Crew Gives Schmid What He Wanted
Revenge, so it’s said, is a dish best served cold.
Is 20 months later cold enough?
The Columbus Crew scored in the last minute of injury time Saturday night to defeat the Galaxy, 1-0, and give Coach Sigi Schmid a victory that he had dreamed about ever since being fired by the Galaxy in August 2004.
Kyle Martino did the trick, slotting the ball just inside the right post and into the back of the net after Galaxy goalkeeper Kevin Hartman had blocked Crew midfielder Eddie Gaven’s sharp cross from the right.
The victory at the Home Depot Center was the first of the year for Columbus (1-2-1). The loss dropped the Galaxy to the same record four weeks into the Major League Soccer season.
When referee Mauricio Navarro blew the final whistle, Schmid was hugged by his assistant coaches while his players danced around in delight.
Galaxy Coach Steve Sampson glanced over momentarily, then trudged off the field. Handshakes were not exchanged.
“We were probably too busy celebrating,” Schmid said.
Said Crew striker Sebastien Rozental: “In our minds, we wanted to win for Sigi because we appreciate the way that he treats us. Of course we wanted to win for him.”
Crew goalkeeper Jon Busch echoed the sentiment.
“He didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but we all knew” how much Schmid wanted to win his first game in Los Angeles since being dismissed by the Galaxy. “Everybody pitched in today. It was fantastic.”
Columbus outshot the Galaxy, 13-8, including 6-3 in shots on target. The Crew twice came close to scoring in the first half, and when the ball finally did go in the net it provided what could only be described as a fair result.
“It was good for us for a number of reasons,” Schmid said. “Obviously, it was good to win. It was good to win in L.A. But more importantly for our team it was a little bit of a coming of age. I thought we showed a lot of heart and desire. It was very satisfying for us as a young team.”
The first half ended scoreless but only because of some desperate last-ditch defending by the Crew, and because of Rozental’s appalling bad luck.
The two best scoring chances, in fact, both came late in the half and both belonged to Columbus.
In the 38th minute, Rozental tried a chip shot from 27 yards. The ball flew over Hartman and clanged against the crossbar.
A few inches lower and the Crew would have taken the lead.
Almost immediately afterward, bad luck struck again. This time Crew midfielder Jacob Thomas was racing side by side with Landon Donovan when he stretched out a leg to reach the ball, took a tumble and sprained his right ankle.
As early as the 16th minute, Thomas, a 29-year-old Texan who has spent the last eight seasons in the lower divisions of the German Bundesliga, had taken a fierce shot that forced Hartman to punch the ball away at the near post.
Thomas, who was taken off the field on a stretcher after the injury, was replaced in the lineup by Martino.
Two minutes before the half ended, Rozental slammed a rebound toward the unguarded Galaxy net after Hartman had blocked an earlier shot. The ball caromed off back-tracking defender Ugo Ihemelu and away for a corner kick.
The Galaxy mounted several promising attacking moves of its own, most of them involving some combination of Donovan, Cobi Jones, Todd Dunivant, Paulo Nagamura and Ned Grabavoy.
Goals, which have been difficult to come by all season, never came, however, and in the end it was Columbus that grabbed the three points and put a smile back on Schmid’s face.
“We didn’t finish our chances, that was the bottom line,” Sampson said. “It seems to be a recurring theme.”
