Galaxy is worse than last season
FC DALLAS 3 GALAXY 2
Last season was the worst in Galaxy history, one in which the team finished at the bottom of the standings for the first time while setting franchise records for losses, goals allowed, largest goal differential and fewest points.
So far this season, the team is even worse. Because after Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to FC Dallas before an announced crowd of 18,003 at the StubHub Center, the Galaxy are lagging behind last year’s pace.
Through 13 games under Curt Onalfo last season, the Galaxy were 5-5-3 for 18 points. And they had scored as many goals as they allowed.
Two months later, Onalfo was fired.
This season, in 13 games under Sigi Schmid, the Galaxy are 5-7-1 for 16 points. And they’ve given up four more goals than they’ve scored.
Asked if he saw anything good coming from the latest loss, Schmid was direct. “No,” he said. Then he took the blame. “Part of it was me,” he said. “I made some lineup changes. So, the first thing I’m going to do is analyze whether I made the right decisions.
“Our intensity, our desire, our drive, our determination in the first 15, 20 minutes of the game was not good.”
The Galaxy may not be as bad as their record indicates though. Their schedule through the first third of this season was one of the toughest in the league, which contributed to the slow start. But things could get worse before they get better.
The team may be without its two best-paid players — brothers Giovani and Jonathan dos Santos — until the World Cup concludes in July. And one of their most productive players, forward Ola Kamara, left after the game to join the Norwegian national team for two contests.
Dallas (6-1-5) dominated from the start Wednesday, getting goals from Ryan Hollingshead and Cristian Colman in the first half and a breakaway score by Carlos Gruezo midway through the second to beat the Galaxy for the second time in less than three weeks.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored both Galaxy goals, the final one against a shorthanded Dallas team deep in stoppage time.
The visitors took a 1-0 lead in the 33rd minute, patiently working the ball around the penalty area before Mauro Diaz slipped a pass to an unmarked Hollingshead at the top of the box. Hollingshead then settled the ball before sending it to the back of the net for his first goal of the year.
That ended a 251-minute shutout streak for the Galaxy, the longest in nearly two years. Dallas wasn’t done though. In the 40th minute, Diaz sent a ball ahead for Hollingshead and his bending cross from the left wing found a leaping Colman, who split two defenders to head home his second goal of the season.
The two assists gave Diaz five in two games against the Galaxy.
Gruezo made it 3-0 in the 66th minute, nodding in a deflection off the right hand of Galaxy keeper David Bingham for his first goal in his 69th MLS game. Three minutes later, the Galaxy pulled that one back on Ibrahimovic’s first goal of the night.
The comeback gained momentum when Colman was given a red card following a scuffle in the 80th minute.
But even though the Galaxy peppered the Dallas goals with six shots in the next 18 minutes —21 for the game — only Ibrahimovic was able to find the back of the net, scoring his fifth goal of the season seven minutes into stoppage time.
“It’s all about winning,” Ibrahimovic said when asked if he took solace from the comeback. “It doesn’t matter how much you give [when] you don’t win.”