Beckham and Galaxy miss chance - MSL.
LA Galaxy are certainly doing much better this season than they did last year, but could look back on this weekend as a real missed opportunity. Playing Columbus Crew at home, they went 1-0 after just four minutes, doubling that lead in the second half only to see the visitors pull two goals back before Galaxy made it 3-2 and then lost that lead too with only minutes left on the clock. Even then, David Beckham had a glorious chance to grab a winner, but skied it over the bar from inside the area.
Of course, in the grand scheme of things, a 3-3 draw against one of the high-flyers in the Eastern Conference is no disaster, but the nature of the game, and the fact that Galaxy lead for much of it, is what has left a bitter taste in their mouths. Beckham admitted: "At the moment it feels like a loss. To control the game for so long and go up 2-0. We need to learn how to finish games off. I seem to say this every week, it's the consistency you know.
"We've got a lot of young players in the team. It's all about finishing teams off and holding onto leads. It just takes a bit of calmness. This team will learn from these different experiences. We've got some good young players and players who can play under pressure. At the moment, we've just lost it in a few games," he said, also admitting that he should have made it 4-3 at the end: "Sometimes they go in, others they don't. Tonight was one of those nights. Obviously I'm disappointed not to finish the game off there. Personally I felt as though the grass gave way just as I struck the ball. To hit it over so far from that distance, something must have."
Oh, THAT excuse again, eh? Luckily most of people in LA won't have heard it before, but the rest of us will remember it from the last time he spooned a shot over the bar from that kind of distance... Ruud Gullit, at least, was blaming bad fortune as well as a lack of concentration: "What was amazing to me was every bounce, every tackle went in their favor," he said. "If you see the goals they scored, the ball bounced in front of their feet and they scored a goal. It was a little unfortunate in this case."
