A Small Crowd for Galaxy Tie
Up in the Rose Bowl press box Wednesday night was a player who just might be the answer the Galaxy is looking for.
If Luis Hernandez wants to go to Europe so badly, maybe he can be sent to Bayer Leverkusen in Germany and the Galaxy can get a local kid, Landon Donovan, in return.
The U.S. Olympic team midfielder/forward from Redlands certainly could do as well as Hernandez and might even put a few goals in the back of the net and a few fans in the stands.
But by halftime Wednesday, Donovan had left, in all likelihood bored to tears by the first 45 minutes in what eventually became a 1-1 tie after overtime between the Galaxy and the Chicago Fire.
Donovan, 18, is only on Bayern Leverkusen’s reserve team, but the quality of play he experiences in the Bundesliga far surpasses what he saw Wednesday night.
Once again, Hernandez did not score, stretching his string of futile Major League Soccer minutes to 537 and counting.
Once again, the promised thousands who were supposed to flock to the Arroyo Seco to see Mexico’s “El Matador” failed to materialize. Only 10,271turnedout, the fifth consecutive decline in attendance since 40,303 came to see Hernandez’s MLS debut on May 20.
At this rate, the Galaxy front office is probably pleased the team is leaving Friday on a nine-day, three-game trip.
The Central Division-leading Fire (9-7-2) came into the game having scored 19 goals in its previous six matches. The Galaxy, by comparison, had scored only six goals in the same number of games.
Until the 75th minute, however, it didn’t appear that either would score again.
The first half, which ended scoreless, was a game of cat and mouse, with neither team willing to fully commit all its resources on offense for fear of being hit on the counter-attack.
That said, Chicago looked more in control than Los Angeles (7-3-7 and in second place in the Western Division) and generated the more dangerous scoring chances.
The Fire finally broke through in the 75th minute, when Diego Gutierrez and Ante Razov exchanged give-and-go passes before Gutierrez found Josh Wolff free on his right.
Wolff took the pass and hit an angles shot that flew into the lower left corner of the Galaxy net. It was his fifth goal in the last five games.
Chicago appeared able to hold the lead, but a dubious call by referee Kevin Terry in the 89th minute gave the Galaxy the chance to walk away with a tie.
The call came when Hernandez lofted the ball into the penalty area and Galaxy midfielder Mauricio Cienfuegos and Fire midfielder Jesse Marsch both went for it. Marsch appeared to do no more than lean on the shorter Cienfuegos, but Terry saw a foul and awarded a penalty kick.
Greg Vanney blasted the ball into the lower left corner past goalkeeper Zach Thornton and sent the game to overtime.
A good save by Galaxy goalkeeper Kevin Hartman on a fierce shot by Wolff 3:58 into overtime helped preserve the tie.
If Chicago Coach Bob Bradley was upset by Terry’s call, he didn’t show it.
“It’s obviously a tough call at that point in the game,” he said. “It’s frustrating, because we feel that we played well tonight. I’m frustrated to not get three points [for a victory] but pleased with the effort for sure.”
While not exactly jumping to sign Hernandez himself, Bradley understands the Mexican striker’s frustrations.
“Obviously, he’s quick and he’s alert and he’s dangerous in those ways. But it’s always difficult when a player comes into a team halfway through the season because certain things take time. That makes it hard for the team and hard for the player.
“The other thing that I would say is that MLS is a more difficult league to play in than most people think. It especially seems that MLS doesn’t get that much respect in Mexico. I don’t know why.
“We all understand that our league has a long way to go, but at the same time when you look at the foreign players who have come into this league, a lot of them in an honest moment after they were done would tell you, ‘You know what, that league was better than anybody gave it credit for.’ ”
Donovan, who resurfaced outside the locker rooms after the final whistle, also had a generous word for Hernandez.
“He didn’t do too bad,” Donovan said.
And that’s about all that can be said.
