Lewis’ goal allows Galaxy to salvage tie
Sometimes, experience means nothing at all.
Just ask Galaxy defender Tony Sanneh, whose calamitous mistake in the 70th minute gave the Columbus Crew’s Guillermo Barros Schelotto a gift goal in Carson on Sunday afternoon.
Sometimes, experience means everything.
Just ask Galaxy defender Eddie Lewis, whose superb shot in the 91st minute flew low and true and into the back of the Columbus net to earn Los Angeles a 1-1 tie.
Both players were starters on Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena’s U.S. national team at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. In other words, he knows them well enough to speak his mind.
“If Tony has an IQ of over 40, I think he probably understands exactly the mistake he made,” Arena said.
The error came when Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, who turned in another first-class performance, played the ball out to Sanneh, who controlled it with one touch and then tried to pass it inside to teammate Omar Gonzalez.
Schelotto, the Argentine striker who led Columbus to the MLS title last season, sneaked in, intercepted the ball and then curled a shot past Ricketts to give the Crew a deserved lead.
“Tony should not lose that ball,” Arena said. “Tony had plenty of time to make a safer decision than the one he made.”
Sanneh agreed.
“A bouncing ball came to me, and I just hesitated and second-guessed myself,” he said. “I probably should have just laid it back to the ‘keeper, but I tried to hit it to Omar and it got picked off.”
Sanneh said he was aware of Schelotto’s presence.
“I saw him coming; that’s why I trapped the ball back toward the middle instead of across my body,” he said. “I probably should have just cleared it.”
The late goal by Lewis got Sanneh off the hook.
With Columbus clinging to its lead one minute into stoppage time, the ball was headed out of the Crew’s penalty area and fell to Lewis, who unleashed a shot from 25 yards.
“It fell properly and I just tried to get it in one frame,” he said. “Luckily, I just struck it really clean, and it was enough in the corner to stay away from the ‘keeper.”
Arena called the Galaxy’s first-half performance “poor” but appeared willing to take the tie rather than what could easily have been a loss.
“Getting a point out of it today was OK,” he said. “But we have to demand three points out of these kinds of games, and we have to start the games better than we did today.”
It was the seventh time in nine matches this season that Arena’s squad has ended up with one point instead of three. It was also the sixth time it has given up the opening goal.
Add it all up and one-third of the way through the Major League Soccer season the Galaxy (1-1-7) finds itself 13 points (or four-plus games) behind league leader Chivas USA (7-1-2), with one game in hand.
Falling behind, it appears, is the only thing that wakes up the Galaxy.
“I guess so,” Arena said. “I think we need to be a little bit more aggressive going forward. In the first half, we had some players who were a little tentative. But who can explain it?
“They needed to get screamed at at halftime.”
How well did Arena do that?
“Pretty good, actually,” Lewis said. “Real good. There were at least seven or eight guys who were well below their standard, and it showed in the first half. It was disappointing and Bruce hammered us, and rightfully so.”
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