While there has been an upbeat mood surrounding the Galaxy this week as they returned to training following five days off, but that does not mean that the players have forgotten what happened their last time out on the field in Salt Lake City.
Standing just 10 minutes away from an unbeaten record at the World Cup break, a club record 16-game unbeaten streak and a new MLS record for the longest unbeaten streak to start a season the Galaxy surrendered their first goal away from home this season as Javier Morales received the ball in an offside position before turning and slotting a right footed shot past Donovan Ricketts. Ricketts and the Galaxy defenders snapped their heads around, expecting to see the linesman’s flag in the air, but nothing was there and RSL had the lead. Ten minutes later Edvin Jurisevic blew the final whistle and just like that, the Galaxy’s chance at history was gone.
As a result, a justifiable level of disappointment runs through the squad.
“It’s very disappointing,” defender Gregg Berhalter said. “You want to think you can go the whole year without losing. Of course, that's a dream and a lot of hard work and a lot of balls have to bounce your way. But you still want to believe that, and it's still disappointing to have it end like that.”
Chris Klein echoed Berhalter’s sentiments.
“It was disappointing. If we get out of there with a point, I think we'll take it and go away. But there are times where we're not going to get every call. We're not going to get every bounce our way, but we have to learn from that and get better from it.”
And that is exactly what the task at hand now is. To learn from the result against RSL, to move on from that disappointment, get better and try to get a result next weekend in Toronto. But if history is any indication, the Galaxy should be able to do just that on June 26. In Bruce Arena’s tenure with the club, a total of 53 regular season games dating back to August 2008, the Galaxy have lost consecutive games just twice – once near the end of the 2008 campaign and then once more in 2009, dropping two straight in mid-June before running off six straight without a loss, a run that saw the club earn a 5-0-1 record.
“They work at it every game. I give a lot of credit to those guys,” Arena said of his squad. “If we lost a couple in a row, I know our guys would still be in position to bounce back and be successful. I don't tend to worry about it. We have goals; to make the playoffs, to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League, and all of that is still ahead of us.”
