*Finally* Galaxy!

So, I know my rants have been less ranty lately.  I assure you, that is likely to change as I have to work every night this week (in addition to my normal daily schedule).  But, I feel it is only fair that when I bash my soccer team of choice (which truth be told, is more abou geographic convenience than anything else... but I do love Landon Donovan, so that helps), for sucking donkey butt, that I also acknowledge their accomplishments.  This weekend was such an accomplishment.

To begin with, I have a cascade of background information, to get you caught up on why this weekend especially was a big deal.  The people in charge of marketing MLS have decided that the best way to get people to come out to see games is to come up with as many rivalries as possible.  If one team's colors are primary, and another is secondary, you've got a rivalry.  One team is from The East coast and one the west, another rivalry!  Here in LA we have two teams, the Galaxy, and Chivas USA, and you guessed it, a rivalry.  Both teams share the same stadium, so when they play each other, while one team is technically home, and the other away, for all intents and purposes, its a double home game.  This clash is called the "Honda Superclasico" (how's *that* for marketing gone awry?), and it happens a couple times per year.

Secondly, I should take a moment to explain why I do not like Chivas.  It's not that they are a bad team (quite the opposite in fact, despite having a girls name, Sacha Kljestan is really good, and Ante Razov is a staple of my MLS fantasy team's strikers), its not that they're the "bad guys" or even "the other guys" in a local rivalry.  It is plain and simply, Chivas fans.  Or more accurately, the way *some* Chivas fans behave during the game.  I'm all for getting rowdy, celebrating, booing, telling the ref where he can or cannot stick his whistle/card/flag.  What I am not about, is physically interfering with the game.  I have seen countless Chivas games where stuff is thrown at the opposing team's players during the game, especially the goalkeeper.  Bottles, cans, streamers... just about anything they can get their hands on, they'll happily toss on out there.  As such, I do not like it when these people's actions are rewarded.

So, now that you have some background on the derby, (spoiler alert), the Galaxy soundly demolished Chivas this weekend.  As I have mentioned before, scoring one or two goals per game is quite a feat in soccer.  The galaxy managed to score five.  Thats right, cinco.  Chivas mustered 2 (once of which was actually really nice, way to go Sacha).  At one point, when it was 4:2, the announcer makes a comment about how the "Galaxy have strapped Chivas to the whipping post, and they're going to town.  As you can see in the highlights, my boy Landon gets a hat trick.

I won't continue to bore you with any more in depth analysis of what should or shouldn't have happened, I'll just leave it at this: way to go Galaxy, you're winning back my faith in your ability to compete, and my faith in the staying power of MLS and soccer in America and that makes me a happy footy fan.