Galaxy encouraged by strong road effort
LA making progress after earning point in first road match of season
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"Overall I was encouraged by our performance tonight," Galaxy coach Bruce Arena said afterwards. "We had a little bit of a makeshift lineup due to injuries and suspensions, but I thought the majority of the game we played pretty well.
"We played the majority of the game as a 3-5-2, and were ready to play in a 3-4-3 towards the end when we got the goal," Arena continued. "I don't think the formation matters as much as the movement of the players, the coordination, the communication. And for us tonight it was better than it's been, so that's encouraging. I thought it was a good effort by our guys tonight."
LA fell behind in the fifth minute, when San Jose defender Chris Leitch played a long ball up the middle to Pablo Campos. He broke in on goal alone and calmly slotted a shot past goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts.
"The opening goal, there was some poor communication with the back line. I think A.J. (DeLaGarza) just stepped back to keep Campos on(side)," Arena said. "Besides that, for the most part (the defense) was solid."
While the Galaxy went into the halftime break down a goal, Arena felt they had a chance to at least be level.
"In the first half we had more times with players on the ball in the penalty area than we had in the first three games," he said. "I think we needed to be a little more aggressive in the first half. We had too many guys passing on the responsibility of the pass, when I think we could have taken a look at goal, or taken someone on. As the game went on, we got a little more aggressive."
After the break, the Galaxy began to grow in confidence. Their major adjustment Saturday came with the addition of Jordan, who replaced Mike Magee in the 56th minute.
"B.J.'s pace helped," Arena said, "It changed our attack to have a little more speed there. He did a good job."
Jordan's first scoring chance didn't go so well. In the 70th minute, he dove to head home a cross, and wound up getting kicked by a San Jose defender.
"I got a ball that wasn't (very) good, but I thought I'd attack it," Jordan said. "I went down to do a header and got a boot in the face. It wasn't a nice first play for me, but I shook it off and got back in there."
In the 76th minute, Jordan got another opportunity and scored the Galaxy's goal, tying the game at 1-1.
"We were putting them under quite a bit of pressure and got a corner," Landon Donovan said. "It popped out to Dema (Kovalenko), and he did a good job to get me the ball. From there, I knew there were a lot of guys in front of the goal so I wanted to make sure I put a good cross in front. And BJ did a good job getting on the end of it."
Said Jordan: "On that play, Landon got it out wide and I found myself in the middle of the goal. I made a good run. Landon served a quality ball, and I was just there to put it in the net."
So even though LA remains winless as it prepares to travel to Colorado to take on the Rapids next Saturday, the Galaxy are not looking down.
"Obviously, the early goal we gave up was concerning, but I thought our guys showed a lot of character and some quality at times tonight," Arena said. "Not only got a point but positioned ourselves to steal it end the end with a chance or two. I was encouraged by our guys effort. We have some young guys who are still learning, but it's all part of the process. I think for the first time going on the road this year it was all right."
Said Donovan: "We're doing almost everything right. We've got to stop spotting teams a goal early. (San Jose) didn't have a lot of chances and it's unfortunate that we gave them such an easy one. Our play, in the run of play was good. We were very good defensively, we were good on set pieces. We keep going, and the wins are going to come."
Pete Ratajczak is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
