I don’t mean to be over critical, but LA’s offense was dismal. Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle both played like they were trying not to get hurt. With the National team camp approaching, you would think that others like Jovan Kirovski or Mike Magee would step up, especially playing at home. In previous games, the rookie Michael Stephens made his presence felt. This is the first game that he was completely invisible. Overall, the two Toronto frontmen, Chad Barrett and Dwayne De Rosario, were the only offense that showed they wanted to be there and they showed their motivation from the very earliest part of the match. Omar Gonzalez was very nearly red-carded in trying to stop them.

This draw wasn’t due to rock-solid defenses either. Although, if I had to judge both teams by their defenses, I would probably go with LA being the better.

LA was unable to show any urgency in staying the cream-of-the-crop of Major League Soccer. Up until now, their tremendous run of 7-0-1 was due entirely to their professionalism in taking the game to their opponents. There *was* an urgency to prove that last year’s end of season form wasn’t a fluke.

Besides the fact that Landon Donovan may have had his mind elsewhere (i.e., the World Cup), this game may be the first sign that teams are falling into their mid-season MLS form. MLS doesn’t create a drive for teams to make needed changes mid-season (like in other leagues worldwide) because making the playoffs is all that is necessary. Teams like Toronto and Los Angeles are able to take their foot off the pedal because they have a sufficient amount of points to get them through the next several months. Coupled with the coming heat of summer, clubs know that all the other clubs are falling into the same attitude. Teams doing badly, like DC United and Chivas USA, are trying to right their ships but they know there’s no urgency to do so. There’s still a whole month before they need to make a run. Overall, the existence of playoffs makes for boring soccer at this time of the year.

Some have made a big deal of the fact that Toronto’s goalkeeper, Stefan Frei, was forced to make four saves. None of those attempts were going to be dangerous, even for a keeper with one of the worse Goals Against Average. Buddle put the ball on the post once, Magee had two close range shots (5 and 10 yards out) that he put right at the keeper, while Dunivant could only put a rebound right back at Frei as well.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this LA team will look like now that Donovan (and Buddle) are away with the National team. I have a feeling we’ll see Buddle back before Donovan but it will be good to see how this midfield does without their captain making those diagonal runs. I would love to see Alex Cazumba get some more playing time on the left. From what we’ve seen so far, Clint Mathis isn’t going to help this team. I think Bruce Arena would agree with me, as he’s chosen to go with Chris Klein ahead of Mathis.

While he didn’t impress me in the first couple of games, Juninho is proving to be a good asset to this team. He has potential to be a Cienfuegos type player, sitting right behind the forwards and making magic!

So, (beer glasses raised) here’s to MLS being what it is, the Galaxy doing some damage to Dallas on Thursday, May 20th, the young kids on the team picking up some good experience in the friendly against Boca Juniors, and another LA victory in the match-up of the undefeated’s on May 29 – Los Angeles at Columbus!

I will have my review up soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, but then I love books that combine a story with data. This is [Moneyball](http://astore.amazon.com/fastidium-20/detail/0393324818) for soccer. Just like its full title, [Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport](http://astore.amazon.com/fastidium-20/detail/1568584253), the book is exhaustive in content as well.

Simon Kuper (prolific writer) and Stefan Szymanski (professor of economics) decided to look at various commonly held beliefs about the beautiful game in terms of economic data and population statistics to find (1) if those beliefs were indeed true, and (2) correlations between performance on the field and a country’s cultural and economic factors. Many of the results do end up sounding counterintuitive but its hard to argue with the data.

Just as [Freakonomics](http://astore.amazon.com/fastidium-20/detail/0060731338) turns conventional wisdom on its head, [Soccernomics](http://astore.amazon.com/fastidium-20/detail/1568584253) explores similar questions about soccer. Here are some things I remember from the book:

1. The country that loves soccer the most is Norway.

2. The Nick Hornby model of fandom (being devoted to one team all your life) is a British myth. Most Britons, who stay football fans their whole lives, will change allegiances at least once in their life.

3. Brits like to make fun of Americans for calling the game “soccer”. However, “soccer” was the most common name for the game, even in Britain, from the 1890′s all the way into the 1970′s. When the NASL started in American in the 1970′s, Americans adopted the English word and the Brits stopped using it, reverting to the word “football”.

4. Comparisons are often made between the NFL’s parity and the Premiere League’s domination by a small number of teams. The data shows that the NFL is only slightly more “fair” than the Premiere league (actually, parity does not equate to a balanced league at all) and its shown that attendance rises, in both England and the US, when leagues are seen to be less balanced.

5. David Beckham cannot elevate American soccer by playing for the Galaxy. American soccer is alive and well on fields all over the USA every weekend and lying on the sofa watching the Premiere league on Fox Soccer Channel.

6. Hosting a World Cup is not a way to improve a country’s infrastructure, make money, or open up your country to tourism. It is simply a way to improve your population’s “happy index” for a couple of months in a given year.

7. There is a good chance that Iraq could win the World Cup someday.

8. The US Men’s National team are radical under-acheivers. If our country ever got it’s act together and paid more attention to soccer, we would become the best soccer nation in the world.

9. Honduras is the most over-acheiving team on the planet. Given their resources and population, they shouldn’t be as good as they are.

10. For a country to become a successful soccer nation, it takes experience, population, and wealth. In order for a country to win a major award (World Cup, European Championship, etc.) there is one rule: the minimum average income per person is fifteen thousand dollars. There is one exception to this rule: Brazil.

Don’t think that this list of anywhere exhaustive. Nor does my list go into the detailed analysis that Kuper and Szymanski write so eloquently about. I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those who have some interest in “cultural things” and want to expand their thinking. Don’t worry about knowing soccer or economics. This is just a plain good story that reveals some commonly held misconceptions.

The line-up included two defensive midfielders, Birchall and Kovalenko, lining up just in front of the defense. I would think Arena went with this as a way of containing the potential speed of Chivas because they would come at us faster than last week’s opponent. Better to slow them down and counter attack rather than pushing the attack ourselves.

Just as our 4-4-2 became a 4-3-3 during periods of the game last week, this 4-2-3-1 was able to counter quite readily:

Buddle

Alex (DeLaGarza 78)    Juninho (Magee 62)          Donovan

Birchall (Stephens 90)      Kovalenko

Dunivant          Leonardo   Gonzalez            Franklin

Ricketts

The first goal, by Edson Buddle, was a result of this ability to counter. A quick restart from Donovan found Sean Franklin open on the right flank. Franklin quickly picked out Buddle making a beeline for the penalty area. Chivas’ Michael Umana was unable to handle the speed and size of Buddle, as the striker headed the ball cleanly into the goal in the 7th minute.

As its become customary in these clashes, the two teams traded nasty tackles and trash talking through out. Buddle and Sacha Kljestan exchanged harsh words in the 25th minute. It doesn’t look like it ended well. Kljestan is probably not going to South Africa this summer as his National team stock has plummeted in the past year or so. For Buddle, however, his stock is rising fast and may be able to sneak onto the team as a late replacement for an injured Brian Ching.

For much of the second half, the Galaxy looked like they were waiting out the attacks of Chivas and bunkering for the long haul. I’m sure the tactic was to absorb and counter, but when the counter doesn’t come faster than the other side can anticipate, it starts to look tiresome. One instance in particular resulted in a skirmish in front of Ricketts goal that almost found the back of the net for Chivas. Fortune shined upon L.A. though, as Maicon Santos sent the shot over the goal.

But the Galaxy did have one final counter that resulted in Buddle’s second goal. Donovan intercepted the ball and got around the defender just in time to speed into the Chivas’ penalty area before slotting the ball into Buddle. Not so much a shot as a redirect, Buddle defly placed the ball into the top left hand corner in the 87nd minute. That was a hard shot to make and Buddle showed some real focus (World Cup team worthy, I might add) for such a late-in-the-game maneuver.

So, now, the Galaxy have started with two, rather easy, victories. Both were at home and both against teams that didn’t look as prepared for the season as Bruce Arena has his team. Yes, this Galaxy team has been together for well into last season but these players themselves all look much sharper and fitter than the players from Chivas and the Revs.

The true test of a successful opening season comes this Saturday when the Galaxy travel to Robertson Stadium in Houston. The Dynamo have one draw against Dallas and a victory over last year’s MLS Cup champions, Real Salt Lake. Game time is 5:30 pm PST and televised on Fox Sports West.

By the way, I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice how spectucular the field looked at the Home Depot Center. Hats off to the grounds crew for doing a tremendous job, and with no X-Games this year, the field should keep its appearance through out the season.

Though the scoreline didn’t reflect it, the Galaxy had many more opportunities to score than their opponents. We were constantly in their half and had a couple of fast breaks that should have been converted. The Revs spent very little time on the attack as they resorted to long balls through to their wingers. These were easily dealt with by a Galaxy backline that looked to be in mid-season form.

The Galaxy took the field in a 4-4-2 formation, with Kovalenko pulling back into the defensive midfield position. This was a good game plan, given that its our first league match. Its good to go with what you know and experiment later.

Buddle                      Donovan

Lewis (Alex 26)   Juninho (Stephens 80)    Magee (Birchall 67)

Kovalenko

Dunivant      Leonardo   Gonzalez        Franklin

Ricketts

This set-up would push forward into their opponents half with the two wings falling back into a 3-man line with Kovalenko. Buddle and Donovan would have room to run on each side and up top while Juninho roamed right behind them.

The first and only goal (14th minute), from a free kick by Donovan, was a perfectly headed ball by Buddle on the right side of the penalty box into the opposite corner. Buddle is big enough to handle just about any defender in MLS. He made good on his speed and size to get free and place the ball in the goal.

The first accolade I’ll give, and man-of-the-match for me, was the Brazilian (on loan from São Paulo) Leonardo, playing centerback in place for Gregg Berhalter. He had several key stops and kept the Revolution from getting looks at the goal. In fact, I’d love to give MOTM honors to both central backs in this game, Omar Gonzalez and Leonardo. Gonzalez was already looking like one of the best backs in MLS last season and picked up right where he left off. Our central defense will prove to be a key factor to LA’s success this year.

Eddie Lewis came up with a left foot contusion in only the 26th minute (a hard tackle from Kevin Alston), which meant that another São Paulo loanee would come on in the left midfield position. Alex Cazumba had some very good runs down the left hand side and seemed to work well with both Donovan and Dunivant. There’s definitely some potential there in terms of team chemistry.

I’ve saved the last Brazilian loanee for last. I’m sure Juninho has shown some attacking flair and ball control in practice, otherwise Bruce Arena wouldn’t be using him for games. But, he didn’t show too much here. For an attacking mid, he sure did find lots of time to be invisible. And, the times he did have the ball, he was as slow as you could get. I would much rather have Mike Magee (or, when healthy, Clint Mathis) playing in that role, given what we saw in this match.

This game didn’t show too much in terms of what to expect. First, Shalrie Joseph wasn’t patrolling the midfield for New England, and second, this New England formation and team was an experiment that failed radically. The next match, against Chivas, will show more in terms of how well our defense does and how Arena can put a team on the field to work against an opponent. I’m afraid any team could have done the job against the Revs tonight.

Many questions remain to be answered. Will Berhalter be able to win his spot back in central defense? It seems doubtful with how well Leonardo did. How long do we have the three Brazilians? Is Juninho really that slow or was it just jitters? What does Arena do with Jovan Kirovski and Alan Gordon? Gordon will be able to sub in for Buddle but I wonder if there’s any room for Kirovski here. When does Chris Klein take the field?

Next up is the Goats from Chivas USA on April 1st at the Home Depot Center. I hope its not an April fools … for the Galaxy.