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Galaxy forward Landon Donovan (#10) celebrates with teammate Edson Buddle after Buddle's tying goal. Photo by AP
The blue-and-gold demonstrated some of its best offensive work on the season during portions of the first half, generating several quality chances. Galaxy forward Alan Gordon nearly opened the scoring at the 22nd minute on a one-on-one with Wizards 'keeper Kevin Hartman, but Hartman was up to the challenge. Minutes later, Gordon was at it again, this time hitting the crossbar. Meanwhile, Galaxy 'keeper Donovan Ricketts kept the Wizards off the score sheet with a point blank save on the Wizards' Davy Arnaud just before the halftime break.
In the second half, Gordon once again nearly opened the scoring when he got a clear shot at goal, but his hard shot sailed way above the goal and posed no danger. A couple of minutes after Gordon's blast, the Wizards were on the attack deep into Galaxy territory. Galaxy defender Gregg Berhalter tugged at Kansas City forward Claudio Lopez's jersey just outside the box in an act of desperation to prevent a one-on-one versus Ricketts. The play was reminiscent of the play that earned Berhalter a red card in his MLS debut a few weeks ago, and much like in his debut, he once again earned a red card, leaving the blue-and-gold a man down for the final 30 minutes. Berhalter and New York's Carlos Johnson are apparently battling it out for the title of Player with most red cards with fewest games played.
The Galaxy shrugged off Berhalter's ejection and almost took the lead on two occasions during the final ten. The first opportunity came from a great shot by midfielder Chris Klein which was denied by an equally great save by Hartman and the second, a shot off the cross bar in the resulting corner kick. Kansas City would take the lead seconds afterwards when Arnaud pounced on a rebound in the six yard box with Ricketts out of position. Arnaud's gold came at the 84th minute and with the clock ticking down to what seemed like a Galaxy loss, forward Landon Donovan put in a great pass to Buddle as he made his way through the Kansas City penalty box. Buddle did the rest, putting in a great in stride shot on goal, beating Hartman and leveling the score at the 87th minute. The score would then remain unchanged through the final whistle.
In addition to the tie, the silver lining for the Galaxy faithful is that despite being a man down for a third of the game, the Galaxy defense played well. It appears as though at least one problem is solved.
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Are the Galaxy ever going to win another match? Really. 1-1-9 record is just not good enough.
It is terrible. Yes, it is good that they are ties instead of losses, but the record is silly now.
Arena definitely deserves credit for having improved the defense, but they really need to get the offense going. At this rate, they'll set the record for the team with the longest undefeated streak without having made the playoffs.
Summer is a notoriously bad period for the Galaxy too, further complicated by the fact that Donovan (the source of all offense this year) will be gone for several games due to US National Team duty. They needed to take advantage of his presence early in the season. I suppose 3 months from now one could argue that they did, assuming their record without him is worse, which is likely to be the case.