Galaxy Shows a Little Extra
It was a long day for Luis Hernandez.
He spent the morning flying to Los Angeles from Mexico City, the afternoon resting from the game he had played Tuesday, and the evening trying to salvage something for the Galaxy.
Something like three points.
They were points the Galaxy desperately needed because earlier Wednesday evening the Kansas City Wizards had shut out the Earthquakes, 3-0, in San Jose to increase their lead over Los Angeles to seven points in Major League Soccer’s Western Division.
The Galaxy needed the points back to stay in the title race.
They got them, but not from Hernandez.
It was defender Greg Vanney who scored the winning goal eight minutes into overtime as the Galaxy defeated the Colorado Rapids, 1-0, in front of a sparse crowd of 5,187 at the Rose Bowl.
The goal came at the end of a furious scramble in front of the Rapids’ net. Hernandez and Chris Martinez, the Colorado defender assigned to guard him, were tussling for the ball when it rolled free to Sasha Victorine.
The Galaxy forward’s shot was blocked on the goal line by Colorado’s Marcelo Balboa. The rebound came to Galaxy midfielder Ivan Polic, but his shot also was deflected away.
Finally, the ball fell to Vanney, who buried it in the back of the net from about 18 yards.
“It’s been a while since I scored in the run of play [as opposed to on a penalty kick],” Vanney said. “It’s good for me, it’s good for the team. We need the points. We’re trying to keep teams off our back and trying to make up a little ground, or at least keep Kansas City in sight, so it’s an important win for us.”
Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid called it “a dramatic win,” stressing the team’s second-half turnaround.
“I thought tonight that we started off not well in the first half,” he said. “I thought we played very sluggish, very poor, there were a lot of turnovers. You can point to individuals, but it was just not a good team effort.
“I thought in the second half things improved a lot. I thought Luis brought some energy into our game. I thought as well that our outside backs, Vanney and [Paul] Caligiuri, if they had played like that against Kansas City [in a 1-1 tie on Saturday] we’d have had no problems with Kansas City.”
Schmid also praised the play of Brian Kelly and of Victorine, who was injured early on and had difficulty breathing but stayed in the game.
It was the introduction of Hernandez in the second half, however, that turned things around.
Could he have played 90 minutes after having played for Mexico in its 2-0 World Cup qualifying victory over Canada in Mexico City the day before?
“If I would have asked Luis to start tonight he would have started and he would have tried to play 90 minutes,” Schmid said. “I told Luis before the game that I wanted to bring him in at halftime and I said, ‘You never know, it could go to overtime, so you might play more anyway.’ That ended up being the case.
“If we had started Luis and the game had gone the way it was going, for sure we wouldn’t have taken him out and he would have put another 90 minutes onto his back, and that would have really hurt him for the game [against the Fire in Chicago] on Saturday.
“This way, he still ended up playing 55 minutes. I think he’s fitting in with the team. I think his spirit today, the spirit that he expressed in the locker room at halftime and the spirit that he showed on the field with the guys was very important. It shows that he’s becoming an integral part of this team.”
The Galaxy (12-7-8) outshot the Rapids, 25-10, and goalkeeper Matt Reis earned his third shutout in six games. Colorado fell to 11-13-3.
“It was a game that we deserved to win based upon the chances that we created in the second half,” Schmid said. “We won it in dramatic fashion, but overall we were the deserving winner.”
Hernandez, meanwhile, was simply happy that it was over.
“It was a long day,” “El Matador” conceded, “but it ended well.”
