Who needs Landon

So said many signs in the stands at Spartan Stadium tonight, and so say I. The Galaxy continued their season-long road slump as keeper Kavin Hartman and his central defenders gave us two own goals in about four minutes as they simply could not communicate. Donovan was booed loudly on his pre-game introduction and every time he touched the ball.

The first San Jose goal in the 37th minute came off a sweet double pass, Davis to Cerritos with Moreno jabbing his foot out inches in front of the LA goalline to stab the ball over. That was the only meaningful action of the half though for my money the referee blew several big calls including a foul that ought to have been a penalty kick and yellow on Hartman for taking out Brad Davis; somehow the man in the red shirt gave the card to Davis for diving.

The second half started with a lot of back forth until the 54th minute when the Galaxy got in close, forcing Pat Onstad to make four saves in a bam bam bam sequence, easily the key defensive stand for us, and after that the heart seemed to whoosh out of LA. Give him credit, Landon ran the field end to end the entire 90+. The two own goals by Michael Umana and Tyrone Marshall followed in the 65th and 68th.

Onstad upped his home shutout streak 416 minutes and the Quakes moved to three points back of tonight’s losers, remaining in third place in the Western Conference. We’ve got a busy week ahead, hosting the Colorado Rapids Wednesday night and traveling to Texas next Saturday for a faceoff with first place FC Dallas. FCD, along with New England, are clearly the class of the league this season and despite missing Eddie Johnson and Richard Mulrooney through injury are still taking points left and right.

Schedule notes: MLS will get a burst of change after the midweek matches through much of July. First, many of the top stars (Dwayne Derosario, Canada, and Brad Davis, USA, from the Quakes) move to national team duty as the CONCACAF squads chase the Gold Cup trophy from July 6-24. Further, several top European clubs come over for preseason friendlies against league teams and each other (including AC Milan, Chelsea, Real Madrid, CD Chivas de Guadalejara) winding up with an MLS Best XI lineup facing EPL’s Fullham FC as this year’s All Star game on July 30.