South Couch Report : Los Angeles v Toronto

LA Galaxy as the LA Aztecs

LA Galaxy as the LA Aztecs

Finally a week off from doing the stupidest commute ever. Nobody should need to take that much public transit to get to a footy match. Now I have the comfort of a couch in a basement and no concern if there’s a roof or not, midges, gnats, mosquitoes, rain, lightning, thunder, floods, uprising. Safety. Ahhhhh…

Toronto are coming off a draw last week in the stupid stupid rain and are without “Captain America” (not my nickname) Michael Bradley and “Bishop” (it’s X-Men, I promise) Jozy Altidore who are suiting up for the US Men’s National Team, and missing “Captain Canuck” (why not) Ashtone Morgan and “Wolverine” (for balance in this metaphor) Jonathan Osorio for the Canadian Men’s National Team, all for the Gold Cup. As best put by Kristin in the match preview, this is a test for the salmon shirted one.

Onto the match!

9’ – PENALTY – Lletget hits the dirt after a suspect tackle from Creavalle. Didn’t look like anything there.

9’ – GOAL Keane strikes it top right. Konopka guessed the wrong way.
KEANOS 1, ROBINS 0

17’ – Giovinco breaks into the right side of the box and threads a beauty nutmeg pass to Findley who nearly got on the end of that at the far post. No dice.

21’ – Scoreline notwithstanding, Toronto isn’t being passive. Defense is a bit suspect, but there’s plenty of forward motion.

24’ – From a throw-in, L.A. attacks with Villareal on the right, pops a too-high cross for Keane but that should’ve been in.

41’ – GOAL – Tic Tac Toe, Ishizaki finds a wide open Husidic to the right who finds an open Keane in front of goal who just taps it in. Damn that was nice.
KEANOS 2, ROBINS 0

44’ – Creavalle hits a looper, finds a sliding Cheyrou who couldn’t get to it and it goes out. They meant well.

Half-Time Mood : confused a bit. LA isn’t THAT good, but the scoreline says otherwise.

59’ – GOAL – Morrow, what are you doing son? An absolute turd of a back pass leaves Konopka hanging out to dry, losing a foot race with Keane who dances around the sprawled keeper, then lightly trots the remaining 15 yards towards goal and pops it in for a hat trick.
KEANOS 3, ROBINS 0

60’ – YELLOW – Zavaleta gets booked for a cheap elbow on Keane

68’ – YELLOW – Delgado gets booked for a shirt tug

70’ – SUB – Jackson comes on for Creavalle

70’ – SUB – Chapman out for Lovitz

75’ – Findley cuts ball into Giovinco who beats his two markers and fires a slow roller, but almost outside of Rowe’s reach.

85’ – YELLOW – Warner hauls down someone

86’ – SUB – Hamilton comes on for Findley

4 mins of extra time

90+2 – Konopka makes a solid save at his left post, denying Ishizaki a late goal

90+4 – GOAL Lletget takes a short lay off pass from Rodgers and beats Konopka on the right side.
KEANOS 4, ROBINS 0

Full Time : Los Angeles 4, Toronto 0

Man of the Match (that isn’t Giovinco) : I like what Perquis has to contribute to the match, held his ground fairly well, got in the way when he needed to.

Goat of the Game : He did not have a bad game, and usually he’s rather the hero around these parts, but that pass… so un-Morrow like.  It’s Morrow, by the way…

Ref Rating : 4 out of 5. Missed a few, but nothing unforgivable. Fairly even tempered throughout the match

I Am Not The Gaffer But… : I honestly think he didn’t get anything wrong, necessarily. With the unknown quantity that was Jackson and how well he played for the 20 minutes he had out there, Vanney did as best as he could.

In Case You PVR’d It : It wasn’t a bad game, but it wasn’t worth all of your time.  Watch the first two goals, then let it roll from the third onward.

It truly was bizarre. Could be crazy, but it felt that Toronto had the majority of positive ball movement and possession throughout most of the game.  After the substitutes were made, Toronto were still going for it. That impressed me the most in a game where there wasn’t a ton of moments to be impressed by.  This team has historically shit the bed in the late stages being tied, and even winning.  Seeing them still swinging down 3-0 is a psychological masterstroke.  If that’s the only plus gleaned from this match, then so be it.

It was nice to see Lovitz get a run out, Hamilton get a run out, Chapman to get a start.  I know it is at the expense of absentee teammates, but I’ll take it.  Some may say we’re stuck with them, but as a champion of youth and getting that youth proper game experience, I hope they can unearth one of them that’s more ready for prime-time than previously evaluated… Gerrard already looks like he’s SoCal. Probably didn’t fake-and-bake, but it’s much more amusing to think that he did… Findley wasn’t terrible. Far from great and a crazed argument could be put forth for good, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He afforded himself with some opportunities, and though his wages don’t match the output (thus still think he should be elsewhere), he did not have a bad game… Baggio Husidic’s first name is actually Adis. Officially naming your kid “Baggio” I believe is still a human rights violation, at least until 2044… Surprised to see LA playing so rough, more pleased to see the ref hand out proper bookings. Is he an MLS regular ref?

Player Ratings : Konopka 6, Morrow 5.5, Zavaleta 6, Perquis 7, Creavalle 6 (Jackson 6.5), Warner 6, Chapman 6.5 (Lovitz N/A), Cheyrou 6.5, Delgado 6, Giovinco 7, Findley 6.5 (Hamilton N/A)

Author: Mark Hinkley

Mark is a full-time graphic designer, full-time smart ass and full-time logo, stadium and kit nerd. When he isn't writing ridiculous match reports or redesigning logos for his own amusement, he's salivating over the day that promotion and relegation occurs in MLS. You can follow him @kitnerdmark on the twitterz.

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11 Comments

  1. Wow not: what a TFC supporter would have wanted to happen. That penalty if there was contact I don’t think anyone saw the contact including Penso. And that kind of sealed it. There were a lot of Reds trying but the effort was not good enough. Findley spent more time running away from the LAG net than at it. Chapman was always a step behind and did complain he is an attacker at the 1/2 time interview, the implication is I don’t defend. Perquis was less crisp as was Cheyrou. Delgado is like Zavaleta, steady but isn’t going to break open a game st this point. Morrow experienced one of those brain farts and Creavalle played the FB as I feared he might.

    I though Warner was the best Red on the pitch and Giovinco played hard but became, irrelevant as the game went on (lack of support). TFC have no or less dramatic time zone shifts in their upcoming games and perhaps more win-able games. Vanney got out coached last night, right out of the box.

    As we suspected all along, the lineup is much weaker without all the GC participants. There are no pleasant surprises for us.

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    • Vanney is always the weakest link (with his nephew)!

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  2. Hey Mark, I being a Cruyff fan and you being a Best fan (I think) the Aztec logo-ing is very cool.

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    • Though a Cruyff and a Best fan, the logos that I’ve been using for all of the match reports are old NASL logos with MLS names and colours. I’ve done the whole league up. Thanks for noticing.

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  3. should a team with a spine of Perquis, Cheyrou and Giovinco along with the likes of Warner and Morrow really be getting thrashed by an understrength Galaxy team?

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    • not if they’re set up correctly, no. this seemed very much like the early season games, with creavalle in particular set up to fail. few holes to fill, but cheyrou’s back, so what does vanney do? have him in one of the defensive roles, ie what had been working well in the last couple of months and would help the undermanned team? nope. cos the attack’s also undermanned so he’s going to go there instead.
      dumb, naive. I’d somewhat agree with Mark’s report, we didn’t look terrible and were at times carrying the play to the galaxy, but we were never in control of that game and the galaxy were quite happy to let that happen and then get us on the break, or work on the weaknesses we’d exposed.

      for this to have had a chance, giovinco would have had to be on fire again, and sure he had flashes here and there, but again he wasn’t good enough. that’s 4 straight games now, he’s only got one goal, on a penalty, and the team as a whole has been shut out 3 out of those 4 games and got a measly 4 points from those games.

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      • The offense is a worry. Possession has been trending up, shot attempts have gone up, passing goes up (except for this game), but shots on goal and goals have now dropped.

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      • But but but STUDENT OF THE GAME! (does anyone know which game they’re referring to?)

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        • ask him a question about triple H. any question. he’ll answer it.

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          • Did you see the latest edition of “why my friend fired Nelsen”? Apparently it was now because they didn’t get along and that was a perfectly cromulent reason for pissing away their first playoff appearance

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            • I did. toxxic relationship. had to be done.

              good to see they’ve moved on from ‘the results weren’t good enough’ – awkward seeing how the results have gone since then, or ‘that one game against new england clearly showed the team had quit on him’ – had plenty of equally bad performances since, to admitting it was all about people couldn’t get along together. question is, the toxic relationship with his boss, who does that refer to exactly?

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