LOS ANGELES GALAXY vs. DC UNITED – May 19, 2004
(by PHIL RIPPA)
This is and isn’t a running diary. It’s more the worst Jack Kerouac you will ever read with slightly better spelling and punctuation.

I first thought the game started at 7 pm not 7:30. So when I flipped on Comcast Sportsnet, I was treated to the tail end of an NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament show. Only in this area could a few people actually watch that show. Stupid Johns Hopkins. Anyway, when the game broadcast finally starts, there is a comical opening with a United fan holding a backwards C as the drunkards try and spell out DC UNITED. I blame Marcel

Dave Johnson and Thomas Rongen. This is always good times because Rongen tries to conceal his bitterness at not being the coach at United anymore. He will always slip in little things like “when I was there”. Stuff like that. I am waiting for him to snap one day when they are talking to Peter Nowak during the game and go off like everyone else in the area about Nowak’s handling of substitutions. There is also a good chance that Johnson will wax nostalgic over Marco Etcheverry.

DC has been hit with the injury bug with Bobby Convey, Ryan Nelson and SHOCKER! Ben Olsen out injured. Convey was still named to the US National Squad for World Cup qualifying next month and Bruce Arena claims that Convey will be ready to go. Ben Olsen weeps at the memories. Ryan Nelson is actually a huge loss as he is the only person on the defense who can actually... play defense.

Though LA just as crippled – including Carlos Ruiz and Jovan Kirovski. Of course, Ruiz and Kirovski are LA’s two leading scorers. I am thinking that means they only drop 7 goals on DC. No, I am not bitter at all.

For those scoring at home the starting lineups are:

18
26
12
4
16
17
21
99
8
20
11
 Nick Rimando
Bryan Namoff
Mike Petke
Brandon Prideaux
Brian Carroll
Joshua Gros
Dema Kovalenko
Jaime Moreno
Earnie Stewart
Ronald Cerritos
Alecko Eskandarian		 Kevin Hartman
Chris Albright
Paul Broome
Hong Myung-Bo
Ryan Suarez
Andreas Herzog
Cobi Jones
Marcelo Saragosa
Sasha Victorine
Alejandro Moreno
Joseph Ngwenya		 22
5
4
18
3
10
13
26
11
15
27

I dislike Ernie Stewart enough – mainly do to missed PK bitterness – but out of the really really old US national team players who should have retired by now he is only second worst in tonight’s game since Cobi Jones is still starting for the Galaxy. (I actually should say current squad members since I could go off on another rant about Olsen and Chris Albright). Of course, Jones is only just getting back into the starting lineup thus stifling a longer hit piece on him that I had building up. It’s only his second start and he is only in there since Ruiz and Koraski can’t run. I mean really, the one thing Cobi used to always be known for is his wheels and that gravy train has long passed him by. He is old, oft injured and rarely can play a full 90 anymore. He needs to just pack it in and go back to occasionally co-hosting Sweat. I hate LA.

First good chance of the game is ruined by Stewart as he breaks into the box and takes 6 extra touches which puts him at a horrible angle for the shot on goal, which he hits directly at Kevin Hartman, whose covering the post.

One of the fun things about this game is that at RFK stadium, the stage for the HFStival being held on Saturday is already partially set up behind one of the goals. (HFStival is one of those all day concerts that the kids love to attend. I went to three back in the mid-90s and they were fun but even then I felt old and dirty as 16 year old girls where constantly flashing the crowd and I just needed to sit during what seemed like a 789 hour Jimmy’s Chicken Shack performance. This year is amazing because the alternative rock station is bringing in Jay-Z, which has made all the hippy white kids bitter. Cypress Hill performing is okay. Weed = nice black men. Gangster Rap = scary black man who are going to steal their dates.) Normally, there is just a giant space leading to the black wall with the random clock on it. Not today’s game. It’s even better as balls will either be lost in the sea of titanium or will ricochet back onto the field and you get the delay with two balls rolling around the field and Dave Johnson makes smarmy comments about the “Rock Concert”.

HEY! A Chris Albright sighting. It is a damn shame that Ben Olsen is out tonight. It would have been nice for Albright to officially pass that torch. He probably would have torn his ACL doing so but the thought would have been sweet.

Did you know that Josh Gros played for Rutgers? No, really Rutgers. Geez, you would think the announcers would mention that once or twice.

DC has the run of play for most of the first 20 of the game so when LA finally gets some momentum, the announcers get to pimp Galaxy rookie Joseph Ngwenya. Johnson is all about how Nqwenya was a scoring machine at Costal Carolina. Come on! It’s Costal Carolina. It’s not St. John’s, North Carolina or Virginia. Of course, I for one should know that the landscape of NCAA men’s soccer is all sorts of goofy since American can be a NCAA tournament threat to a lot of teams. Yeah, my point is lost.

LA finally gets a scoring chance in the 20th minute off a corner. Nothing horribly dangerous but the way United plays corners wacky things are bound to happen. Basically, United has been controlling the action but then they would have sudden lapse where it was like “Hey, Rimando hasn’t had any action tonight, let’s give the ball away on three straight touches.”

In the 35th minute, LA scores one of the ugliest goals that you will see that isn’t an own goal. First off, Nick Rimando can’t control a ball on the end line so the Galaxy gets a corner. On the corner, Rimando misjudges his charge, misses the cross by about a foot. The ball falls to Alejandro Moreno who kinda flails away at the ball while falling to his butt. The ball deflects off a clueless Ernie Stewart, off the post and dribbles across the line. Oof...

Aww... Cobi gets bitter about actually getting marked by Brandon Prideaux and punches Prideaux in the head. That only earns him a yellow though, thus I am teased about not having to watch him the rest of the game. Stupid ref.

DC almost answers as Mike Petke fails to convert on a header on a rare decent Stewart cross. He will either blame it on not keeping his hair blonde or he will take out someone’s ankles, swear at the ref and earn a red. We shall see how this plays out. Yeah, that is one acquisition from the Metros that I was not pleased about.

Nope, completely wrong. Petke responds by getting badly beaten by Alejandro Moreno on a long ball down the left flank. Of course, if Petke had actually tried to play defense instead of just yanking Moreno down by the jersey, Moreno wouldn’t have given LA a 2-0 first half lead. I hate being right. Also, Rimando botched that goal too as Moreno went five hole on him. Nick isn’t having the finest season.

Well now – Moreno just completed the natural hat trick. Andreas Herzog, getting his third assist of the game carries unchallenged for an eternity because you know, defense is tiring. Oh, did I mention that Herzog received the ball from his keeper. MARKING IS FOR SUCKERS~! He sets up Moreno who is able to flick in on a back heel that looked really sweet and really was more luck than anything. I think Ngwenya was the other person in the box. Someone was going to be converting that either way.

I couldn’t even finish writing that paragraph when LA marches right back down to score a 4th goal. Ngwenya gets this one, though almost anyone could have scored it as Rimando is on an island as the Galaxy are just sending cross after cross into the box to unmarked guys. Who was I to doubt Coastal Carolina? Rimando is amazingly bitter after this last goal, which he had a right to be. But after screwing the pooch on the first two, he was just as bad as the rest of his mates.

Four goals in nine minutes. And another fun stat. Moreno has now scored goals on five consecutive shots. Right now, United truly is no better than my co-ed team. They play the same amount of defense, refuse to actually come to the ball and fail to shoot from further than 8 yards out. At least the girls on my team are far easier on the eyes than Brian Carroll.

Okay Dokey, Cerritos scores with a beautiful left footed strike from right on the 18 just before the end of stoppage time to at least tease the hometown crowd into thinking that DC has a shot. I believe I might be able to actually use the term “cultured” left foot there. It’s half time. It’s 4-1 LA. I hate being right. The urge to bail on this is rising but I figure Adu is going to get in during the second half and he will get run over a few times. Plus, I really don’t wanna watch a Bondsless Cubs/Giants game called by Chris Berman and Rick Sutcliffe.

I am trying to figure out what is more baffling to me. That Comcast just showed a commercial in Spanish on a station that isn’t Telemundo or Univision or that the commercial was Freddy Adu and Pele shilling Sierra Mist. Good Lord. You knew the Adu/Pele commercial was coming but for SIERRA MIST?!?!?!?!

Aww yeah, my favorite yellow. Herzog picks one up for dissent. Not as great as a guy getting a yellow in my game on Monday for dissent. But that guy was also blowing kisses as a means of taunting people.

I am glad that Jaime Moreno has started to show some of his form of his youth, United needs it as he has been on of their best players and really their only source of offense this season. Basically taking a flier on him was smart but I think DC figured they needed to bring him back to appease the fans with Marco leaving. Lord knows, no one wanted to enrage the locals with another Raul Diaz Acre mess.

60th minute – Adu in for Cerritos, which is usually the way things have worked for United the last few games. Cerritos blatant handball in the box that killed a promising scoring opportunity might have played a part in things.

Josh Gros, the only person who understands the concept of a long short, rifles one that Hartman can only parry. Dema Kovelenko heads in the rebound and it appears to be 4-2. Of course, there is that pesky matter of Dema being two steps offsides. Whoops!

Bruce Arena is in attendance tonight and shows up to provide some commentary. This always leads to the hilarity. Admittedly, it takes a special kinda ear to appreciate the lisping dulcet tones of Arena. Thomas Rongen calling Arena “Dave” is probably the highlight of this evening’s segment.

United really loves to taunt its fans. This time Eskandarian carries and carries and carries, busting through about three defenders in the process, no one makes a supporting run and a good chance goes begging. YES!

FREDDY ADU!!!!!!!! United gets to within two as Adu scores the second goal of his career – one that was a much more impressive display than his first goal. Taking a feed on the right wing, Adu took on two defenders, carried across the top of the box and struck a nifty ball into the upper left corner of the net. Adu just needs to learn to score when DC isn’t trailing by multiple goals so he can celebrate properly. At least he is intelligent enough to not over emote with the team still down.

A while ago, the first sub that Peter Nowak made for DC was inserting David Stokes into the defense for Brandon Prideaux. Yeesh, that wasn’t a wise decision. It has been an ugly half for young Mr. Stokes. I mean, if you want someone to make horrific looking passes back to the keeper that are way to close to turnovers, play me. I lost count of how many giveaways Kerry Stokes... errr... David Collins.... errr... David Stokes has made just when I was typing this. I haven’t seen this poor of handling from a defender since Mike Burns was in his heyday.

SHOCKER #2! Kovalenko gets a yellow for taking out someone’s legs. At least he didn’t actually break someone’s leg this game.

Obviously, DC has been pressing the entire second half trying to get back into the game. That means they are susceptible to counter-attacks. Well all know what that means, folks. CHERRY PICKING COBI JONES! Oh yeah, that is the Cobi I have watched for years and years. It is really great as Cobi can’t even cherry pick well since when there is a long ball over the top of the defense, Cobi can’t accelerate fast enough to actual get to the ball. Poor little fella. At least he will have the memories of all those caps.

The last interesting stat that Johnson and Rongen talked about ALL game was that DC has gone 41 straight games without scoring off a corner. They were something like 0-14 or 0-15 tonight. Geez, maybe that is a hint that Earnie Stewart SHOULDN’T BE TAKING THEM!!!! Grr...