CARSON, Calif. – Plenty of excuses were available for the LA Galaxy to use in describing Tuesday’s stunning 6-2 loss to Real Salt Lake in front of a StubHub Center crowd of 25,667. But coaches and players refused to go that route.
They preferred a more realistic approach, despite the obvious discomfort.
Head coach Curt Onalfo, for example, could have attributed the poor effort, for example, to a heavy schedule that has featured seven games in the last 21 days. He also could have pointed to injuries to the likes of left back Ashley Cole and midfielders Sebastian Lletget (still recovering from foot surgery) and Romain Alessandrini, for example. He could have mentioned the absence of Gyasi Zardes to the U.S. national team. He even might have talked about the red-card suspension of center back Jelle Van Damme which forced him to go with first-year players Bradley Diallo and Nathan Smith on the starting back line Tuesday.
But he did not take the easy way out. Onalfo was asked if the team’s collective misfortune had started to take its toll and he did agree “It very well could be,” but that’s as close as he came to laying the blame elsewhere.
He instead was more direct in assessing a struggling team that fell to an MLS-worst 1-5-3 at home.
“We’re a group that doesn’t make excuses,” he said. “We find solutions. There’s no doubt about it, we’re a tired group … seven games in less than three weeks. We’re without a lot of our veteran players, so we’re relying on a younger group. We have a lot of injuries. But these younger guys have shown they’ve done it before.
“As coaches we don’t make excuses. Our players don’t make excuses. It’s unacceptable. We need to have a very short memory and get that (loss) out of our system very quickly.”
Jose Villarreal wouldn’t take the easy way out to explain Tuesday’s debacle, either.
“I think at the end of the day we all get paid to play,” he said, “and there’s no excuse for this. The least we can do is go out and play hard and with heart, and that’s what we didn’t do tonight.”
Center back Dave Romney, however, did admit the team is battling fatigue and the roster has been depleted for a myriad of reasons, but he also refrained from an easy explanation after one of the team’s worst losses in franchise history.
“There’s no excuse to give up like that,” he said. “There’s no excuse to give up six goals on your home field.
“Just all in all, not good enough.”
Veteran left back Ashley Cole, who returned from injury after a one-game absence Tuesday, said some serious soul-searching was needed. He also did not agree with the idea that the team is tired from playing so many games in such a short period of time.
“It’s not about the schedule for me,” the 36-year-old said. “It’s about the desire and will to not get battered like we did today. Three-one down, you think, ‘OK, we’ll fight for every ball,’ and we didn’t.
“Let’s not make excuses, like Curt said.”
