Drilling down on: at Montreal 1, LA Galaxy 1

May 12, 2012, 6:40 PM EDT

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Man of the Match: The only blemish of Donovan Ricketts‘ day was a David Beckham free kick, though he isn’t the first to be beaten by that type of effort. While Ricketts’ inability to get to that ball might be immortalized in Beckham’s highlight reel, Montreal’s goalkeeper forged a one-game highlight reel of his own, making three spectacular stops in the first 15 minutes of the second half to keep Montreal in the game.

Packaged for takeaway:

And Montreal barely staying in this one. Although the Impact were better in the first half, they were dominated in the second. You can’t help but think they would have broken if Los Angeles had some way to meaningfully change up their attack.
David Beckham’s numbers speak to that lack of variation. He led the game in successful passed (63) but was also, by far, its leader in unsuccessful passes (31). A big part of that: Only four of his 15 attempted crosses were successful. He also lost possession another 33 times, a number that speaks not only to his place in LA’s plans but also their need to find somebody else that can help promote play.
On both sides of halftime, we saw (more) striking examples of how much Los Angeles misses Omar Gonzalez. On Montreal’s goal, A.J. De La Garza misjudged a long ball while Dan Keat, probably assuming De La Garza would at least put in a challenge for the ball, let Davy Arnaud get behind him. Late in the game when LA was forcing corner after corner, they missed their most dangerous set piece option.
This was, however, and improvement for the Galaxy. Though their first half was somewhat poor, over the course of 90 minutes, they didn’t look pathetic. They also responding in the second half in the face of what would have been another embarrassing result. The team is highly flawed, but today, they managed to look minimally capable.
Of course, now there’s a danger LA starts to make strides just as U.S. World Cup qualifying starts, Robbie Keane leaves for Euro 2012, and David Beckham gets called away to Team GB. Even if LA finds a solution soon, they’ll need another one in a few weeks.
For Montreal, it was a decent point in front of a huge crowd (over 60,000). They still offer very little in attack, but the core of a good defense is in place, particularly with a Nelson Rivas-Matteo Ferrari pairing playing between Ricketts and a midfield of Felipe Martins and Collen Warner. It’s a group that will buy Jesse Marsch time to work out his team’s attacking issues.