SEATTLE –The LA Galaxy saw their season end before Halloween for the first time since the 2008 campaign, and Bruce Arena’s men know that they have no one to blame but themselves for their season’s premature conclusion.
The Galaxy’s 2015 season came to a close on Wednesday as they dropped a 3-2 defeat to Seattle Sounders FC in the Western Conference Knockout Round at CenturyLink Field. The Galaxy battled back from early deficits twice in the match, but the match was lost thanks to three uncharacteristic defensive mistakes that led to each of Seattle’s goals.
After witnessing his talented squad crash out of the postseason at the first hurdle, Arena gave a candid assessment of his team’s performance.
“Well, I think that Christmas came early in Seattle. We absolutely gift-wrapped that game tonight. Our play in front of our goal was atrocious,” Arena said. “We just gift-wrapped three goals for them. Give them credit because they jumped on our mistakes but we were shockingly poor.
“The officiating didn't help, on the second goal, we make maybe the best tackle of the night and he somehow calls it a foul and it ends up in the back of the net. That's our fault; we still need to defend better. We gift-wrapped the game. We played really well at times, but it's a game that we should have won."
The Galaxy displayed impressive resolve to equalize twice in the match only to see themselves undone by their own miscues time and time again. Goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts and his back four were out of sync on Seattle’s first two goals, but both times the Galaxy fought right back leveling the score at 2-2 in the opening 25 minutes.
The third defensive mistake proved decisive as the Galaxy defense was caught out of position on Erik Friberg’s game-winning volley. After falling behind for a third time, the Galaxy had several opportunities to pull the game even, but were unable to find the equalizer that they needed to extend their season.
“It’s disappointing when you’re the champions, and you know what it feels like to lift that trophy, and now for it to be taken away from you, it’s difficult to take,” Robbie Keane said. “We can sit here all day and say ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but we just weren’t good enough, certainly in the last five or six weeks. That’s it. Full credit to the players who gave everything they could [Wednesday]. The effort was there; there’s no question about that.”
Midfielder Steven Gerrard certainly agreed with the captain about the effort, and that LA’s recent slide proved too much for the Galaxy to overcome.
“Think if you analyze the whole season, we were brilliant up until three or four weeks ago, and all of the sudden we have been conceding sloppy goals and that certainly got carried into tonight,” Gerrard said. “That’s the disappointing thing looking at the season as a whole and conceding too many over the last few weeks, but you can never question the lads’ commitment or desire because I see it on a daily basis.”
Now with the Galaxy bound for their longest offseason in seven years, the time has come for a little reflection before they get back to business in 2016.
“Listen, we’re out,” Keane said. “All we have to do is take responsibility and we shall.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at www.LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.