Galaxy Ties Burn, Waits for Striker
A crowd of 20,417, the fifth-largest in Dallas Burn history, showed up at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday night.
Some fans might have been hoping to catch a glimpse of Luis Hernandez. If so, they were out of luck. The Mexican striker is still in Monterrey or Mexico City or wherever it is that he and Major League Soccer are trying to hammer out a contract that will bring him to Los Angeles.
What the fans got instead was a game between the Burn and the Galaxy that crackled with offense, one that saw two unusual goals, and ended, 1-1, after overtime.
But first things first.
The ongoing Hernandez saga took another twist Saturday night when it was learned that Tigres of Monterrey, the Mexican first division club from whom MLS is trying to buy Hernandez, has itself changed ownership.
That, apparently, has complicated the contract negotiations, which the Galaxy had hoped would be finalized Friday.
Dallas Coach Dave Dir, the league’s master of sarcasm, said he feels sorry for unbeaten Los Angeles, now 5-0-4.
“I kind of feel bad for them,” Dir told the Dallas Morning News. “They haven’t had any players and I think they need Hernandez. I don’t know why they just don’t give him to them. They deserve some players.”
Meanwhile, the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion in its Saturday edition quoted Hernandez’s agent as saying that he expected the player to be in Los Angeles by Monday or Tuesday.
Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid doesn’t know what to expect. He already has told Clint Mathis, Joe Franchino and Roy Myers that they are leaving in order to complete the Hernandez deal.
“I don’t know where it stands,” he said after Saturday’s game. “My understanding is that on Monday there are supposed to be some further decisions or discussions. The one who knows is [MLS vice president] Ivan [Gazidis]. Right now we’re just waiting to hear how it proceeds.”
Asked if there is a possibility that if the deal falls apart the Galaxy will have to take back the three players, Schmid said: “That I don’t know. That’s something that Ivan can answer.”
Gazidis, however, consistently has refused to admit that MLS is even talking to Hernandez, a stance reflected in his most recent statement Friday:
“I’ve seen a lot of press regarding Luis Hernandez,” Gazidis said. “I want to reemphasize the league has never mentioned Luis Hernandez’s name.”
The name being mentioned at the Cotton Bowl was that of forward Aleksey Korol, the Ukrainian youngster from Indiana University who was making his first MLS start, in place of suspended striker Ariel Graziani.
It was Korol’s superb diagonal pass on a Dallas counter-attack after a Los Angeles corner kick that led to the Burn’s goal in the dying seconds of the first half.
The Dallas defense cleared the corner, Korol sent a 30-yard pass to Jorge Rodriguez, who suddenly found himself with only defender Paul Caligiuri and goalkeeper Kevin Hartman to beat. Hartman came out to block his shot, but Rodriguez slipped the ball to Jason Kreis, whose angled shot from 15 yards flashed past the back-tracking Caligiuri, with the rest of the Galaxy defense still upfield.
“We just got caught,” Schmid said. “They got forward before we got back.”
The goal ended Hartman’s string of three consecutive shutouts. He had not been scored on in 342 minutes.
Earlier, the Galaxy created a handful of excellent scoring chances, but were thwarted by the hustling Burn defenders, who cleared at least two shots off the goal line.
Finally, it was Caligiuri who tied the score in unexpected fashion in the 55th minute with a 25-yard shot that ricocheted off another player and left Dallas goalkeeper Matt Jordan helpless.
“It deflected of someone, it was an unlucky play,” Jordan said.
Said Schmid: “Goals change the complexion of the game. If you score them, then the game opens up and everything’s different. It was a good game for the fans, it was exciting at both ends of the field, but right now, our forwards aren’t scoring goals and our forwards need to score goals . . .”
Schmid paused, then picked up a sly prompt:
”. . . or our forwards need to arrive.”
Said Korol of the Burn, now 4-4-1: “They had some chances, we had some chances. I think it was a deserved tie for both teams.”
Next up for the Galaxy are two games this week, against the Earthquakes at San Jose on Wednesday night and at the Rose Bowl against slumping MLS champion D.C. United (2-7-1) Saturday evening.
Schmid already has lit the fuse on the latter game.
“I’m a lot happier being us than D.C. right now,” he said.
