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Galaxy earn valuable scoreless road draw vs. Herediano

Marcelo Sarvas

By IVES GALARCEP

The Los Angeles Galaxy can count themselves both lucky and cheated coming away from Thursday’s CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal opener vs. Herediano, but they won’t leave Costa Rica too unhappy with a scoreless draw.

The Galaxy had a Mike Magee goal incorrectly ruled offside, then saw a late Herediano penalty kick crash off the crossbar (after a very questionable penalty call).

The final result was a draw that sends the Galaxy back to Home Depot Center next week needing a win to secure a place in the Champions League semifinals.

Ismael Gomez nearly snatched a winner for Herediano after going down easily after contact from Sean Franklin, but Gomez promptly blasted his 87th-minute penalty kick off the crossbar.

Magee looked to have a valuable road goal in the bag in the 58th minute only to have the linesman rule the goal offside. Replays showed Magee to be clearly onside.

Magee came close to scoring on two occasions, sending a shot off the woodwork in the first half.

The Galaxy return to Home Depot Center on Wednesday for the second leg, and will look to erase the memories of last year’s disappointing quarterfinal second-leg loss to Toronto FC.

What did you think of the match? See the Galaxy winning the second leg? Think the referee cost the Galaxy a win?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

    • I don’t think the ref was anti US and he seemed confident in his calls. I thought it was a penalty in real time but after seeing replay it was a dive and was glad he missed the PK. I was not watching when the LA goal was called back for off side. Overall, LA did get screwed though.

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  1. Frankly, I think the Galaxy should have done better. I think Seattle played a better game against a better opponent. The key in the next legs is, obviously enough, not giving up the away goal. I think both have a good chance, with Seattle facing the bigger challenge. But of the two, Seattle impressed me more. Having Zakuani will help, and if they can generate some corner chances they should score. They can win. That said, EJ needs to start scoring (in addition to the very good work he is doing) or Seattle needs to find their Robbie Keane.

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    • Am I missing something here? Yes Tigres is a better opponent. But Seattle playing a better game? Seattle had about 30% possession and lost. Galaxy probably had more than 50% possession and tied despite a a bad call.

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    • Seattle–except Gspurning–were awful.

      Then again, I briefly considered complaining about the spin in some of these articles.

      LA plays an inferior opponent and manages to score 0 road goals, yet it’s a valuable result.

      Houston wins a match and everyone’s like. “Oh, it wasn’t by 6 goals, they’re screwed.” That’s just inane right there, recent CCL history in Torreon be darnned.

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      • Houston definately deserves credit. However, Santos away will be a tough task. Out of LA/Houston I would definately say LA has a better chance to advance.

    • That Quakeland tag sure makes sense of why you’re saying a dominated Seattle did better than an LA team that should’ve won

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  2. Any chance to get European referees for USA games? Maybe complain to Fifa and Concacaaf. I would say a majority of games in Mexico/Central America, USA gets bad calls.

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      • Good idea, but you need to embarrass them with it … make a really good one, load it up on YouTube, and then sit back and watch what happens … kind of like a pyromaniac.

  3. Awesome result. What a great statement it would be if the two teams that played in the MLS Cup Final ended up meeting again in the CCL Final.

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  4. Who is Herediano…and why are we celebrating a draw with a team no one has ever heard of….MLS is truly Minor League Soccer. Division 3 at best

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    • Division 3, what a troll. If you watch the game, bad field and bad refs. If you are a USMNT fan, you should already know the facts. At home LAG is going to score a ton of goals.

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    • A road tie against a good team is a good result. I don’t know about celebrating. I’m not, but it puts LA in a position to take care of business at home and then celebrate making the semis. Herediano won their group and has been a solid team for a while in Costa Rica. They aren’t as good as the other teams that MLS sides are playing, but they aren’t Xelaju.

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    • Concacaf uses actual goals not counted as the tie breaker. For every properly scored goal or bogus penalty called against a team, -1 points are credited.

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      • Lol. Seriously, something should be done by CONCACAF. These refs are probably making some decent bank with the payoffs and all. But our clubs are really suffering from all this BS.

      • I thought the same thing when I watched the offside call again. I keep hoping to see someone from LA would say something like “with everything going on in the world of soccer these days you really have to wonder about both the offside call and that PK call.” Maybe that would be just vague enough to not get fined, but still get the message across that when officials make calls like that, it raises questions about whether they’ve been paid off.

    • I looked up the Concacaf tournament rules and it looks like at some point they switched to using away goals as a tiebreaker.

      As far as the reffing goes, it’s worth considering that the Mexicans and us probably have the best funded leagues in the region — even if people already think the reffing is dubious there — and with the regulations you can’t use either side’s refs for CCL games when we play each other. The rules essentially eliminate our reffing pool from our contests. So without even getting into corruption or bias, chances are you may have someone from a second or third tier national league reffing our games. The guy reffing the Dynamo game was from Suriname, the guy reffing Seattle was Salvadoran, and the guy reffing LAG was Guatemalan. Among those nations I think you have 1 CCL finalist and no Hex finalists.

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    • as someone who’s been in a hospital, i need to tell you that if you continue to watch concacaf games, you’re eventually going to have a nervous breakdown.

      but yeah, you never really get used to the godawful officiating.

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  5. Semifinals will be- galaxy vs monterrey (only if donovan comes back in time, they have chance) tigres vs santos, because tigres is playing better on the road this season and tigres are used to hostile stadiums and their manager is an expert at defending, good luck sounders. By the w!y, tigres manager is known for winninng titles by defense and not offense and most of his teams play counterattack all game long and as well as defending 24-7. As for dynamo, don’t even show up to. Torreon because Santos is known for killing oponents at home by many goals. The only way MLS teams will win, is by attacking without fear and defending like warriors and never show fear and weakness for 90min. The final will be a Monterrey derby, tigres vs monterrey

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    • Aren’t you the downer….? Well one thing to keep in mind, is that Villa is not going to play now or in the semifinal’s 1st leg at least as he is out for a month….and also Tigres is NOT used to either the turf of Seattle or the cold and maybe wet weather they will encounter. If Sigi gets his line up right, with Zakuani and Martinez on the wings, Rosales and Alonso in the middle and either Estrada or Ochoa partnering up with EJ….the Sounders have a shot.

      Donovan is coming back 10 days after the 2nd leg vs Herediano….with enough time to get ready for the 2nd leg at least, which will be in Monterrey….but they’ll have both Villareal and Donovan….they’ll be okay. Houston if they play Brad Davis the whole game and can capitalize on set pieces and defend the way they did in leg one, have a good enough chance….

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      • Actually Tigres has cold winters, they get snow and rainy weather in the winter. They also have one of the best benches in LigaMX and yes they have played before on artificial turf, since all rich teams in Liga MX have artificial turf fields to practice for this kind of games. If they would be playing some low income mexican team, then sounders would have a chance but LigaMX has America, Chivas, Tijuana, Leon, Cruz Azul, Pumas, Tigres, Monterrey Rayados, Pachuca, with lots of money. MLS only has Galaxy, Sounders and Red Bull with money, sad story.

    • Yes, the soccer gods were smiling at the MLS and the Galaxy. Poor and uneven refereeing, took one goal scoring opportunity away from the Galaxy, after a blown offside call on a Magee goal and poor refereeing decision gave a goal scoring opportunity to Heredario.who missed the penalty

      Like I said, the soccer gods smiled at LA tonite.

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      • They didn’t take an opportunity away. They took away a goal that was already in the back of the net. Horrible call. The PK call was worse. You could argue that the soccer gods didn’t smile on them at all with two just atrocious calls. Courtney Campbell has reffed quite a few high level games. For him to fall for that dive was just weak (although not unexpected for MLS teams in central america).

      • Herediano clanged the posts a few times and blew a penalty kick so LAG kind of lucked out.

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