The Official Site of Landon Donovan

Tue, May 12th 2009, 11:11

Galaxy lack wins but set for revival

How can a team that has missed the playoffs the past three years and won just one of eight games this season be construed as on the right track, more or less?

If that team is the Los Angeles Galaxy, a bothersome trend — six ties in those eight games — is mollified somewhat by signs of commitment and determination: dogged tracking and tackling in midfield, defensive resilience instead of capitulation, dependable goalkeeping and the ability to get something out of games after falling behind, especially on the road. For most of last season, and much of the past few seasons, those qualities were lacking.

Far better, of course, would be not falling behind in the first place. But for a team that lost games in all conceivable manners last year — blowing leads at home, fizzling on the road, getting blown out by at least three goals on four occasions — to simply not lose at all is a step in the right direction. Despite their dismal overall record last year (8-13-9), the Galaxy were unbeaten (6-0-5) when they scored the first goal. But those games were the exceptions to the general rule.

No team conceded the first goal of the game more often than the Galaxy in 2008. Nineteen times they fell behind 1-0, and though they did manage to rally and win two of those games, they lost 13 and tied just four.

Los Angeles led the league in goals conceded with 62 and, not surprisingly, a team with a leaky back line gave up the most goals in the last 15 minutes of each half (23). So despite leading the league in goals scored (55), and in “late” goals with 29, the Galaxy’s attempts to catch up more often than not resulted in zero points.

They’re still conceding the first goal this season, but in four of the last five games, they have come back to tie rather than falling further behind and are 0-1-5 overall. In the final 15 minutes, they have outscored teams 6-2. So far in ’09, they’ve allowed 10 goals in eight games and matched their shutout total of last year (1-0 against New York, 0-0 with Chivas USA).

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