Galaxy Needs Some Help to Finish With Home Edge

The Galaxy and the Colorado Rapids go into tonight’s Major League Soccer game at Mile High Stadium in Denver with similar yet different agendas:

* Los Angeles needs to win to keep alive its slim chance of gaining home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, which begin next week.

* Colorado needs to win to lock up the eighth and final MLS playoff berth. Losing won’t necessarily eliminate the Rapids, but it will leave their future in other hands.

After a 1-0 loss to the Dallas Burn at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday night, Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid made it clear that his team needs to wake up.

“I think the players have got to look inside themselves a little bit,” he said. “I think they’ve got to analyze why they came out flat tonight.”

Could the Galaxy win the MLS Cup this season?

“The way we played [Wednesday], we have no chance,” Schmid said. “We have to raise our game to a very different level. Are we good enough? Yes, but the way we played tonight we’ll exit early.”

Home field will make a big difference.

The Galaxy is one point behind the Tampa Bay Mutiny as both try to finish fourth overall in points and get two home games in the best-of-three first-round playoff series that could begin next Thursday.

The Mutiny plays the Kansas City Wizards in Tampa on Saturday, with forward Mamadou Diallo only one goal shy of tying the single-season scoring record. In other words, he and the Mutiny have an added incentive.

“We needed to finish ahead of Tampa,” Schmid said. “But now that’s a very unlikely scenario because Kansas City [which has clinched first place in the Western Division] doesn’t need to win that game anymore, so [the Wizards] might just hand that game to Tampa.”

Schmid sees no advantage or disadvantage in facing the Mutiny in the first round. The teams split two regular-season games, each winning at home.

“It’s nice to know who we’re playing and maybe that’s what this team needs,” he said. “Maybe they’re just tired and they want to get through the regular season. But on Friday we need to finish with a good game, play well.

“You play whoever you get. If you want to win the championship, you have to beat everybody. Certainly, [Danny] Califf has played well against Diallo, but we don’t have Califf for that series. [Greg] Vanney or Robin [Fraser] or [Paul] Caligiuri, any of those three should be able to play well against him.”

Colorado, meanwhile, doesn’t yet have the luxury of looking ahead to a playoff opponent.

Coach Glenn Myernick’s team has 40 points, two more than either the Columbus Crew or the Miami Fusion, heading into the season’s final weekend.

If the Rapids lose tonight and either the Crew or Fusion wins on Saturday, Colorado’s season is over. If the Rapids tie, they will have 41 points and will have to wait until Saturday’s games are over to learn their playoff fate.

David Kramer, the former Galaxy goalkeeper now with the Rapids, put tonight’s game in perspective.

“We are looking at this game as a playoff game,” he said.

Schmid hopes the Galaxy does the same.