Galaxy Ties Deportivo Saprissa at Home in Champions Cup
The Galaxy managed only a 0-0 tie with Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica on Thursday night at the Home Depot Center.
That leaves Coach Steve Sampson’s team in a hole going into the second leg of the quarterfinal series in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
To advance, the Galaxy has to defeat Saprissa on March 8 in San Jose, Costa Rica, an intimidating spot where even the U.S. national team has never won.
The Galaxy was missing four starters Thursday -- news that came as something of a surprise because Sampson had said Wednesday that only defender Chris Albright would be out.
But in addition to Albright, who is recovering from knee surgery, the Galaxy also was without defender Todd Dunivant, who was said to have suffered a left hip flexor strain in training Tuesday. Also, midfielders Ned Grabavoy and Paulo Nagamura were sidelined by flu-like symptoms and a right chest muscle strain, respectively.
Dunivant’s injury is especially troubling because he, along with Landon Donovan, is supposed to fly to Germany on Saturday for the U.S.-Poland World Cup warmup match in Kaiserslautern on March 1.
The Galaxy said Dunivant’s injury would be reevaluated today to determine whether he can make the trip.
The missing quartet left the Galaxy disjointed and it struggled to impose itself on the game in the first 45 minutes.
The second half was marginally better as Donovan lifted his game and helped create several scoring chances.
The closest of those came in the 57th minute when Donovan chipped the ball over defender Jody Stewart, then saw goalkeeper Jose Francisco Porras partially block his shot. The rebound was headed for the empty net when defender Jervis Drummond cleared it off the line.
In the 77th minute, Porras was forced to fling himself to his right to punch away a header from forward Alan Gordon.
The Galaxy outshot Saprissa, 13-7, including 4-3 in shots on goal.
“For the lineup that we put out there, I thought we had the majority of the match, we dictated most of the play,” Sampson said. “They came to get a result, a 0-0 result. They did their job.”
