CARSON, Calif. -- The LA Galaxy have won just one of their last seven MLS games, slipped from No. 1 in the league to No. 5 in the West, and with successive loss1954140561" tabindex="0">es to finish the regular season missed out on a bye into the conf1954140562" tabindex="0">erence semifinals.
Think they're moping? Think again.
“Who cares?” head coach Bruce Arena said ahead of LA's Knockout Round showdown on Wednesday in Seattle (10 pm ET, UniMas). “It's over with. It has nothing to do with the game on Wednesday. Why should we be thinking about it? We have a game on Wednesday to play, two good teams, and we have to play better than them.”
It's a new season, one that has little to do with the preceding eight months, and the Galaxy are confident that their experience in these kinds of situations, steeled through three MLS Cup titles in the past four years, will provide an edge.
“The good thing is that we have a 1954140563" style="line-height: 1.6em;" tabindex="0">lot of champions in our locker room, and I have a lot of faith in the guys,” forward Alan Gordon said. “When push comes to shove, when your back's are up against the wall, there's guys that you want on your team, and we have a lot of those guys.
“I'm looking1954140564" style="line-height: 1.6em;" tabindex="0"> forward to1954140565" style="line-height: 1.6em;" tabindex="0"> Wednesday. I think that you're going to see the championship mentality come out, and the fight and the passion.”
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The Galaxy skidded into the postseason, taking just fiv1954140566" tabindex="0">e points in the past nine weeks as the attack, following a 50-goals-in-15 games outbreak from June 17 to Aug. 23, lost some of its footing and defensive errors were punished. The 5-2 loss nine days ago against Portland was bad, but they weren't unhappy with their performance in Sunday's 2-1 loss at Sporting Kansas City.
“After every game, a win or a loss, you look at things that you can improve on,” Gordon noted. “Obviously, we've had a lot of things that we've had to talk about, and we've done that. I don't think that our performances have been terrible. I just think that we haven't been winning.”
There are positives to take, midfielder Steven Gerrard said, but measuring the mistakes is a must.
“It seems we're conceding a lot of goals lately, [and] we have to score two or three to win a game, so we still need to tighten up at the back,” the English star said. “The positives are we got in some fantastic positions [at Kansas City], and we just lacked that little bit of quality on the final pass and the finish. And there's a lot of players in the team that are guilty of that, and I'm one of them. ...
“I certainly feel we fell off a bit of late, over the last eight or nine games, but as they say in football, you've got a chance to resurrect that. The only thing that's important now is not the eight or nine games previously, it's the one we're looking forward to: Seattle. If we get a big win, that will do an awful lot for confidence and put this team right back where we should be.”
The Galaxy also can find confidence in their previous trips to Seattle. They've prevailed in all three playoff meetings, the first in 2010, and since a 4-0 loss in August 2012, LA are 2-3-1 against the Sounders at CenturyLink Field -- and two of those defeats were far from bitter: The Galaxy advanced on goal difference in 2012 and on away goals last year after second-leg losses in the Western Conference finals.
That doesn't matter a whole lot, either, Arena says.
Or maybe it does.
“It doesn't matter because a playoff is different, but the good thing about it is we know we can go there and win the game because we've done it in the past,” captain Robbie Keane said. “We've played so much there that we kind of know the field, probably more than maybe anybody else in this league.”
Gordon says history provides “a mental advantage” but that “once we step on the field on Wednesday, all that's erased.”
And with the way the regular season has ended, that's pretty much forgotten.
“It's tough [to fall to fifth], but you're going to have to play tough in the playoffs regardless,” Gordon said. “We're looking forward. There's no point in dwelling on the past. It is what it is. It was a really tight conference, and we knew it all the way. You give up one or two games that could have gone either way, and you end up in fifth place.
“Every team in the league can say, 'This game or that game.' This is what it is, and we've got to go win this. That's it.”
