Galaxy routs Sounders, 4-0
— The Seattle Sounders’ game plan Saturday was simple: Don’t let Edson Buddle score.
And in that they were successful, becoming only the third MLS team this season to shut out the league’s scoring leader.
But they didn’t do so well against the rest of the Galaxy. Because with everybody in a Seattle uniform shadowing Buddle, the rest of the team was left to run free, and four of them — Jovan Kirovski, Omar Gonzalez, Todd Dunivant and Landon Donovan — scored their first goals of the season in a 4-0 rout in front of a record crowd of 36,273 at Qwest Field.
Once again, however, it all started with Buddle.
“Edson Buddle had a great game, I thought,” Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena said. “You don’t need to score goals all the time as a forward. He’s part of creating goal-scoring opportunities. He held the ball up well.
“Landon and Edson played very well. By any way of evaluating performances.”
Whether they’ll have a chance to play well together five weeks from now in the World Cup, Arena wouldn’t say.
“That’s not my job,” he said.
But it is Bob Bradley’s. As coach of the U.S. World Cup team, Bradley will be announcing his preliminary roster on Tuesday. And Donovan, the one Galaxy player certain to be on that list, thinks his MLS teammate should be going with him.
“Yeah, absolutely,” said Donovan, who assisted on the Galaxy’s first three goals, then scored the fourth himself off a perfect pass from Buddle.
Buddle, who played his only cap for the U.S. national team in 2003, was too modest to make a case himself. But he said his teammate’s support was appreciated.
“He plays with me every day. He sees me day in and day out,” Buddle said of Donovan. “His words speak volumes. And I think everybody respects his opinion.”
The Galaxy is beginning to earn some respect as well. Because if it wasn’t apparent before, Saturday’s one-sided win made it clear that, behind Donovan and Buddle, the Galaxy is emerging as the dominant team in the MLS.
Not only has the Galaxy (7-0-1) won more games than any team in the league, but it also has scored the most goals (15) and given up the least (two).
The Galaxy has won on the road (3-01) and at home (4-0-0). And with Saturday’s victory, its first-ever over the second-year Sounders (2-3-3), it has even won twice in the same week.
In fact the Galaxy has lost just once anywhere since last September, and that loss came on penalty kicks to Real Salt Lake in November’s MLS Cup championship.
And though they really didn’t need the help, their first goal Saturday was a gift from Seattle keeper Kasey Keller, who let Kirovski’s blast from about 25 yards go right through his hands to give the Galaxy a 1-0 halftime lead.
The Galaxy’s three second-half goals came in rapid succession, with Gonzalez outleaping a pair of defenders to head in Donovan’s corner kick at 52 minutes, Dunivant scoring on a diving header at 57 minutes and Donovan closing things out 10 minutes later by chipping the ball into an open net.
But if you think that’s impressive, just wait.
“We’re going to get better. We have to get better,” Arena said. “Or else we’re not going to be a team that’s around at the end of the year.
“We’re only eight games in. There’s a lot of games left ahead.”
Agreed keeper Donovan Ricketts, whose shutout Saturday was his sixth in eight games: “This is nothing, man. You always can improve. It’s not a perfect game.”
