Galaxy Beaten by Crew
If the Galaxy could doctor the number of goals it scores as well as it doctors its attendance, the team would be unbeatable.
On a cold and miserable Thursday night, with rain making a mockery of the Arroyo Seco’s name, the Galaxy announced an attendance of 4,825 for its game against the Columbus Crew.
Yeah, right.
An informal count of the fans in the seats--it wasn’t a difficult task--showed perhaps 1,000 umbrella-clutching die-hards on hand.
Fans and goals are difficult to come by these days for the slumping Galaxy, which lost its second in a row after yet another shootout farce, the Crew prevailing, 3-2.
In 360 minutes of Major League Soccer play in 1999, the Galaxy has scored three goals.
And even the one it scored Thursday night was questionable.
It came in the 55th minute when Mauricio Cienfuegos, who finally is beginning to look match-fit after his lengthy holdout while renegotiating his contract, found Ezra Hendrickson out on the left wing with a well-timed pass.
Hendrickson glanced up and sent a ball into the path of the onrushing Cobi Jones, who was being dogged every step by Columbus defender Michael Clark.
Jones got to the ball first and redirected it past Crew goalkeeper Mark Dougherty for his first goal of the season.
Columbus claimed that Jones had been offside when the ball was passed, but MLS officials have been instructed to give the benefit of any doubt to the attacking player and the goal stood.
It took the Crew only 11 minutes to respond.
Galaxy goalkeeper Kevin Hartman made a superb save in the 63rd minute, flinging himself down and to his right to block a sharp header from Crew striker Stern John right on the goal line.
“I still don’t know how Hartman got a hand on it,” Columbus Coach Tom Fitzgerald marveled afterward.
John, the league’s top goal scorer in 1998, was not to be denied, however.
Three minutes later, he latched onto a perfect pass from Brian McBride and fired a fierce shot at precisely the same corner of the net. This time, Hartman could not stop it, the wet and spinning ball squirting through his gloves.
That made the score 1-1 in the 66th minute and another shootout was predictable.
What was not predictable was the farcical manner in which it was conducted. Players have five seconds in which to shoot. There is a clock on the field. The clock is supposed to work.
On Thursday, it failed.
After John had put the Crew ahead by making his shootout attempt, it appeared the clock had not been started in time. No matter, the goal was allowed.
Welton tripped over the ball in trying to tie the score, but still got his shot off inside five seconds. The ball rolled over the line but the goal was disallowed because the clock had expired. Bad call.
McBride made the score 2-0 for the Crew with ease, but then Jones was clipped by Dougherty as he rushed his shot. Again, no call and no goal.
And so it went until Greg Vanney finally ended it by steering his attempt against the right post.
The Galaxy had lost.
The fans trooped out into the night.
There weren’t 4,825 of them.
You can count on that.
“I’m convinced that this team will show what it’s capable of doing,” said Galaxy Coach Octavio Zambrano.
Maybe.
But it would help if Zambrano decided to give some new players a chance. There is no way Jaime Estupinan, for example, can be less effective than Daniel Hernandez. And if the forwards can’t find the net, why not give Marvin Quijano the opportunity?
Questions, questions.
The main one Thursday night, however, was how could MLS have expected anything but the Galaxy’s smallest-ever crowd when it scheduled a night game in midweek and put it live on television?
“I saw some improvement today,” said Zambrano.
He must have been reading from the same script that saw fans where there were none.
Last year’s 24-8 season seems but a distant memory.
