Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Galaxy-Pachuca

FULL TIME: Galaxy 2, Pachuca 1. Nice win for the Galaxy. Hard to believe this team got the crap kicked out of them by Tigres just one week ago.

90 - Caballero lets loose a shot from inside the box but Cannon makes nice save

90 - Three minutes of stoppage time

81 - Galaxy answers; Cobi Jones with a shot inside the box, Landon deflects it and ball goes over goal line. 2-1 Galaxy.

78 - Pachuca golazo; Alvarez centered to front of goal, GR redirected it into goal, game now 1-1

76 - Nothing going on. Shot hit wall and Pachuca player knocked it over endline

75 - Pachuca gets free kick from 22 yards out, Danger lurks.

71 - "Tonight's attendance: 19,317." Told ya.

66 - The cute Galaxy intern just sat next to me; I'll try to maintain my focus... on the game

65 - Galaxy sub: Vagenas in, Pavon out; semi-useful for useless

64 - Kirk centers to Pavon who puts shot on goal but Calero pounces on it; Gordon was in position to tap in a rebound but no dice

63 - Gimenez free kick misses left post by inches, centimeters even

61 - Just informed of the subs rule: four subs plus the goalkeeper

60 - Alvarez butchers a pass that he should have collected; He's on the left side and Kirk is in at right back; the matchup favors Pachuca

56 - Damian Alvarez in for Fernando Salazar. Somebody better mark this guy; he's good.

50 - Wow. Alan Gordon scored on a nice goal. Donovan finds Gordon with a pinpoint cross from the right side of the field on the left side of the box; Gordon trapped it with his shoulder and ripped a left-footed shot past Calero. Nice goal.

49 - Be back in a few; gotta start writing my PE story

47 - Klein sends Carlos Pavon racing down the field unmarked but Pavon blasts a shot wide of the net.

46 - Cobi Jones for Kyle Martino the only sub for both sides

HALF - In preparation for my long drive home which will probably start sometime after midnight, I pounded some coffee at halftime. Oh yeah, bust out the coffee bong.

45 - Ensuing corner looks like Xavier nearly got a hand to a ball

45 - Carlos Rodriguez forces Cannon to make a diving save

45 - Looks like there'll be one minute of stoppage time

41 - Gimenez with another long range shot, Cannon has an easier time with this one

39 - Gimenez puts a dipping 30-yarder on goal; he can score from long range as Houston knows; he's the one that scored the game-winner in that 5-2 game earlier this year

35 - Jazic finds Gordon unmarked in penalty area but Gordon pushes ball over crossbar; had more time and could have done better

33 - Xavier clears but plays with fire, header goes just wide of own net

32 - I'm guessing here, but this is probably the first time Beckham has seen Pachuca play maybe ever; he may not even know there existed a Pachuca Club de Futbol before today

27 - Scoreboard just showed David Beckham sitting in a suite; many in the crowd booed and whistled.

26 - Klein crossed from the right side of the six-yard box to Carlos Pavon who put his header attempt on the side netting. Nice play up until the poor finish.

23 - A colleague just asked me if Kelly Gray had played in the Dynamo-Pachuca game earlier this year. I felt so lame because I hadn't made the connection. Yes, Gray did play the full 120 minutes down in Hidalgo in the 5-2 thriller and it would have been nice to have talked to him about it yesterday. Crap.

16 - Chitiva's on fire; he somehow got past Kelly Gray, fed Marquez Lugo who had made a nice diagonal run in the box but ML sent it wide (from now on, Marquez Lugo is ML and Gabriel Rey is GR, damn it)

15 - Galaxy having trouble maintaining possession and stringing some passes together; Pachuca is not

14 - Carlos Rodriguez dribbled into box unmarked, tried to find Gabriel Rey but Cannon dived and scooped it up

12 - Landon Donovan fed Alan Gordon a nice through ball on a counter, but Gordon was ruled offside; TV replays appeared to show that Gordon was onside, possibly even; don't worry, though, one reporter said "he would have missed it anyway."

10 - Chaco Gimenez tried a shot from 25 yards that almost landed in the Stadium Club instead of feeding a wide-open Chitiva on the left flank; after the shot, Gimenez motioned to Chitiva angrily for some strange reason

7 - Chitiva dangerous again; broke down left flank, centered ball and Marquez Lugo tried to re-direct it on frame but Kyle Martino clears ball over endline

6 - Pachuca on a quick counter, Abel Xavier saves Galaxy by clearing a ball into touch

6 - Nice passing by Tuzos; Chitiva sends through ball to Marquez Lugo, who fires shot over bar from about 15 yards

4 - Landon Donovan gets called for knocking down Gabriel Caballero from behind, though the contact seemed minimal.

2 - Luis Gabriel Rey gets his head to a cross but sends it high. Two minutes, two shots.

2 - There's about 12-14,000 here right now, which means they'll announce 18-20K.

1 - Game underway. Alan Gordon gets free at top of area and rips a shot over the bar 15 seconds in.

0 - Jay-Z is blaring in the stadium as we await the almighty television to dictate when we start. I prefer Soundgarden's "The Day I Tried to Live" that was playing before pre-game warmups, so I hope this game starts soon.

Oh what the hell. I'll try doing this as a running blog. Just finished watching the FC Dallas-Chivas match and it was pretty good for the most part. Nice goal by Arturo Alvarez, disputed goal by Antonio Olvera.

Lineups are in:

Galaxy: Joe Cannon; Ante Jazic, Ty Harden, Abel Xavier, Troy Roberts; Kyle Martino, Landon Donovan, Kelly Gray, Chris Klein; Alan Gordon, Carlos Pavon.

Pachuca: Miguel Calero; Carlos Rodriguez, Marvin Cabrera, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Fernando Salazar, Leobardo Lopez; Andres Chitiva, Christian Gimenez, Gabriel Caballero; Rafael Marquez Lugo, Luis Gabriel Rey.

12 comments:

Matt said...

LB,

What did you think of the Chivas' goal? I thought it was clearly a handball (I believe Richetti said the same thing in his post-match interview). That said, Ruiz had an excellent chance on a ball that dribbled to him right in front of the net and blew it.

All in all, I thought it was a good match.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Pachuca is just getting warmed up. Galaxy has such a shaky backline. You can only expect Xavier to do so much.

Anonymous said...

Sad to see Moore get red carded but glade he stuck up for himself. I wouldn't pay Ruiz 2 dollars to be on my bench. I just think that little about that guys game.

Anonymous said...

Will Donovan finally show up tonight?

Anonymous said...

Pachuca golazo? More like Abel Xavier getting caught thinking about taking a few lines off Lindsay Lohan's ass.

Anonymous said...

Bunker ball at its finest for the Galaxy. A win is a win and Yallop still has a job.

Anonymous said...

Nice win for the Galaxy

Xavier is a beast in the back

Anonymous said...

FCD-Chivas game was terrible. No excusing Drew Moore; however, that game was loaded with horrendous calls.

Great win for LA. Decent opening night for MLS (FCD should have won as well). Between the two games, nice pace and action; this didn't feel (to me anyway) like some second-rate manufactured set of glorified friendlies. This was passionate and hard fought--good football to watch.

Nice to see Pachuca at the bottom of the group.

Anonymous said...

Give us a little more notice next time - maybe tell us in the morning - so we can all participate with you.

Matt

L.B. said...

Sorry about the short notice. If I'd have thought about it at 9 a.m. instead of nine minutes before the match, I'd have told you guys.

I'll let you know about Saturday well in advance because it would be cool to have readers' participation.

Anonymous said...

LB -

Thanks for keeping us in mind. I look forward to trying to participate on Saturday.

Are you going to get a sponsor for the blog?

Matt

A.C. said...

Sponsor? Did someone say sponsor? Is anyone offering?

;)