Schmid’s Focus on Long Term
And so, a Major League Soccer regular season that began in turmoil for the Galaxy comes down to the final game.
If the Galaxy (19-12) can defeat the Kansas City Wizards (8-23) at Arrowhead Stadium tonight, it will be the Western Conference champion. Not that Coach Sigi Schmid is overly concerned about that.
He’s looking further ahead--to the playoffs and, specifically, the MLS championship game in Foxboro, Mass., on Nov. 21 and a possible rematch of the 1996 final against Washington D.C. United, the Eastern Conference winner.
“I just want to see the Galaxy against anybody in the final,” Schmid said. “I just want to make sure we’re there. Who we play there is whoever we play there. We’re not afraid of anybody. But we’ve still got five more games that we want to win before we get to the MLS championship.”
Schmid took over for former coach Octavio Zambrano five games into the season with the team’s record at 2-3. Since then, the Galaxy has gone 17-9.
But the Galaxy will have to play considerably better than it did in the second half of a 4-3 loss to the Burn in Dallas last Sunday to make it 18-9. Then, it allowed a 3-1 halftime lead to evaporate.
“Mentally, we left before the game was over,” defender Greg Vanney said.
“We’ve never really been in the situation this year where we’ve had a nice lead and given it away. Once we ducked out, so to speak, it was hard for us to turn it around.
“A lot of the problem was, we were just dropping back [on defense] and we weren’t getting any pressure on the ball. . . . As a group, we weren’t working together.
“Last year, we would get ourselves in the same kinds of situations, but because we were so good offensively, and so quick to counterattack, we would just keep scoring goals. We would keep pressure on teams.
“But we’re not the same [this season]. This team has to work and has to defend together. We don’t score goals as easily as we did. So we have to build our offense from our defense.”
The Galaxy’s goal output has dropped sharply. In 1998, the team scored a league-record 85 goals in 32 games (a 2.66 average). This season, it has 51 goals in 31 games (1.65).
Making matters more difficult tonight will be the absence of playmaker Mauricio Cienfuegos, who is on national team duty with El Salvador. Schmid said he will use Roy Myers and Clint Mathis as his midfield schemers in place of Cienfuegos.
“We’ll have Roy and Clint on the field, so I think that will give us some options to get forward,” he said.
Myers sat out the Dallas game while recovering from an injured left knee but is fully fit now.
“I’ve played there [in Cienfuegos’ position] before, so it’s no problem,” the Costa Rican midfielder said.
The Galaxy (with 51 points) is assured of finishing first or second in the conference and having the home-field advantage in the first round of the best-of-three playoff series, which opens at the Rose Bowl on Oct. 17.
Its opponent won’t be decided until the regular season ends Sunday. The second-place Colorado Rapids (48 points), the third-place Burn (48 points) and the defending MLS champion Chicago Fire (fourth place, 47 points) are all involved in the scramble for playoff position.
