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Normally, the Galaxy’s aim would be to end its 2000 season on Oct. 15 by playing in Major League Soccer’s championship game in Washington.
This season, however, Coach Sigi Schmid’s team still wants to be playing one week after the MLS title game. In other words, on Oct. 22.
It will have that chance providing it defeats the Chicago Fire tonight in the semifinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
The Open Cup has been in existence for 86 years, but non-soccer fans still find it difficult to understand how teams can participate in two competitions simultaneously. Soccer fans, however, take it in stride. In the rest of the world, it’s a commonplace event.
The best way to explain it is that one is league competition, the other is cup play. The former produces a champion based on round-robin play throughout an entire season and is open only to MLS teams. The latter is a single-elimination knockout tournament open to all teams in the country, professional or amateur.
This year, the Open Cup attracted 154 participants. Over the last three months they have been reduced to four semifinalists: the Galaxy, the Fire, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars and the Miami Fusion.
The winner of tonight’s game will play the winner of the Sept. 12 MetroStars-Fusion match in the Open Cup final Oct. 22 at a site to be determined.
This is as far as the Galaxy has ever gone in Open Cup play, but for the Fire it’s old hat. Chicago “did the double” by winning the MLS title and the Open Cup in 1998.
Chicago Coach Bob Bradley grabbed the psychological edge on Saturday when the Fire defeated the Galaxy, 2-1, in an MLS game at Soldier Field. That loss ended three Galaxy streaks:
* It was the first time in 13 games this season that the Galaxy lost after scoring the first goal. Its record is 11-1-2 when scoring first.
* It was also the Galaxy’s first loss this season when leading at the half. Its record is 9-1-0 in that regard.
* Finally, it was the first time Chicago has beaten the Galaxy since Schmid took over as its coach. Schmid is 3-1-1 against Bradley.
The teams are evenly matched and neither was certain that it could win successive games against the other.
“It’s like a playoff series,” Bradley said after Saturday’s match. “Now it’s up to both teams to look at this game and figure out what parts they want to try to change a little bit.
“The game on Wednesday means an awful lot, a chance to move into the final.
“We know that to get to the final we’ve got to beat a very good team in their backyard. That’s a big challenge.”
The Galaxy will have U.S. Olympic team defender Danny Califf available again after he sat out Saturday on a one-game suspension. That should allow Greg Vanney to move from center back to left back and settle things on the flank.
Both Fire goals Saturday came from attacks down that wing.
Defender Robin Fraser and winger Cobi Jones picked up cards in the 2-1 loss that will force them to miss Saturday’s MLS game in San Jose, but both will be available tonight.
It is also possible that goalkeeper Kevin Hartman will return after knee surgery to reclaim his starting place in the nets from backup Matt Reis, even though Reis has been in good form.
Tonight’s game gives local fans the first chance to seen Bulgarian World Cup ’94 star Hristo Stoitchkov this season. The Fire forward missed the June 21 game at the Rose Bowl because of injury.
