The recent downward spiral for the Los Angeles Galaxy continued Saturday night at The Home Depot Center. The Colorado Rapids came calling and sent the Galaxy to their fourth consecutive loss, a 1-0 decision, and kept the hosts winless in home games this season.
The Galaxy set a new club record for minutes without a goal, ending the night at 390 minutes and counting. With all that has been going wrong in the Southland it's hard to imagine that any team can find anything positive to take away from tonight's result. But the Galaxy are trying to do just that.
The Galaxy laid siege to the Colorado penalty area in the final minutes of the game, outshooting the Rapids 17-7 on the night. But again, clear-cut chances were wasted. The Galaxy also ran into a third-string 'keeper in Colorado's Bouna Coundoul, who made a handful of spectacular saves to secure the win for his team.
"You've got to give him credit, he was their man of the match," said Galaxy captain Pete Vagenas about Coundoul's performance. "You have to tip your hat to him."
Galaxy head coach Steve Sampson was also impressed with the effort put in by the Colorado 'keeper, who played much of the second half suffering from cramps in his legs.
"Their goalkeeper made three phenomenal saves and kept them in the game," said Sampson. "Whether you call that being unlucky or you call that great skill on the part of the goalkeeper, it's up to you to write."
With the other results around the league over the weekend, the Galaxy dropped out of the top four in the Western Conference, falling behind Real Salt Lake in the standings. Both teams are tied on seven points but RSL has a game in hand on the Galaxy. Still, the Green and Gold insist there is plenty of soccer still to be played this season and are confident that they can turn things around.
"We'll turn it around. It's better that we go through a run like this now than at the end of the season," said Todd Dunivant. "You're always going to go through ups and downs and we're in quite a slump right now. We'll turn it around."
The Galaxy will have to wait 11 days before they can prove that however. Los Angeles doesn't play again until May 31 when they travel to Denver to take on the same Rapids.
The week ahead will be anything but a vacation, though. Vagenas insists that his side won't be hiding from the pressure of trying to snap the current losing streak.
"This would play tomorrow night, the following night, and the night after that to rid us of that snakebitten feeling," said Vagenas. "It's something as a player that you feel. We talked about righting some of our faults from the last game, I think we did that. We talked about creating more chances, I think we did that. So maybe now we need to focus on executing those chances."
While the Galaxy are anxious to get back out on the pitch and find a win, this week off will serve as a chance to heal and regroup. The Galaxy are coming off a stretch in their schedule that saw them playing four games in the last 14 days. A short breather might be just what the club needs.
"That was the good thing about last week, we had opportunities every three days to redeem ourselves," said Dunivant. "Maybe this break is good for us. It'll let us kind of catch our breath, get a few days off and regroup. We've been going pretty hard for the last two months, so it'll be good to catch our breath."
When the Galaxy do regroup they will need to find a way to get the ball into the back of the net. So far Sampson has thrown everything but the kitchen sink on the field in an attempt to get the offense going -- and the sink might be coming.
The Galaxy finished Saturday's game with Herculez Gomez, John Wolyniec, Alan Gordon and Cobi Jones all playing up top. While it is unlikely that Sampson would start this way, having two target forwards like Gordon and Wolyniec on the field at the same time doesn't seem that far fetched.
"Maybe we just have to play this style of soccer, a bit more direct, a bit more purposeful going forward for the time being, until other players come back," said Sampson, referring to the absence of Landon Donovan and Cornell Glen, away with their respective national teams preparing for the World Cup. "We went for it, and it was unfortunate that one didn't fall for us."
The obvious focus for this week will be on finishing. The Galaxy have just more than a week and a half to figure things out. If they fail to do so they will have to sit and watch as the Western Conference leaders pull farther and farther away in the standings.
Greg Daurio is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
