CARSON, Calif. -- Alan Gordon has built quite a résumé through his propensity for late-game heroics, so when he stepped onto the StubHub Center field Saturday night with the LA Galaxy down a goal to the Colorado Rapids, he faced enormous expectations.
No problem.
Gordon, one of four starters left on the bench as LA played the first of three games in eight days, again delivered, heading home a Stefan Ishizaki corner kick in the 75th minute -- three minutes after entering -- to give the Galaxy a share of the points with a 1-1 draw.
It put a nice bow on an otherwise abysmal affair for the defending MLS Cup champions, whose makeshift lineup created little from superior possession and vast territorial advantages against an extremely organized foe.
“They don't have to tell me much [when I go in],” Gordon said after netting his second dramatic off-the-bench goal this season, to go with his stoppage-time equalizer in a mid-March tie in Portland. “I know what to do. I come in, they know what to expect from me.”
What do they expect?
“Goals, goals, goals ...,” said forward Gyasi Zardes. “I'm thrilled when Alan steps on the field. I always expect a goal from him.”
This one was just like the one in Portland, which also came from an Ishizaki corner kick. Gordon created a little space against Colorado defender Shane O'Neill, then powered the ball past diving goalkeeper Clint Irwin and inside the right post.
“I'm just in the right place at the right time,” said Gordon, who has netted six goals off the bench -- including four equalizers and a winner -- since arriving in a trade from San Jose last August. “I don't know what the secret is. I don't want to say it's all me. I've been lucky to get these goals.
“Ishi played a great ball, first and foremost, and most of these goals, I don't have to do much. Just get my head on it, and, hopefully, it goes in.”
Gordon's heroics were needed following a tepid Galaxy performance in which they struggled to break down Colorado's defense and got nearly nothing going in the final third after halftime.
Head coach Bruce Arena called the game “lousy” and said that “everything with it was lousy,” and defender Omar Gonzalez noted that it was “definitely disappointing that we didn't play to our standards.”
“We didn't play well,” said midfielder Mika Väyrynen, who made his first start in nearly a month after recovering from a calf injury. “We didn't get the ball forward as we hoped, and the passing wasn't there. ...
“They had three guys in midfield, and they were very organized, and we couldn't find the gaps and the passes we would like to. They defended well, the whole group, and they took our best weapons away. Gyasi [Zardes and Bradford Jamieson IV] up front, we couldn't find them behind the [Rapids' restraining] line. When we played the ball, it was square or backward, and it can seem quite boring, but there wasn't much to do.”
It looked like Gabriel Torres' 40th-minute goal, on a breakaway following a midfield turnover, would be enough for the Rapids to hand LA its first loss at StubHub Center in 14 months, until LA brought off the bench Juninho, then Ishizaki, and finally Gordon.
His goal wasn't unexpected.
“Alan certainly knows how to come into a game,” Arena said, “and that's a real skill.”
Scott French covers the LA Galaxy for MLSsoccer.com.
