CARSON, Calif -- The LA Galaxy have to go back 8 years to find the last time they had a loss that compares to the 6-2 drubbing they took from Real Salt Lake on Tuesday night.
FC Dallas beat them 6-3 at home in 2009, a loss so long ago it featured veteran A.J. DeLaGarza’s first MLS goal. That’s the only other time in club history that LA have given up 6 goals.
It’s not the kind of memory a team wants to hold onto.
“It’s unacceptable,” said head coach Curt Onalfo. “It’s disappointing, not just to the sold out crowd that showed up tonight. I’m very disappointed.”
That 2009 Galaxy squad would go on to make the MLS Cup Final, where they would face an opponent who would become their playoff rival over the coming years - Real Salt Lake.
This year’s Galaxy squad is at the tail end of a stretch where U.S. Open Cup and weekday games put them on a two-games-a-week schedule to close out the month of June and enter July. Combine that with the absences the Galaxy faced against RSL, with captain Jelle Van Damme suspended and a long list of unavailable injured players, and it’s easy to make the excuse that tired legs just gave out.
“It very well could be but we can’t make excuses, we find solutions," Onalfo said. "There’s no doubt about it we’re a tired group. This is our seventh game in less than three weeks. We’re without a lot of our veteran players so we’re relying on a younger group, and we have a lot of injuries but these younger guys have shown that they can do it before so we can’t make excuses.
“Me as a coach, I can’t make excuses, our players don’t make excuses. It was unacceptable. We need to have a very short memory, we need to get that out of our system very quickly. We need a mental and physical break and then we can get back to business for the second half of the season.”
That U-word kept resurfacing throughout the player’s post-match comments, as did another word beginning with 'E' as players felt the weight of that performance.
“I’m embarrassed,” said Ashley Cole. “I’m [ticked] at how I played and that we have this record. But it happens. It’s happened probably once in my career, but these young guys have to step up now and hopefully we’ll get some older players back and we’ll kick on from there.”
