Galaxy to Put Heat on Burn
Major League Soccer began the final week of the regular season with four coaches trying to calculate the odds of their teams making the playoffs.
Not so Glenn “Mooch” Myernick of the Colorado Rapids, the Galaxy’s opponent in the season finale Friday night at Denver.
“I don’t even bother,” Myernick said. “I never liked math. My favorite class in school was ‘Subtraction, Addition’s Tricky Friend.’ ”
It gets tricky tonight for Dallas, another team struggling to make the playoffs. Dallas and Colorado have 40 points each and hold the final two spots in postseason play. But the playoffs can slip out of Dallas’ grasp if the Burn loses to the Galaxy tonight at the Rose Bowl and Columbus defeats the Fire in Chicago.
Bad news for Coach Dave Dir: Dallas has not won at the Rose Bowl since 1997 and Los Angeles, with a playoff place already secured, is 4-1-1 in its last six games and has a 6-2 edge over Dallas in Pasadena.
Worse yet, the Burn is coming off consecutive losses in which its defense gave up 10 goals to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars and the Chicago Fire.
Still, Dallas has Jason Kreis (11 goals, 11 assists) and Ariel Graziani (14 goals, two assists) up front and there will be some pressure on the Galaxy too, as it tries to regain home-field advantage in the playoffs from the Fire.
Los Angeles almost let that hope slip away in its last game, giving up an 88th-minute goal to San Jose before scoring again in a 2-1 victory over the Earthquakes.
The Galaxy will be without three starters tonight, all of whom leave for Sydney today with the rest of the U.S. Olympic team.
Around the MLS
Adolfo Valencia made a penalty kick with eight minutes to play as the New York-New Jersey MetroStars beat the Miami Fusion, 2-1, in front of 12,369 at East Rutherford, N.J.
The victory boosted the MetroStars’ record to 17-11-3, for an MLS-high 54 points.
The Fusion (11-15-5), with one game left, is tied for ninth place, two points out of the eighth and final postseason spot.
