do during the season should account for more than only home-field advantage. It should account for more than that.
“Playoffs are part of the American mentality, but I’m all for [copying] the format of the big [foreign] leagues.”
Zambrano has an unlikely ally in Bruce Arena, who has coached Washington D.C. United to back-to-back MLS championships, defeating the Galaxy in the 1996 final and the Colorado Rapids in last year’s championship game.
Arena, whose team also finished 24-8 but had fewer points because more of its victories were by shootout, also thinks the league format is bizarre.
“In some ways, the 32 [regular-season] games are a waste of time,” he told the Washington Post. “The only advantage you have now is the home field. . . . It’s almost comical that the 32 games, in a sense, are for naught. But that’s all part of it.”
Even the home-field advantage isn’t worth that much, not when the team with the advantage has to play its games in midweek as the Galaxy does. Even though the Galaxy led the league in average attendance with 21,784 a game, crowds were considerably smaller for midweek games.
The Galaxy averaged 25,631 for 12 weekend games at the Rose Bowl and 10,290 for four weeknight games.
“When you work for the home-field advantage, you hope it’s a financial advantage as well,” said Danny Villanueva, the Galaxy’s president and general manager. “That’s not part of the equation this year, but it will be an enormous issue in our ’99 planning.”
MLS Commissioner Doug Logan agrees that throughout the league Saturday night crowds, for example, were twice as large as midweek crowds but defends the playoff scheduling, saying there is little that can be done.
“Danny Villanueva has been vocal about home-field advantage but he wants it on a weekend,” Logan said. “We know that we are losing potential gate by not having all games on weekends, but it is physically impossible for us to do so [because of television contracts and stadium availability].”
Logan finds himself in almost a no-win situation. Dallas, which has a weekend playoff date--Game 2 against the Galaxy will be Sunday at noon at the Cotton Bowl--doesn’t like that option either.
Why? Because the game is being carried live by Univision, which will cut into the Burn’s attendance, and the game conflicts with the Dallas Cowboys’ televised game at Washington.
Dallas ousted Los Angeles from the playoffs last season, shutting out the Galaxy in two games, 1-0 in a shootout in Pasadena and 3-0 in Texas.
The Burn did not fare as well against the Galaxy this season, losing three of four, including a league-record 8-1 setback. But Coach Dave Dir’s team has one of the league finest goalkeepers in Mark Dodd and the Galaxy has managed only one goal in its past three games
Zambrano is not overly impressed by the momentum factor, however.
“Last year, we had some very good results leading into the playoffs and it didn’t carry over [into the series against Dallas],” he said. “Our team needs to show its poise and determination [this time].”
With Dallas trying to shut down Los Angeles’ league-best offense, Zambrano doubts the series will provide many goals.
“I think we’ll only have two or three [scoring] opportunities a game, maybe one or two more, and what we need to do is capitalize on those,” he said. “But I don’t think high-scoring games are going to be prevalent in these playoffs.”
Tonight’s game, he said, is important in the Galaxy’s quest to reach the MLS final Oct. 25 at the Rose Bowl. The Los Angeles-Dallas winner plays the Chicago-Colorado winner in the Western Conference finals.
“It’s an important game, a very important game,” he said. “It’s a must-win for us. I think it will set the tone for what we’re going to do in the rest of the playoffs.”
