Galaxy Hopes It Has the Right Answer for Fusion’s Offense

A quick multiple-choice question for followers of Major League Soccer: In its lineup this season, the Miami Fusion features:

A) The greatest collection of goal scorers ever assembled on an MLS team?

B) The most hapless bunch of misfits ever to take the field?

C) Both of the above?

The third choice is correct. The Fusion, which plays the Galaxy tonight at 7:30 at the Rose Bowl, has an abundance of talent in its forward and midfield lines.

There is, for instance, Eric Wynalda, the all-time leading scorer in U.S. national team history. Then there’s Roy Lassiter, the all-time leading scorer in MLS history.

Consider such offensive threats as former Galaxy striker Welton of Brazil, Colombian forward Diego Serna and three talented midfielders in Jamaica’s Andy Williams, the United States’ Henry Gutierrez and Guatemala’s Martin Machon (another former Galaxy player), and it’s easy to see why Coach Ivo Wortman’s team has been regarded as the one to beat in the Eastern Division.

Regard again.

The Fusion (1-1-3) has been held without a goal in its last three games. It hasn’t scored in a club-record 315 minutes. Tempers are beginning to fray.

“Go ask the forwards. I’m a left back,” Wynalda was quoted as saying this week. “We need to get behind the defenses, and we’re not doing that.”

Wynalda hinted that he and Lassiter are not being properly used.

“You can ask the coach and I’m sure he’ll tell you who it was that didn’t stick to the game plan,” he told the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “I’m not the coach and it’s not my position to say. I’d like to see what I and Roy can do up front. I think we can make a difference.”

Wortman, pleased by a defense that has given up only three goals in five games but puzzled by the lack of scoring, might shuffle his lineup tonight.

It might take more than that to defeat the Galaxy (3-0-2).

“Just because you have very good goal scorers, it doesn’t mean everything is going to work,” Fusion midfielder Jim Rooney said after last Saturday’s 1-0 loss to the Fire in Chicago. “You have to work hard at it. It’s not just the three guys, the so-called goal scorers; we [the defense and midfield] need to help them, too. They need help, everybody needs help.”

Said Lassiter, who held out in preseason while trying to win a new contract from MLS: “Offensively, we have to get our act together and be more of a threat.”

Tonight might mark that moment.