Jovan Kirovski scores twice in Galaxy’s 4-1 victory over Houston
Playing without their two top scorers for the fourth straight match, there had to be some question as to whether the Galaxy could keep producing goals Saturday against the Houston Dynamo. And that question persisted for nearly a minute until Jovan Kirovski scored on a header, starting the Galaxy on its way to a relatively easy 4-1 victory in front of 20,826 at the Home Depot Center.
Kirovski scored off a crossing pass from the right side by Sean Franklin in the game’s first minute. He scored again in the 21st minute, again off a pass from Franklin. The Galaxy scored twice more in the second half on individual efforts by Tristan Bowen and Alex Cazumba.
In light of the fact that Edson Buddle, who leads the team with nine goals, and Landon Donovan, who leads in assists with nine, are now with the U.S. team in South Africa — Buddle scored twice in America’s 3-1 friendly win over Australia on Saturday — the Galaxy’s ability to produce so much offense speaks well of the team’s depth.
“This is the deepest team I’ve been on,” Kirovski said. “Landon and Edson aren’t here, so other guys just step up. There’s great quality on the team.”
And that quality tends to show up early. The Galaxy has made a habit of scoring early. Last week, on the road against Columbus, they scored in the game’s 10th minute on their way to a 2-0 victory.
Of course, Saturday also spoke volumes about a middling Houston (5-7-1) team that lost for the third straight time and was playing its third match in eight days.
“Give Houston credit, they gave us a good game for the first 45 minutes,” said Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena. “But I think in the second half it caught up with them. You could see they were tired.”
The Galaxy improved to a league-best 10-0-2, matching the MLS mark for the best start by any team after 12 games. The 1996 Galaxy team went 12-0 in the MLS’s inaugural season.
The Galaxy did have its shutout streak snapped. The team entered Saturday’s game having held opponents scoreless for 456 minutes. But in the game’s seventh minute, Houston’s Cam Weaver attacked and was met at the penalty area by Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts who, while trying to clear the ball, collided with Weaver, his knee appearing to crash into Weaver’s chest. Weaver went down, Ricketts went down and the ball ricocheted off Weaver and slowly rolled into the Galaxy goal.
“We didn’t do well on that play,” Arena said.
Of course, that was about the only play the Galaxy didn’t.
