Galaxy Is Up for a Road Test

Rather than risk losing it en route to Washington D.C., the Galaxy decided to carry on its most valuable asset -- its self-confidence.

The Galaxy has had its confidence tested to the limit on the road this season; the defending Major League Soccer champion has yet to win a league match away from the Home Depot Center.

But winning on the artificial turf of Seahawks Stadium in a U.S. Open Cup game last week -- even if it was against the A-League’s Seattle Sounders -- and shutting out a national team in an exhibition on Wednesday -- a scoreless draw with undermanned China -- have the Galaxy thinking it can improve on its 0-6-5 MLS road record tonight against D.C. United.

“It’s now a matter of us getting in more of a regular rhythm and a matter of playing well,” Coach Sigi Schmid said.

The Galaxy began the season with a league-record eight road games while the HDC was under construction, and went 0-4-4.

“We could never gain our confidence,” Schmid said.

And they’ve had trouble scoring. The Galaxy has been outscored, 14-7, and is the only MLS team still searching for a road win.

“But now if you look at what we did in August,” Schmid said, “we gained our confidence on the road in Seattle, which helped us as well emotionally, we got ourselves to .500, we’re tied for third and we lost [only] one game.”

Scholes the one?

In a moment of candor, Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira doled out compliments to Manchester United’s Paul Scholes, calling him perhaps the English Premier League’s most challenging player.

“He is a difficult player to pick up, his movement is so good,” Vieira said. “For me, he’s United’s best player and the one I least like facing.”

Scholes, 28, plays as a forward and a midfielder and had a career-high 20 goals last season in leading Manchester past defending champion Arsenal to win its eighth title in 11 years.

A Delayed Start

Six teams, Cagliari and Atalanta among them, are still refusing to play in protest of Serie B’s expansion, but Italy’s second division will begin play Sunday, a week later than scheduled.

At the heart of the protest is the expansion to 24 clubs from 20 under a government decree. The second-division clubs that agreed to the expansion did so on the condition that six clubs would be promoted to Serie A next season, with four Serie A teams demoted to Serie B. But Serie A clubs want five promotions and three demotions.

“We didn’t reach any accord, so things will remain as they are,” Italian League President Adriano Galliani said. “We’ll see who will be on the field on Sunday, and whoever doesn’t [show up] will face the sports judge.”

The four other teams threatening to not play -- Torino, Livorno, Venezia and Ternana -- also risk sanctions, and Cagliari President Massimo Cellino resigned his post and threatened to sell his club in protest.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.