Galaxy Confident It Can Make It Up

If there are those who doubt that the Galaxy can overcome the Colorado Rapids tonight in Major League Soccer’s conference semifinals, Jovan Kirovski is not one of them.

“I think we have good players,” the Galaxy forward said. “Offensively, I think we have players who can turn things around. I’m confident in our team.”

What the Galaxy has to turn around is the lead that Colorado holds after winning the first match of the two-game playoff series, 1-0, at Denver last Friday, when Rapid goalkeeper Joe Cannon was unbeatable.

To advance to the conference final against the winner of the Kansas City-San Jose series, the Galaxy has to defeat the Rapids by at least two goals in regulation or overtime or else get through on penalty kicks if the series remains tied after 120 minutes.

Kirovski, whose eight goals this season include six against Dallas but none against Colorado, says Cannon can be beaten, even though the goals have been in short supply for the Galaxy of late.

“I can’t explain it,” he said of the scoring drought. “We have good finishers on the team. I think it will eventually come for us.

“I mean look at Friday, how unlucky we were with Cannon coming up with big saves. That’s the nature of the game. You never know, maybe [today] we’ll put away three or four. We just have to be confident.”

Trailing, 1-0, in the total-goals series, the last thing the Galaxy needs is to fall another goal behind and then need three to advance. The Galaxy has not scored three goals in a game since June 12.

“We don’t want to concede an early goal; that would be really difficult to come back from,” Kirovski said. “We want to go out and play our game. We want to try to get on top of them early, put pressure on them early, and we want to score first.”

The Galaxy has to find a way past Cannon, but before that it has to get by a Colorado defense fronted by Pablo Mastroeni, a U.S. national team defensive midfielder who was as effective as Cannon in the series’ first game.

“The way they play in the midfield, Pablo just sits in front of the back four,” Kirovski said, adding that the Galaxy has to “get down the wings and get crosses in” to him and striker Carlos Ruiz.

“We’re creating enough chances to score goals,” he said, “we just need to put them away. I think we just need to stick to it and hopefully on Saturday they’ll come.”

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GALAXY TONIGHT

vs. Colorado, 7

Fox Sports World

Site -- Home Depot Center.

Radio -- KRLA (870); KMXE (830).

Records (regular season) -- Galaxy 11-9-10, Rapids 10-9-11.

Record vs. Rapids -- 1-0-3 (regular season); 0-1 (playoffs).

Update -- The Galaxy will have defender Ryan Suarez, playmaker Andreas Herzog and winger Arturo Torres available after the three sat out the last game because of injuries. Los Angeles is 8-2-5 at home; Colorado is 3-8-4 on the road.

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MLS Conference Semifinal Schedule

Second games of home-and-home, aggregate-goal series (all times Pacific):

EASTERN CONFERENCE

* No. 3 MetroStars at No. 2 D.C. United, tonight, 4, Fox Sports World (D.C. United leads, 2-0)

* No. 4 New England at No. 1 Columbus, Sunday, 2 p.m., ESPN2 (New England leads, 1-0)

WESTERN CONFERENCE

* No. 4 San Jose at No. 1 Kansas City, tonight, 5:30 (San Jose leads, 2-0)

* No. 3 Colorado at No. 2 Galaxy, tonight, 7, Fox Sports World (Colorado leads, 1-0)