Honor for Victorine, a Victory for Galaxy
Sasha Victorine was in the Galaxy locker room at the Rose Bowl Wednesday evening, dressing for a game against the San Jose Earthquakes and trying to stay calm.
Not because Major League Soccer’s Earthquakes instill great fear in anyone--they lost to the Galaxy, 2-1--but because of the news Victorine had received earlier in the day:
He’s going to the Sydney Olympics.
U.S. Coach Clive Charles added Victorine, 22, of Carmichael, Calif., and another former UCLA player, veteran goalkeeper Brad Friedel, to his 18-player roster, electing to take them to Australia in place of midfielder Chris Armas and goalkeeper Adin Brown, both of whom are injured.
“It’s a little bittersweet,” Victorine said. “It’s unfortunate that they’ve gotten hurt, but it’s left an opening for me to get in.”
This has been an up-and-down year for Victorine, who was a starter on the U.S. Under-23 national team in the spring but was injured shortly before the Olympic qualifying tournament and was dropped from the squad.
When Charles selected his roster on Aug. 15, he named Victorine as an alternate, but until the subsequent injuries to Armas and Brown, it didn’t appear that he would be going to Sydney.
“Obviously it’s a great honor for Sasha to get selected,” said Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid, who nevertheless has mixed feelings about losing three players--Danny Califf and Peter Vagenas also are on the U.S. Olympic team--on the eve of the MLS playoffs.
The addition of Victorine and Friedel means the Bruin contingent on the U.S. squad has gone from two to four.
“We’ve doubled, we’re sort of like rabbits,” said Schmid, who spent 19 successful years in Westwood. “It’s a great honor for UCLA to have four and a great honor for the Galaxy to have three, that’s more than any MLS team.
“Unfortunately, they’re three starters, so that hurts us in the near term, but we have people who get paid money to play the game and they’ll do the job.”
The Galaxy (14-8-8) had three starters missing Wednesday night, what with Luis Hernandez, Cobi Jones and Mauricio Cienfuegos on World Cup duty for Mexico, the U.S. and El Salvador, respectively.
It showed. While Los Angeles created a handful of scoring chances, it squandered all but two of them in front of a crowd of 11,974.
The game’s first goal came in the 40th minute when Simon Elliott sent a pass to Victorine, who headed it to George, who beat San Jose goalkeeper Jon Conway from close range.
The Earthquakes (6-16-8) tied it up in the 89th minute when Califf was called for a foul on Wojtek Krakowiak and referee Michel Kennedy awarded San Jose a penalty kick from which Dario Brose scored.
In the third minute of injury time, Ezra Hendrickson sent a cross in from the left flank, Vagenas played the ball back out to Sebastien Vorbe and the Haitian forward cracked a 20-yard shot past Conway for the game-winner.
The victory lifted the Galaxy into a tie for first place with the Kansas City Wizards. Los Angeles has two game remaining, the Wizards have three.
“It was an emotional win because we won it after the PK [penalty kick],” Schmid said. “The most important thing was for us to get three points.”
Around the League
Rookie Wes Hart, a former Columbine High star, scored the winning goal in the 72nd minute as the Colorado Rapids beat the Miami Fusion, 3-1, Wednesday night at Denver. Colorado is tied with Dallas for the seventh playoff spot, but holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Burn. Miami forward Roy Lassiter, the league’s career scoring leader, was ejected in the 75th minute for elbowing Lance Key. . . . The Dallas Burn lost to the Fire at Chicago, 4-0, as Josh Wolff and DaMarcus Beasley scored two goals each. The Fire, with 48 points, remained three points behind Central Division-leading Tampa Bay. Chicago’s defense held the Burn to five shots, despite missing regular defenders Carlos Bocanegra, C.J. Brown, Lubos Kubik and Andrew Lewis who were out with injuries.
. . . Mamadou Diallo scored three goals, increasing his MLS leading goal total to 26, as Tampa Bay beat the Crew, 4-3, at Columbus, Ohio. Diallo scored in the 19th, 52rd and 81st minutes. With two matches remaining, Diallo is just two goals away from surpassing Roy Lassiter’s league record of 27 set in 1996. “It’s important for me to win the scoring title because I want people to recognize me,” Diallo said. . . . Jose Luis Morales scored his first MLS goal in the 59th minute as New England beat D.C. United, 1-0, at Foxboro, Mass. New England had a goal called back in the 68th minute when John Harkes was ruled offside before scoring.
