Galaxy Finds Common Ground in Win
One speaks Spanish. One speaks German. One speaks English.
Whatever the language, all three understood each other perfectly Saturday night as Guatemala’s Carlos Ruiz, Austria’s Andreas Herzog and the United States’ Jovan Kirovski each scored for the Galaxy in a dramatic 3-2 victory over the New England Revolution.
Not bad for a season-opener.
“The language of football is universal; you really don’t need to communicate verbally to be understood,” Ruiz had said Friday afternoon.
The Galaxy proved him correct one day later.
A crowd of 25,152 at the Home Depot Center was treated to a seesaw match in which the Galaxy twice took the lead and twice was tied before eventually walking off the field with the three points.
“Any time you put together good soccer players, they’re going to understand each other,” said Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid. “I mean, soccer’s soccer.
“We knew that Jovan was a good fit for Carlos because of his activity and his work rate. And we knew that Andreas is a guy who can deliver the ball.
“So what happened tonight is our team found Andy [Herzog] a lot and that gave him the opportunity to play-make for us. He rewarded us not only by play-making but also by scoring a good goal.”
Herzog, sporting a green Austrian Tyrol-style hat as he came off the field to be greeted by European television crews, said the quality of the match compared well to his experiences in the Austrian and German leagues.
“It was a very good game,” he said. “It was [played at] high speed on each side. There was a lot of space. I knew that players in the United States are 100% fit. For us, the most important thing was to see that we have a good team. Last year, the team [went] the first eight games with no win, so this was important to us.”
It was Ruiz, almost inevitably, who scored the Galaxy’s first goal of the season, in the 30th minute.
Herzog passed the ball to Arturo Torres, sprinting down the right sideline, and Torres crossed the ball into the box, where Ruiz bundled it into the net from close range with his head and shoulder.
New England responded right away and Jose Cancela came close to scoring when his shot clipped the post.
The Galaxy lost its way in the first 10 minutes of the second half, allowing New England to get back into the game.
The tying goal came in the 48th minute, when one-time Duke basketball player Jay Heaps fired a shot into the roof of the net after an initial shot by Cancela had been blocked.
Heaps averages a goal about every 10 or 11 games, so this one came as a surprise to Los Angeles.
The Galaxy regained the advantage in the 59th minute, however, and it was the combination of Ruiz, Herzog and Kirovski that created it.
Ruiz sent a square pass in from the right, Kirovski distracted the New England defense with a dummy run and Herzog latched onto the ball and scored from about 18 yards.
Nine minutes later, the Revolution again was on even terms.
Pat Noonan made a powerful run down the left flank and finished with a shot that beat Hartman at the near post.
At 2-2, it was still very much anyone’s game.
One minute later, Kirovski made sure it belonged to the Galaxy.
Galaxy midfielder Sasha Victorine beat a defender on the left and passed inside to the U.S. national team forward, who unleashed a tremendous shot that was a worthy game-winner.
“We’ve got three good players up front, we can read each other,” Kirovski said of the impressive way he, Ruiz and Herzog clicked. “We know how to play the game and you could see tonight we combined really well.”
No matter the language difference.
