Ruiz’s Act Already Plays Well in Dallas

With about 15 minutes left in Real Salt Lake’s Major League Soccer match against FC Dallas at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, Salt Lake defender Eddie Pope clattered into fellow U.S. international Eddie Johnson just outside the penalty area.

Johnson went down in a heap and was writhing in apparent pain for several seconds.

Minutes later, after referee Hilario Grajeda had expelled Pope from the game for the foul, Johnson was up and running again, none the worse for wear.

Such incidents happen in soccer all the time as players try to fool referees into punishing opponents. It is not particularly sporting, but it is part of the professional game.

Usually, players do not admit to such tactics. But according to one account, Johnson has done just that, and his admission could have consequences when FC Dallas plays the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center on Saturday night.

“Johnson said he was faking the injury, hoping to draw the foul,” the Dallas Morning News reported Sunday.

“I still can’t do it as well as him,” the newspaper quoted Johnson as saying, in reference to teammate Carlos Ruiz.

Asked Wednesday what he thought of Johnson’s comments, Ruiz said Johnson had never made such a remark.

“He called me on Sunday to tell me that he had not said such a thing,” Ruiz said in a conference call from Dallas.

“I know that with the respect I have for Eddie Johnson and the respect he has for me that he would never say such a thing. But this is a game called football and we do all we can to get any advantage possible when we are on the field.”

Pope and Real Salt Lake Coach John Ellinger were not amused.

“It was a typical foul; certainly not a red card,” Pope told the Salt Lake Tribune. “If the referee reviews it himself, he won’t think it was a red card either. And if he does think it was a red card, he doesn’t deserve to be” refereeing.

Said Ellinger: “The red card was a disaster. There’s not a malicious bone in [Pope’s] body. It was a little bit too much.”

The 3-0 victory by FC Dallas left it unbeaten at 3-0-1 and in first place in the Western Conference with 10 points, four ahead of the Galaxy, which is 2-1.

Dallas, which won a combined 16 games in the last two seasons and failed to make the playoffs both years, has been transformed in 2005 with the addition of Ruiz to the attack, Richard Mulrooney to the midfield and Greg Vanney to the defense.

In Johnson, Ruiz and the hugely influential Ronnie O’Brien, Coach Colin Clarke has a trio of attacking players to pester opposing defenses, but getting strikers Ruiz and Johnson to work in tandem will be the key to the team’s success.

“I think it’s gotten better with every game,” Johnson said after FC Dallas’ previous visit to the Home Depot Center, a 3-1 victory over Chivas USA on April 16. “It’s something we’ve just got to keep working on.

“But it’s good, man. He’s a great player. He’s nice to play with. He takes some of the pressure off of me.”

Johnson has scored three times and Ruiz twice in Dallas’ first four games, but Ruiz, acquired by Dallas from the Galaxy in a March trade that allowed Landon Donovan to come to Los Angeles, said individual glory was not what they were seeking.

“It doesn’t matter what the media says,” he said, referring to a perceived rivalry between them. “We want to play well together. My aim this year is to lift Dallas to a championship, and if he scores a lot of goals and I score a lot of goals, the likelihood of that increases.”

The race involving the Galaxy and Dallas probably will last well into October, but Saturday’s incident involving Johnson and Pope could have an immediate impact.

From now on, MLS referees will be watching Johnson just as closely as they have watched Ruiz for the last three seasons.