Galaxy Cools Off Crew After Getting a Late Goal By Mathis
It wasn’t cold enough to call in the sled dogs or to start building igloos, but they did run out of blankets at the Columbus Crew gift shop.
When the Galaxy kicked off against the Crew at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the afternoon snow flurries had stopped, but the temperature had nose-dived. Thirty-six degrees was the game-time reading.
Factor in the wind chill, and it was a frigid 19 degrees.
“Man, it was cold,” said Dante Washington, the Crew striker who burned Los Angeles with a goal in each half.
That sent a shiver down the Galaxy’s spine, but didn’t stop it from twice coming back on goals by Ezra Hendrickson and Clint Mathis to earn a 2-2 tie after overtime and keep its Major League Soccer unbeaten record intact.
More than that, it sent a message.
“It was something we talked about once we got here,” Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid said. “We heard that it might snow and we talked about how we wanted to be tougher.”
So goalkeeper Kevin Hartman came out for the warmups--a misnomer if ever there was one--in aT-shirt. Midfielder Mauricio Cienfuegos wore no sweatpants. Neither did defender Joe Franchino.
Cold, what cold?
Schmid is intent on destroying the myth that the Galaxy is a warm-weather team and can’t handle the rain or cold. It’s a weakness wrongly pinned on many Los Angeles teams, he said.
“In all sports, every city wants to beat L.A. and every team always thinks that L.A. teams are Hollywood, they’re prima donnas and stuff,” he said. “It’s just a matter of us establishing, ‘Hey, you can have us down and we’re not going to get beat. We’re going to come back.’ ”
As the Galaxy did in overcoming a 2-0 deficit to tie New England last week, it twice came from a goal down to improve its season mark to 2-0-2.
Washington got the Crew (1-2-1) off to a fast start, beating Hartman from about 15 yards with a rising shot in the 15th minute, to the delight of the 10,797 hardy souls on hand.
“Any time you’re inside the 18 [yard box], you have to pull the trigger,” Washington said.
The fans slapped their gloves together. Frozen gladness. It didn’t last long.
Two minutes later, Cienfuegos back-heeled a free kick to Greg Vanney, whose shot ricocheted off a Crew player and landed in front of Hendrickson.
“As the shot was taken, I started running in toward the goal for any rebound, because it was kind of wet and kind of slippery,” Hendrickson said. “Lo and behold, the ball came to me and I had to put it away.”
Washington restored Columbus’ lead in the 66th minute, beating Hartman from close range on a play that could have been whistled as offside. Certainly, Cienfuegos and Vanney protested what they perceived to be a bad non-call by referee Marcel Yonan.
“When the ball goes in the net, you’ve got to yell something,” Washington said of Galaxy claims. “Offsides, I guess, was the best thing they could think of. Maybe they said something else after that.”
Schmid sent Paul Caligiuri, Zak Ibsen and Sasha Victorine on as second-half substitutes and it was Caligiuri and Ibsen who set up the tying goal with less than three minutes to play.
A fine cross from Ibsen on the left flank was headed in by Mathis.
“If you hit enough [shots], something’s going to go in,” Mathis said. “Tonight I was able to get that header. I should have probably had a couple of other ones.”
Ibsen, meanwhile, just wanted to get back to the Southern California warmth.
“This was one of the few times when I could draw on my experience [of playing] in Germany in a positive way,” he said. “There were so many times when it was just freezing. This is a spring day over there.
“When your toes are cold, you can’t really feel the ball. The good thing about it is that my style of play is just running around like crazy anyway, so I got warm quick.”
And left the Crew out in the cold.
