Landon Donovan sliced between the center backs. Robbie Keane lobbed the ball into the box (L1 + Triangle in FIFA), a near bulls-eye on the penalty spot. Donovan volleyed it first time off the inside of his right foot and the ball hit the bottom left corner of the net. The 14-year MLS veteran ran to the touch line and slid to both knees as a sold out Stub Hub Center erupted in euphoria. Donovan had a hat-trick and a 5-0 lead. He was not to be denied, and neither were the LA Galaxy that night.
The Los Angeles Galaxy are headed to the Conference Finals after a dominating 5-0 second leg win over Real Salt Lake. They do so on the backs of excellent wing play and a midfield that dominated possession against possibly the best possession and system teams in MLS.
I’m not going to lie, I was scared to death about this game. The Galaxy were on a four game winless streak, all against playoff teams. The three headed monster of Donovan-Keane-Zardes had not scored a goal since October 4th against Toronto. Real Salt Lake had dominated possession and the chances in the first leg, outshooting LA 16-3. As I argued prior to the start of the playoffs, there was plenty of cause for concern, but no reason to panic. The stars needed to show up. They needed to be aggressive against RSL.
Most importantly, they had to flip their switch. The Bruce Arena coached Galaxy teams have had a historical knack for rising to another level when it was needed. The entire team locks in and takes over a game or a playoff series. RSL clearly wasn’t scared of them in the first leg. Penedo needed to make several huge saves just to force a 0-0 draw. Thanks to the away goals rule for the playoffs, RSL didn’t need to win the game to advance. They just needed a draw.
But with a few changes, adjustments, and some better weather, the Galaxy had their biggest win of the season in the most important game so far. Let’s look at how things were different from the second leg:
Weather: The first leg saw very chilly temperatures and gusting winds, up to 20 miles per hour. The Galaxy always seem to have trouble starting/finishing well at Rio Tinto Stadium because of the altitude. I’ve never really understood why that is, and there’s no excuse for it. As we saw in the second leg against RSL last year, the wind makes it even worse for the Galaxy. Stub Hub Center was a lovely 70 degrees and sunny last Sunday.
Lineup Changes: Arena made two changes from the first leg. Ishizaki replaced Husidic at RM. Leonardo came in for Gargan and DeLaGarza moved from CB to RB.
The midfield move was in the plans “weeks ago,” as Arena said “when this whole series was established I knew I was going to play Stefan [Ishizaki] in the second game.” Husidic has been excellent this year, but he’s more of a stay-at-home player than Ishizaki is. Husidic prefers to move in centrally to receive the ball; he almost becomes a third central midfielder. Ishizaki is more of true wide player who loves to stretch the field. This switch worked out perfectly with Arena switching from the counter attack to possession in the second leg (more on that later).
Initially, I thought starting Leonardo was a bit strange. He’s gotten plenty of criticism and blame this year for defensively mistakes and apparent laziness. That said, his last two starts were on the road at Dallas and Seattle at the end of the season. He played very well in both of those. I’d venture to say his game against Dallas was his best match since joining the Galaxy in 2010. While Plata running between Gonzalez and Leo is terrifying, prepared for properly, it could have worked. And it did.
Ditch the counter attack, play with the ball: This iteration of the Galaxy has always had the ability to play both the counter and possession. But for the first time in a few years, the counter has become one of their accessory identities, rather than their preferred style of play. This is for a couple reasons.
The Galaxy’s counter attacking was the best in the league when they had Beckham. They would sit back and let their opponents come at them, stretching themselves in the process. Juninho or a defender would create a turnover. As soon as that happened, Donovan, Keane, and company would turn and be off to the races. They knew Beckham was getting the ball and a world class 40 yard pass was on its way. If they hurried, they’d have an odd man rush as well.
Beckham’s been gone for two seasons now. While others are able to serve the ball out wide or into the final third well enough, it’s not the same. More importantly though, the Galaxy counter attack was at its best with Donovan and Keane as striker partners.
Zardes has been much improved this year and at 23, he’s as fast if not faster than anyone on the team. Players are good at the counter not because their bodies are fast, but because their brains are fast. The Keane-Zardes pairing has been spectacular this year and I think it’s preferred as it allows Donovan to do so many things in the midfield. But if there’s one thing Zardes has not improved in this year, it’s been imposing his speed on the game. His counter attack IQ is still lagging. In that, he’s almost an inhibitor to the counter attack.
So Arena switched things up and decided to force possession and take RSL out of their comfort zone. The Galaxy did this with two things that ultimately unraveled RSL:
1. Wide players stretched the field, distorting RSL’s diamond formation, leaving them exposed:
DeLaGarza did a much better job in the second leg than Gargan did in the first leg of getting up and down the flanks. He combined well with Ishizaki down the right side, such as on the Galaxy’s first goal. This was the result of excellent lineup change decisions by Arena. Jeff Cassar chose to go with Grabavoy instead of Gil at LM, which was a bit of a surprise. “I thought he was their best player last week so that was a little surprising to see that he wasn’t on the field to start,” said Donovan after the game. Grabavoy plays more centrally and isn’t as fast as Gil is. He didn’t give Ishizaki as much of a defensive responsibility.
Down the other flank, Donovan showed up in ways he has not recently. Keane was much more engaged and went into space on both sides of the field. Everyone was saying the stars needed to show up. Keane had a goal and three assists. Donovan had a hat-trick and an assist, and now has 25 goals and 13 assists in 39 MLS playoff games. As the full back lamented after the game, Beltran was “battered” by Donovan. “He was on another level. He is an incredible player and he had so much desire tonight. He is going to punish you and that is what he did,” said Beltran.
2. The midfield possession and service dominated:
Juninho and Marcelo Sarvas are one of the best midfield tandems in MLS. They have good chemistry and have played together in the same system since 2012. I’m sure the fact that their both Brazilian helps. This duo is regularly able to combine through the midfield and distribute to the various weapons LA has. They swap roles fluidly between who tends to go forward and who stays back in a pseudo-holding role. When they are able to combine together, they can beat anyone on any day.
As this graphic shows, they’ve had regular success against everyone, except RSL. RSL does not let them spread the ball and they play keep away. But the two Brazilians stepped up on Sunday.
On the left is the duo’s passing map for the first leg. On the right, the equivalent from the second leg. Not only does one clearly see more passes and a greater percentage of completed passes in the second leg, but look at where the distribution is going. In the second leg, the Brazilians got the ball to the flanks more often. They also distributed it further, away from the center of the field and into the attacking third. On their right, that’s Ishizaki and an onrushing DeLaGarza. On their left, Donovan or Keane flaring out wide. Interestingly enough, both stadiums have the same pitch dimensions. This is where the wind played a factor perhaps?
Juninho and Sarvas not only had better games because of their own accords, but also because they had easily accessible relief valves. They worked hard to win possession and were able to keep it because they got it fast play makers in space. This put RSL on their heels. Their system works best when they have the ball. When they don’t have the ball, they are vulnerable, especially when the other team is able to distort their shape by spreading them out and attacking with numbers. That’s been the Galaxy’s bread and butter since August that got them a +32 goal differential this season.
Beckerman was a sailor with only one bucket and a ship with four leaks. He was unable to shield the back line because he had too many holes to plug up. With no support in front of them, the back four had numbers swarming at them on a night when their gap control was poor.
Plata was invisible all night. His speed can’t kill you if he isn’t getting service. He can’t get service if his team doesn’t have the ball. Gonzalez, Leonardo, and later Tommy Meyer were all able to negate Saborio by marking him tight and clearing the ball when he got possession in dangerous areas.
The question then must be asked: Did LA play that well or did RSL play that bad? In truth, I think it was a combination of both. RSL didn’t start adjusting until it was 3-0. I do thing Cassar made a mistake in not starting Gil. With the way LA was playing, I’m not sure any substitutions were going to make a difference. It was going to require a formation change, maybe to a 4-2-3-1 to give Beckerman some help. They would have been less prone to getting burned on the flanks. In making a formation change though, Cassar would have gone away from the diamond midfield, the institutional structure that makes the RSL machine work.
By this reasoning, there wasn’t much RSL could have done on the day. Maybe if their back four had done a better job with gap control, it wouldn’t have been as bad. If they adjust at half time better, maybe they stop the bleeding and only lose 2-0. Maybe Gil makes it a little less lopsided if he starts. Any one of these would have at least made the scoreline less ignominious. Doing all of these could have kept the game close, for awhile. Failure to do anyone of these would have probably results in a loss.
The outcome was inevitable. Landon Donovan and the LA Galaxy were not to be denied that night.
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