Orlando City SC 2-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Stage Fright?

Don't know what it is either. Just found it under "stage fright."

It’s not even summer and it already sucks to play in Orlando. As the broadcast booth reminded viewers incessantly during the game, Orlando has won every home game in their new stadium; at four games, that’s more than any other team in Major League Soccer history. That’s neat and impressive, certainly, but it’s a stretch to call Orlando a well-oiled machine.

Consider Orlando’s opening goal: Will Johnson can and will make that aggressive run (especially if one told him he could not), but I’d bet he doesn’t score that goal more than once in every 20 attempts. it was a wild shot, basically, one that took a lucky strike to go where it did. Next, consider Orlando’s most dangerous player on the day, Carlos Rivas. The more I watched Rivas – a fast player, certainly, but one whose speed papers over his technical deficiencies – the more he felt like a human embodiment of Orlando as a team; he, like them, is capable, but he’s not even sort of elegant. All in all, Orlando has a plan to beat opponents, but it feels closer to accurate to describe said plan as “concocted,” as opposed to “constructed.”

The Los Angeles Galaxy was the team they beat (2-1…am I just getting to that?), but it was close and came late, which just means it followed a familiar script for this weekend (lots o’ late goals). Cyle Larin bagged the winner around the 90th minute by overpowering Jermaine Jones in the area – and that also felt fitting. Jones spent too much of this game distracted by bullshit to the point of near-disengagement, so one final switch off wrapped things up nicely (or, in fairness, maybe Larin’s just too damn big for Jones). Jones, along with the rest of LA took far too long to get started; they might have even owed their late little roll to a couple personnel and formation changes by Orlando’s Jason Kreis (lookin’ at Luis Gil for Cristian Higuita, in particular). Whatever caused it, a handful of players bestirred themselves to give Romain Alessandrini – who has been LA’s only reliable danger-man – some goddamn help out there. Yes, even Giovani dos Santos.

If that sounds hard on the latter, blame anyone who talked up how LA would become dos Santos’ team in 2017. On the evidence (and with one big exception), he doesn’t seem to want it. If there’s a strange sub-plot in this whole thing, it’s the fact that LA looked better, more polished on those occasions when they did things well. Orlando, for their part, scored just one more goal and that’s what matters.

Vancouver Whitecaps 4-2 Los Angeles Galaxy: When a Party Breaks Out at a Funeral

Just takes a little levity.

My big take-away from their 4-2 comeback win is that the Vancouver Whitecaps can be good. It also makes some commentary on the Los Angeles Galaxy, not much of it positive, either. As their season goes forward, just…consider the possibility that Curt Onalfo picked up the band hand that Bruce Arena laid down when he walked away to the U.S. Men’s National Team.

The more interesting thing about this game is how represents a study in belief. I mean that on two levels too, as in belief within the team and belief among the fans. When LA scored two in the first half’s middle passage and took the lead, BC Place took on that funereal “glow” familiar to fans of all struggling teams; it’s that awful thought, “shit, here we go again.” A taste of bitterness would have piled on to that sentiment of dread this time around, thanks to the ref (badly) missing a clear penalty kick call when Jelle Van Damme dropped the incredibly-fun-to-watch Alphono Davies almost immediately after the ‘Caps went up (uh, there's no video for this, why?).

Even if they looked snake-bit late in the first half, Vancouver turned it all around, leaving LA with bigger questions, and of the wrong kind.

Vancouver Whitecaps

- I’ll get to the big stuff later, but there was this moment around the 39th that I just want to flag. Cristian Bolanos almost fed Davies, and if they can get to where Davies looks for that kind of pass, they’ll have something. Something....deadly.

- The kind of thing that will hurt them? Erik Hurtado deciding to try to chip the ‘keeper from midfield…only to have even the attempt fall short. Know yer limits, kid, and find Christian Techera next time…

- Not least because LA lost Techera again and again and again. This killed ‘em on the equalizer (so much space; is it his height?), but the ‘Caps found a lot of ways to run through LA’s lines, none of them more than Techera.

- Except for the first,Vancouver’s goals all came after some substitutions – e.g. Fredy Montero for Hurtado and Tony Tchani for Andrew Jacobson. I have two contrasting reads on that: first, while Montero might not be the solution, he’s an upgrade over Hurtado; more crucially, Montero could allow Vancouver to play tighter in the attack – e.g., to allow more of what I talked about up top with Bolanos and Davies. Hurtado is a late-game sub, not a starter.

- Second, I don’t think Tchani improved on Jacobson, so I’m less inclined to read anything into that, but that’s at the heart of a big question for Craig Robinson: who does he start between Tchani, Jacobson and yesterday’s brace-grabbing hero, Matias Laba?

Portland Timbers 1-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: A Parade of False Flags

Early season stupor. Also, unfamiliar.

Tonight, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by people of good, clear insight. The Portland Timbers picked up their first road win since 2015 when they beat the Los Angeles Galaxy 1-0, and that’s a big deal. Something else slipped past me, given my anxious state, but the Timbers also kept a clean sheet today. So, thanks to @cobolsky and @brioe162, for being wiser men than me.

Still, that “anxious state” followed me home, and it revealed itself in the way some sort of invisible safety net left the game when David Guzman walked off, holding his left arm all funny. Guzman jacked his shoulder, as we all know now, even as we don’t know how badly, on what wound up being a second-yellow challenge from the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Jelle Van Damme. I watched that specific replay often as they showed it, and I’m still not 100%-clear as to whether Van Damme hit Guzman at knee level, or whether Guzman hurt himself on a leap/dive to get around Van Damme’s lunge. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme, I mean, Guzman will take the same amount of time to heal, whether fair or foul, and that’s my biggest take-away from this game.

Things went some form of haywire after Guzman stepped off. Portland’s central defensive arrangement has functioned like a triangle through preseason and Game 1 2017 – e.g. Liam Ridgewell and Lawrence Olum, and with Guzman running in front of them in defense, and dropping between them when Portland had possession. Basically, Guzman really has (near as I can tell, and I can’t promise proximity) played as pure a No. 6 role as Portland will allow, and, once he went off, Portland reverted to Olum and Roy Miller (Ridgewell’s sufficiently creditable replacement) behind Ben Zemanski and Diego Chara, who receded to the back line in order to protect the lead, and the win. The sweet, sweet road win. Smells like honeysuckle on a June night, I tell you…

That was nice, right, sweet reverlry? Now, back to the panic…

Portland v. LA: The Open Secret to LA's Success

That one that hit the easel? That's me on Vancouver.

[Portland Timbers v. Los Angeles Galaxy was one of three games I took in this weekend (on that, didn't go well). I'm trying to do better about writing up the empirical stuff.]

I wrote up Portland versus LA elsewhere, if mostly from the Timbers' point of view, but even that post was lousy with the central truth about LA: they are one hell of a sound defensive team. Small wonder, then, that they're crawling up the Western Conference standings, small wonder they're rocking a now-four-game winning streak. As noted in that post, LA has allowed three goals in their past eight games, a tally that pencils out to 0.375 goals per game. In other words, good.

Just 19 goals allowed so far, less than a goal a game. They have 34 goals for on the other side of the ledger; only five Major League Soccer teams have more...all of which rolls into a theme I'll discuss in the weekly post when that goes up – e.g. how very, very wrong I can sometimes be when I speak/write. Think I said something about LA "not being all that good" a couple weeks ago, and in a public, recorded forum, so, yeah...

Game Notes: Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders

Why I Watched It:
It was the array of stars that tempted me: Keane, Gerrard, and, now, Dos Santos. It was only 10 minutes before kickoff that I knew that all of the Seattle Sounders stars would be absent – no Dempsey, no Martins, no Alonso. Hell, Marco Pappa didn't even suit up. Eh, it is what it is.

Overall:
For a good 30 minutes, this one threatened to interest. Even after Chad Barrett epitomized the Sounders season in the space of five seconds by scoring and pulling up lame, Seattle took the game to the Los Angeles Galaxy well enough, at least for a while. They attacked through set-pieces mostly and, as the commentating team pointed out, Seattle's big men – for they are that – gave Omar Gonzalez and Leanardo all they could handle on five to a half-dozen corner and/or free kicks. LA escaped with a 3-1 win in the end, but the thing most worth noting is how much the score could have moved going in either direction: LA escaped on at least two occasions, which would have resulted in a tie, and Stefan Frei came up big enough for Seattle to keep out a couple great chances for LA, which prevented a blowout...

...and, in spite of all of that, it wasn't the most exciting of games.  LA won it comfortably with a combination of insouciant patience, star power on the field, and celebrity sightings off of it (Gordon Ramsey in David Beckham’s luxury suite!). Basically, Seattle's still in trouble...

Notes on LA
- Not unlike (what I heard about the Republican debate) the under-card talent carried the Galaxy today. Gyasi Zardes addressed every deficiency I've ever attributed to him today (e.g. heavy touch and dodgy decisions on passes), Juninho  ran the midfield like it was 2014, and Sebastian Lletget terrorized the opposition left like he's done all season.
- The (meaningful) workman-like stuff aside, the stars dazzled only in passing (as in, from time to time, not just by their passing). Keane and Giovani dos Santos combined neatly on a couple occasions, - most notably when Keane fed dos Santos for LA's third (links later) – but I detected something subtle in LA's overall approach, something that flirted with fire and/or over-confidence.
- Defensive man-of-the-match honors go to Robbie Rogers, who not only positively locked down his left side (the opener excepted), but also followed a play to clear a ball of the line.
- Bottom line, for all their stars, LA's role players tend to come up huge. Whether it's Bruce Arena's coaching or savvy scouting, this is the secret to LA's success - the fielding of solid starting elevens.

Notes on Seattle
- It's easy to forget, sometimes, just how big Seattle is as a team. Just with Chad Marshall, Zac Scott and Andy Rose, they have size on set-pieces that a lot of teams rightly envy. And I'm sure I'm missing someone...the commentators made a lot of the advantage, even if it wasn't enough today. That won't always be the case, either.
- For me, Seattle's best player today was Erik Friberg. His energy was excellent, for starters – one would think he's playing for a contract like that – but most of the purpose and pace to the Sounders attack started and continued through him. He didn't get much help, sadly.
- Where it stopped? Lamar Neagle. It's official, the kid's having a bad year. Between Leanardo picking the ball out of his spokes and him being half a step off or behind, Neagle posed little to no threat all game long. Much like he has all season. This is a big, big reason for Seattle's inability to climb out of the slump.
- To their credit, though, Seattle's "Accidental B-Team" put in as good a shift as I've caught since the big absences hit. Because someone else pointed this out to me (can't remember who), I can't take credit, but a surprising amount of Seattle's offense passes through Tyrone Mears.