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Monday MLS Breakdown: Beckham, Galaxy Face Uncertainty
David Beckham has returned to Los Angeles with eyes on two continents following his every move. Before discussing the past weekend on the field, Goal.com's Kyle McCarthy discusses what the Galaxy can expect from Beckham's return to MLS and chats with “The Beckham Experiment” author Grant Wahl to get his view on the England international's impending return.
Jul 13, 2009 10:44:38 AM
By Kyle McCarthy
Get ready, America. Becks is back.
Los Angeles midfielder David Beckham returned to the Home Depot Center on Saturday night to watch his Galaxy teammates beat Chivas USA. Beckham will rejoin the Galaxy for training this week to prepare for his long-awaited return in a nationally televised match in New York on Thursday night.
As always, Beckham didn't slip in the back door quietly.
An excerpt from Grant Wahl's new book “The Beckham Experiment” piqued considerable interest in the soccer, sports and mainstream media when it was released on June 29. The ensuing public sniping match between Beckham and Landon Donovan over comments Donovan made to Wahl about Beckham's allegedly spotty professionalism drew headlines over the past week, igniting discussion about how the suddenly hot Galaxy – winners of three straight matches and currently in the thick of the playoff chase – would accommodate its two largest stars upon Beckham's return and would cope with the resumption of the Beckham circus.
In some ways, the destiny of the Galaxy's near future presents a question no one can predict because Beckham is a unique phenomenon who creates a wide-ranging impact that can't be quantified by anticipation.
Only four things about Beckham's return appear certain right now: (1) Beckham will apply himself on the field – barring injury – to wade off Donovan's accusations of poor professionalism and maintain his place in the England squad; (2) Donovan will try to find a way to achieve some sort of truce with Beckham, even if the reconciliation only repairs the relationship to the point where the duo can share the same field; (3) the Galaxy players will take time to adjust on and off the field to the white hot glare Beckham brings wherever he goes; and (4) Galaxy coach Bruce Arena will face the biggest coaching challenge of his career as he integrates Beckham and all of his trappings into a cohesive and workmanlike Galaxy unit already pushing for a playoff berth.
Everything else surrounding Beckham's return is open to debate, interpretation and speculation. To help with that parlor game, I exchanged e-mails with Wahl to get his take on the situation.
(A little background for those who aren't familiar: Wahl – a staff writer for Sports Illustrated who is considered one of the leading and authoritative voices on American soccer – spent 16 months covering the Galaxy and Beckham to compile material for “The Beckham Experiment,” his first book. The result is an engaging and informative exposé that pulls back the curtain on the Beckham era in Los Angeles and reveals how a combination of ego, ambition, savvy and ignorance among those charged with Beckham's American success increased the bottom line and hampered the chances of on-the-field success. “The Beckham Experiment” comes out tomorrow – you can pre-order it from Amazon by clicking here – and it comes highly recommended. I read it in one sitting on Friday night because I couldn't put it down. It is worth your money.)
Kyle McCarthy: With Beckham scheduled to rejoin the Galaxy in time for Thursday's match against New York, the looming question is how he will fit into a Galaxy team that he shirked away from towards the end of the 2008 campaign and abandoned for the first half of 2009. Is there a way both sides can make an awkward situation work for the rest of the season without disturbing the relative progress the club has made to date?
Grant Wahl: The easiest way is to win games. If a team is winning, players tend to forget any personal animosities and get on with it. If a team isn’t winning—as the Galaxy was not during Beckham’s first two seasons—then resentments and locker-room dysfunction can fester. The question for me is how a Galaxy team that has started to turn things around without Beckham will deal with the return of the Beckham circus. Since Beckham’s arrival in 2007, the Galaxy has a better winning percentage when he’s not on the field than when he is. Only a fool would suggest that an elite player like Beckham would hurt an MLS team on the field, but those stats do suggest that the rest of the Galaxy has had a hard time dealing with all the things that Beckham brings to the table, most of all the crushing media attention. Several Galaxy players told me as much.
KM: The run and gun days of the Ruud Gullit era -- perhaps Beckham's best in a Galaxy uniform -- are long gone. How well do you see Beckham fitting in with the Galaxy's more conservative and disciplined style under Bruce Arena?
GW: I don’t think that part of it should be a problem. In fact, if the Galaxy’s defense is more solid these days, perhaps Beckham won’t feel the need to track so far back on the field and can spend more time serving balls into the box on the attacking end—which is where he’s at his best.
KM: Much of the media focus surrounding the release of your book has centered on the strained relationship between Beckham and Landon Donovan. What, if any, impact do you see that strain having on Beckham's already murky long-term future with the Galaxy?
GW: Even before the book excerpt came out, Beckham had stated that he wanted to return to a European team in January 2010 and rejoin the Galaxy after the 2010 World Cup. If that’s the case, he (and/or some European team) will have to pay a lot more money to the Galaxy and MLS at the end of the 2009 MLS season. It remains to be seen whether Donovan would still be with the Galaxy after the 2010 World Cup, but if he is that could have an impact on whether Beckham wants to rejoin the team (and whether the team wants him).
It’s possible that Beckham and Donovan will reach a détente, but I’m not so sure after Beckham’s first public comments about Donovan on Saturday. Beckham went out of his way to say that Donovan’s criticism of his professionalism was unprecedented in Beckham’s career (even if it’s not; Sir Alex Ferguson had issued similar criticisms), and Beckham himself has said that he has a long memory of criticisms.
Let’s be honest: the only people with the Galaxy whose opinions matter to Beckham and his handlers are AEG CEO Tim Leiweke and owner Phil Anschutz. I’m curious to see whether coach/GM Bruce Arena has entered or will enter that group.
KM: In some ways, "The Beckham Experiment" is a book as much about inner workings of American soccer as it is Beckham. What lessons should MLS and its clubs take from the Beckham move and its repercussions?
GW: It’s hard to generalize too much because Beckham is such a singular figure, and even if Thierry Henry were to come to MLS it wouldn’t be the same as far as global recognition, ability to transcend sports, etc. But there are a few lessons from the Beckham Experiment:
• At some point it has to be about the soccer. Beckham has been successful as a celebrity in the U.S., but the vast majority of the Americans who’ve embraced Beckham as a celebrity don’t know (or don’t care) about what he does with the Galaxy. Everyone has made a lot of money off Beckham’s time here, but if you don’t win games then you lose a ton of credibility.
• You can’t give up too much control to the star player and his handlers. I’m still shocked that Tim Leiweke (a very smart businessman) hired Beckham’s best friend and personal manager (Terry Byrne) as a paid consultant who conducted the coaching search for Ruud Gullit. Not only was it a terrible conflict of interest, but it just wasn’t smart: Byrne had no idea how different MLS is from European soccer, considering all the rules that handcuff teams, and anyone who’s followed the league knows that big-name international coaches have always failed in MLS. A lot of people predicted at the time that Gullit was a bad hire, and he proved it in his short stint on the job. No player should ever be bigger than the team, and the Galaxy allowed that to happen with Beckham.
• MLS does need star power. Not everything in the Beckham Experiment has been a failure. Beckham has filled stadiums, sold more than 300,000 jerseys and brought MLS to new levels of recognition around the globe. Those are all good things, and MLS needs more big names at its other clubs. You just have to be very smart about which stars you sign—and how you handle them inside your team.
KM: When you look back at the lengthy process of writing your first book -- 16 months following the team and several months devoted solely to writing it in South Africa -- did you discover anything about yourself or one of the book's subjects that particularly surprised you?
GW: Well, I learned that I could write a book in less than three months! I arrived in Johannesburg on Thanksgiving 2008 and (after two weeks of outlining) wrote 112,000 words in 72 days for a March 1 manuscript deadline. I’ve never gone through anything like that before—I wrote 10 hours a day, seven days a week—but I learned that I could do it and still produce what I feel is a quality book. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the support of my wife, who put up with me during that time and during the 16-month reporting process of covering a team in Los Angeles even though we lived in Baltimore (and I was still working full-time for Sports Illustrated).
Week Seventeen – Questions, Thoughts, and Answers
Monday MLS Breakdown Player of the Week – Chad Barrett, FW, Toronto FC
Look up 'maligned' in a dictionary purchased in the Toronto area and you might find Barrett's mug staring back at you. Barrett's struggles in front of net this season have been well documented on both sides of the border, but the former Chicago forward struck back at his critics by notching a pair of goals and adding an assist in TFC's 3-1 victory over San Jose. The brace should at least buy him three days of respite before the criticism ramps up again.
What was he thinking? Dave van den Bergh, MF, FC Dallas
The Dutch winger always puts in an honest shift but rather inexplicably stopped tracking Kosuke Kimura as he peeled around the FCD backline in the 79th minute of a 0-0 game in Commerce City. Van den Bergh was apparently playing for an offside call – a risky play to rely on external help in the late stages of a tie game – when he let Kimura run freely, but the assistant referee spotted at least one defender keeping the Rapids fullback onside and let play continue. Kimura then collected Mehdi Ballouchy's feed and roofed it past Ray Burse to seal Colorado's 1-0 victory.
Eleven observations to start the week
1. Seattle's first (and tying) goal in its 2-1 win over Houston on Saturday afternoon shouldn't have been ruled a goal. Fredy Montero did well to run onto Nate Jaqua's feed from the right wing and looped a goalbound effort over Pat Onstad in the 32nd minute. Makeshift Dynamo central defender Mike Chabala made a stunning and acrobatic goal line clearance as assistant referee Emiliano Monje rushed to the corner to get into position. After Chabala cleared the ball away, Monje hit the corner flag and rushed up the line to rule it a goal. The clearance was a bang-bang play at the end of a quick and lengthy break, making it nearly impossible for Monje to get into the proper spot to rule either way on it. Replays showed that granting the goal was the wrong call.
2. “By the way, can I say something?” said Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear as the local Houston television crew wrapped up an in-game interview shortly after halftime. “(It was the) [s]ame guy that did us in Salt Lake two years ago, the same linesman...” Kinnear repeated those comments to the assembled media after the game, but misplaced the RSL game by a year on both occasions. In Houston's 3-1 loss at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Aug. 19, 2006, Monje awarded a goal to then-RSL midfielder Chris Klein in first-half stoppage time when his shot deflected off the crossbar and appeared to bounce off, but not over, the goal line. Time apparently does not heal old wounds, especially when they've been torn asunder once again by another dodgy call.
3. “You have to have a cavalier attitude coming in here,” opined Houston color commentator (and occasional ESPN play-by-play voice) Glenn Davis early in the broadcast about how opposing teams should approach playing inside the cauldron known as Qwest Field. Truthful words, indeed.
4. “You go from playing Steve Ralston from playing right behind the front man to playing him at left back,” Revolution head coach Steve Nicol said after Ralston made his first ever start at left back as a fill-in for late scratch Amaechi Igwe in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Kansas City. “You don't get much different than that.”
5. Kansas City has usually benefited when a referee has shown a red card in one of its games this season – prior to Saturday, the tally was Opponents 5, Wizards 2 in the dismissal category – but the Wizards appeared considerably hard done by when Lance Watson saw red for a late tackle for an 81st minute tackle on the Revolution's Nico Colaluca. Watson didn't get there in time to get the ball and probably deserved a yellow card for the tardy challenge, but the dismissal shocked just about everyone in the building. “I was disappointed,” Wizards coach Curt Onalfo said afterwards. “I think it was a late challenge, but not one that warranted an ejection. Whenever you have those situations, you put the referee in a position where he has to make a decision. I think it was unfortunate.”
6. The career-high 11 saves – including one straight from the top drawer on a Brian McBride header after 25 minutes – made by Columbus goalkeeper Will Hesmer in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Chicago show that the Crew stopper has fully recovered from knee and back injuries. As further proof of his return to form, Hesmer has broken his career-high in saves in subsequent games after compiling 10 stops in the Crew's 1-1 draw with D.C. United on Independence Day.
7. '”Maybe if I put a little more pace on that one, it goes in,” McBride told the Chicago Sun-Times about Hesmer's save. “Obviously, there are some things we can do better, and one of them is putting the ball in the back of the net.” Another thing on that list? Winning home games. The Fire is just 1-2-4 at Toyota Park this season after the draw with the Crew.
8. “If somebody had given odds on Kosuke (Kimura) getting not only a goal but a winning goal, I'm not sure too many in the stands would have taken it,” Colorado head coach Gary Smith said after Kimura ensured the Rapids would come away with all three points against FCD.
9. Barrett's fifth-minute goal against San Jose was the first goal TFC had scored in the first 30 minutes in a road match this season. It was also the first goal any Reds player had scored against the Earthquakes after TFC went scoreless in the two meetings between the clubs last year.
10. San Jose head coach Frank Yallop deservedly lit into his team in the media after its meek submission. “It was a poor performance by us,” Yallop said. “We came out flat and nervous and not really ready to play, and it surprised me. We didn't seem to play all night.”
11. “My guess is he fits in there,” Los Angeles coach Bruce Arena said about David Beckham's role in his team after Saturday's 1-0 SuperClasico victory over Chivas USA. “Exactly where is to be determined. We haven't had him on the field with our team yet but obviously we think the world of David. He's an outstanding player and healthier than he has been in a long time.”
Kyle McCarthy writes the Monday MLS Breakdown and frequently writes opinion pieces during the week for Goal.com. He also covers the New England Revolution for the Boston Herald and MLSnet.com. Contact him with your questions or comments at kyle.mccarthy@goal.com and follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
For more on Major League Soccer, visit Goal.com's MLS page!
Get ready, America. Becks is back.
Los Angeles midfielder David Beckham returned to the Home Depot Center on Saturday night to watch his Galaxy teammates beat Chivas USA. Beckham will rejoin the Galaxy for training this week to prepare for his long-awaited return in a nationally televised match in New York on Thursday night.
As always, Beckham didn't slip in the back door quietly.
An excerpt from Grant Wahl's new book “The Beckham Experiment” piqued considerable interest in the soccer, sports and mainstream media when it was released on June 29. The ensuing public sniping match between Beckham and Landon Donovan over comments Donovan made to Wahl about Beckham's allegedly spotty professionalism drew headlines over the past week, igniting discussion about how the suddenly hot Galaxy – winners of three straight matches and currently in the thick of the playoff chase – would accommodate its two largest stars upon Beckham's return and would cope with the resumption of the Beckham circus.
In some ways, the destiny of the Galaxy's near future presents a question no one can predict because Beckham is a unique phenomenon who creates a wide-ranging impact that can't be quantified by anticipation.
Only four things about Beckham's return appear certain right now: (1) Beckham will apply himself on the field – barring injury – to wade off Donovan's accusations of poor professionalism and maintain his place in the England squad; (2) Donovan will try to find a way to achieve some sort of truce with Beckham, even if the reconciliation only repairs the relationship to the point where the duo can share the same field; (3) the Galaxy players will take time to adjust on and off the field to the white hot glare Beckham brings wherever he goes; and (4) Galaxy coach Bruce Arena will face the biggest coaching challenge of his career as he integrates Beckham and all of his trappings into a cohesive and workmanlike Galaxy unit already pushing for a playoff berth.
Everything else surrounding Beckham's return is open to debate, interpretation and speculation. To help with that parlor game, I exchanged e-mails with Wahl to get his take on the situation.
(A little background for those who aren't familiar: Wahl – a staff writer for Sports Illustrated who is considered one of the leading and authoritative voices on American soccer – spent 16 months covering the Galaxy and Beckham to compile material for “The Beckham Experiment,” his first book. The result is an engaging and informative exposé that pulls back the curtain on the Beckham era in Los Angeles and reveals how a combination of ego, ambition, savvy and ignorance among those charged with Beckham's American success increased the bottom line and hampered the chances of on-the-field success. “The Beckham Experiment” comes out tomorrow – you can pre-order it from Amazon by clicking here – and it comes highly recommended. I read it in one sitting on Friday night because I couldn't put it down. It is worth your money.)
Kyle McCarthy: With Beckham scheduled to rejoin the Galaxy in time for Thursday's match against New York, the looming question is how he will fit into a Galaxy team that he shirked away from towards the end of the 2008 campaign and abandoned for the first half of 2009. Is there a way both sides can make an awkward situation work for the rest of the season without disturbing the relative progress the club has made to date?
Grant Wahl: The easiest way is to win games. If a team is winning, players tend to forget any personal animosities and get on with it. If a team isn’t winning—as the Galaxy was not during Beckham’s first two seasons—then resentments and locker-room dysfunction can fester. The question for me is how a Galaxy team that has started to turn things around without Beckham will deal with the return of the Beckham circus. Since Beckham’s arrival in 2007, the Galaxy has a better winning percentage when he’s not on the field than when he is. Only a fool would suggest that an elite player like Beckham would hurt an MLS team on the field, but those stats do suggest that the rest of the Galaxy has had a hard time dealing with all the things that Beckham brings to the table, most of all the crushing media attention. Several Galaxy players told me as much.
KM: The run and gun days of the Ruud Gullit era -- perhaps Beckham's best in a Galaxy uniform -- are long gone. How well do you see Beckham fitting in with the Galaxy's more conservative and disciplined style under Bruce Arena?
GW: I don’t think that part of it should be a problem. In fact, if the Galaxy’s defense is more solid these days, perhaps Beckham won’t feel the need to track so far back on the field and can spend more time serving balls into the box on the attacking end—which is where he’s at his best.
KM: Much of the media focus surrounding the release of your book has centered on the strained relationship between Beckham and Landon Donovan. What, if any, impact do you see that strain having on Beckham's already murky long-term future with the Galaxy?
GW: Even before the book excerpt came out, Beckham had stated that he wanted to return to a European team in January 2010 and rejoin the Galaxy after the 2010 World Cup. If that’s the case, he (and/or some European team) will have to pay a lot more money to the Galaxy and MLS at the end of the 2009 MLS season. It remains to be seen whether Donovan would still be with the Galaxy after the 2010 World Cup, but if he is that could have an impact on whether Beckham wants to rejoin the team (and whether the team wants him).
It’s possible that Beckham and Donovan will reach a détente, but I’m not so sure after Beckham’s first public comments about Donovan on Saturday. Beckham went out of his way to say that Donovan’s criticism of his professionalism was unprecedented in Beckham’s career (even if it’s not; Sir Alex Ferguson had issued similar criticisms), and Beckham himself has said that he has a long memory of criticisms.
Let’s be honest: the only people with the Galaxy whose opinions matter to Beckham and his handlers are AEG CEO Tim Leiweke and owner Phil Anschutz. I’m curious to see whether coach/GM Bruce Arena has entered or will enter that group.
KM: In some ways, "The Beckham Experiment" is a book as much about inner workings of American soccer as it is Beckham. What lessons should MLS and its clubs take from the Beckham move and its repercussions?
GW: It’s hard to generalize too much because Beckham is such a singular figure, and even if Thierry Henry were to come to MLS it wouldn’t be the same as far as global recognition, ability to transcend sports, etc. But there are a few lessons from the Beckham Experiment:
• At some point it has to be about the soccer. Beckham has been successful as a celebrity in the U.S., but the vast majority of the Americans who’ve embraced Beckham as a celebrity don’t know (or don’t care) about what he does with the Galaxy. Everyone has made a lot of money off Beckham’s time here, but if you don’t win games then you lose a ton of credibility.
• You can’t give up too much control to the star player and his handlers. I’m still shocked that Tim Leiweke (a very smart businessman) hired Beckham’s best friend and personal manager (Terry Byrne) as a paid consultant who conducted the coaching search for Ruud Gullit. Not only was it a terrible conflict of interest, but it just wasn’t smart: Byrne had no idea how different MLS is from European soccer, considering all the rules that handcuff teams, and anyone who’s followed the league knows that big-name international coaches have always failed in MLS. A lot of people predicted at the time that Gullit was a bad hire, and he proved it in his short stint on the job. No player should ever be bigger than the team, and the Galaxy allowed that to happen with Beckham.
• MLS does need star power. Not everything in the Beckham Experiment has been a failure. Beckham has filled stadiums, sold more than 300,000 jerseys and brought MLS to new levels of recognition around the globe. Those are all good things, and MLS needs more big names at its other clubs. You just have to be very smart about which stars you sign—and how you handle them inside your team.
KM: When you look back at the lengthy process of writing your first book -- 16 months following the team and several months devoted solely to writing it in South Africa -- did you discover anything about yourself or one of the book's subjects that particularly surprised you?
GW: Well, I learned that I could write a book in less than three months! I arrived in Johannesburg on Thanksgiving 2008 and (after two weeks of outlining) wrote 112,000 words in 72 days for a March 1 manuscript deadline. I’ve never gone through anything like that before—I wrote 10 hours a day, seven days a week—but I learned that I could do it and still produce what I feel is a quality book. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the support of my wife, who put up with me during that time and during the 16-month reporting process of covering a team in Los Angeles even though we lived in Baltimore (and I was still working full-time for Sports Illustrated).
Week Seventeen – Questions, Thoughts, and Answers
Monday MLS Breakdown Player of the Week – Chad Barrett, FW, Toronto FC
Look up 'maligned' in a dictionary purchased in the Toronto area and you might find Barrett's mug staring back at you. Barrett's struggles in front of net this season have been well documented on both sides of the border, but the former Chicago forward struck back at his critics by notching a pair of goals and adding an assist in TFC's 3-1 victory over San Jose. The brace should at least buy him three days of respite before the criticism ramps up again.
What was he thinking? Dave van den Bergh, MF, FC Dallas
The Dutch winger always puts in an honest shift but rather inexplicably stopped tracking Kosuke Kimura as he peeled around the FCD backline in the 79th minute of a 0-0 game in Commerce City. Van den Bergh was apparently playing for an offside call – a risky play to rely on external help in the late stages of a tie game – when he let Kimura run freely, but the assistant referee spotted at least one defender keeping the Rapids fullback onside and let play continue. Kimura then collected Mehdi Ballouchy's feed and roofed it past Ray Burse to seal Colorado's 1-0 victory.
Eleven observations to start the week
1. Seattle's first (and tying) goal in its 2-1 win over Houston on Saturday afternoon shouldn't have been ruled a goal. Fredy Montero did well to run onto Nate Jaqua's feed from the right wing and looped a goalbound effort over Pat Onstad in the 32nd minute. Makeshift Dynamo central defender Mike Chabala made a stunning and acrobatic goal line clearance as assistant referee Emiliano Monje rushed to the corner to get into position. After Chabala cleared the ball away, Monje hit the corner flag and rushed up the line to rule it a goal. The clearance was a bang-bang play at the end of a quick and lengthy break, making it nearly impossible for Monje to get into the proper spot to rule either way on it. Replays showed that granting the goal was the wrong call.
2. “By the way, can I say something?” said Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear as the local Houston television crew wrapped up an in-game interview shortly after halftime. “(It was the) [s]ame guy that did us in Salt Lake two years ago, the same linesman...” Kinnear repeated those comments to the assembled media after the game, but misplaced the RSL game by a year on both occasions. In Houston's 3-1 loss at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Aug. 19, 2006, Monje awarded a goal to then-RSL midfielder Chris Klein in first-half stoppage time when his shot deflected off the crossbar and appeared to bounce off, but not over, the goal line. Time apparently does not heal old wounds, especially when they've been torn asunder once again by another dodgy call.
3. “You have to have a cavalier attitude coming in here,” opined Houston color commentator (and occasional ESPN play-by-play voice) Glenn Davis early in the broadcast about how opposing teams should approach playing inside the cauldron known as Qwest Field. Truthful words, indeed.
4. “You go from playing Steve Ralston from playing right behind the front man to playing him at left back,” Revolution head coach Steve Nicol said after Ralston made his first ever start at left back as a fill-in for late scratch Amaechi Igwe in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Kansas City. “You don't get much different than that.”
5. Kansas City has usually benefited when a referee has shown a red card in one of its games this season – prior to Saturday, the tally was Opponents 5, Wizards 2 in the dismissal category – but the Wizards appeared considerably hard done by when Lance Watson saw red for a late tackle for an 81st minute tackle on the Revolution's Nico Colaluca. Watson didn't get there in time to get the ball and probably deserved a yellow card for the tardy challenge, but the dismissal shocked just about everyone in the building. “I was disappointed,” Wizards coach Curt Onalfo said afterwards. “I think it was a late challenge, but not one that warranted an ejection. Whenever you have those situations, you put the referee in a position where he has to make a decision. I think it was unfortunate.”
6. The career-high 11 saves – including one straight from the top drawer on a Brian McBride header after 25 minutes – made by Columbus goalkeeper Will Hesmer in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Chicago show that the Crew stopper has fully recovered from knee and back injuries. As further proof of his return to form, Hesmer has broken his career-high in saves in subsequent games after compiling 10 stops in the Crew's 1-1 draw with D.C. United on Independence Day.
7. '”Maybe if I put a little more pace on that one, it goes in,” McBride told the Chicago Sun-Times about Hesmer's save. “Obviously, there are some things we can do better, and one of them is putting the ball in the back of the net.” Another thing on that list? Winning home games. The Fire is just 1-2-4 at Toyota Park this season after the draw with the Crew.
8. “If somebody had given odds on Kosuke (Kimura) getting not only a goal but a winning goal, I'm not sure too many in the stands would have taken it,” Colorado head coach Gary Smith said after Kimura ensured the Rapids would come away with all three points against FCD.
9. Barrett's fifth-minute goal against San Jose was the first goal TFC had scored in the first 30 minutes in a road match this season. It was also the first goal any Reds player had scored against the Earthquakes after TFC went scoreless in the two meetings between the clubs last year.
10. San Jose head coach Frank Yallop deservedly lit into his team in the media after its meek submission. “It was a poor performance by us,” Yallop said. “We came out flat and nervous and not really ready to play, and it surprised me. We didn't seem to play all night.”
11. “My guess is he fits in there,” Los Angeles coach Bruce Arena said about David Beckham's role in his team after Saturday's 1-0 SuperClasico victory over Chivas USA. “Exactly where is to be determined. We haven't had him on the field with our team yet but obviously we think the world of David. He's an outstanding player and healthier than he has been in a long time.”
Kyle McCarthy writes the Monday MLS Breakdown and frequently writes opinion pieces during the week for Goal.com. He also covers the New England Revolution for the Boston Herald and MLSnet.com. Contact him with your questions or comments at kyle.mccarthy@goal.com and follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
For more on Major League Soccer, visit Goal.com's MLS page!
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