Galaxy Takes It in Stride
It’s easy to see why the Galaxy is one of three undefeated teams in Major League Soccer this season.
Of course, it has been only two games and both went to overtime before being won, but the depth of talent at Coach Sigi Schmid’s disposal means his players are relaxed and confident.
Certainly, they were a loose bunch during shooting drills Friday while training for tonight’s game against the Dallas Burn at the Rose Bowl.
They could have been bemoaning the loss of starting forward Chris Albright, who underwent surgery Friday morning after suffering a broken bone in his right foot.
Albright will be sidelined for six to eight weeks, but defender Alexi Lalas wasn’t about to send him a get-well card. Lalas suffered an identical injury to his left foot just before the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. He strapped up the foot, donned a bigger boot and played three matches.
Lalas, very much tongue-in-cheek, said today’s players wouldn’t dream of doing that.
“They don’t know what pain is,” he said, laughing. “They don’t know what playing with broken bones is and all that kind of stuff. It’s all about money for these guys. It’s not about the love and the passion for the game that most of us had years ago.”
It wasn’t a bad tackle that caused Albright’s injury. It was wear and tear that caused the fifth metatarsal (a bone on the outside of his foot) to break.
“He did his the same way I did, where there wasn’t anybody [else] involved,” Lalas said. “You just turn, put all your weight on one side and eventually the bone that’s weak just can’t handle it. It also has to do with the amount of soccer that you play and the types of shoes that we wear.
“When I did it back in ‘92, I lined up with the X-ray where the break was. It was right underneath the stud. I was wearing studs for a long time and your foot can only take so much.
“It’s like a credit card. When you break a credit card, you bend it and it gets weaker and weaker and weaker and eventually it just snaps.”
Lalas, 31, said having surgery now was the correct choice for Albright and had some encouraging words for the 23-year-old. “You’re not going to be out that long and the benefits are great because you come back much stronger,” he said.
Lalas waited until after the ’92 Olympics for his surgery, and it had no adverse effect on his U.S. national team and professional careers. “They put a screw in and grafted some bone in from my ankle and, to be honest, it’s stronger than my right one,” he said.
Tonight, Albright’s place in the lineup will be taken by Brian Mullan, who will team with MLS leading scorer Carlos Ruiz up front in a two-man Galaxy attack.
“We’ll slot Mullan in,” Schmid said Friday. “It’s good that we have Cobi [Jones] available for the next three games. By the time Cobi leaves for the World Cup, [midfielder] Peter Vagenas will be at a stage where he comes back [from a back strain that has kept him out of the lineup], so that gives us the ability to move Sasha [Victorine] into a more offensive role.
“Certainly, it’ll increase the playing time for Mullan and for Gavin Clinton, and maybe we’ll even give some minutes to Alejandro Moreno.”
Albright, who started for the U.S. at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, probably will not be available until June.
“It’ll be somewhere between four and five weeks before he can start running, and then it all depends on how long it takes him from there,” Schmid said.
“Chris Henderson [now with the Colorado Rapids] had his [foot injury] halfway through our [1990] championship year at UCLA and we just nursed him through the rest of the year. Lalas nursed his through the Olympics.
“With Chris [Albright], we felt it was better just to get it done now.”
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
GALAXY TONIGHT
vs. Dallas, 7
Site--Rose Bowl.
Radio--KSPN (1110), KTNQ (1020, Spanish).
Records--Galaxy 2-0, Burn 1-1.
Record vs. Burn (2001)--0-0-2.
Update--The Galaxy lost for the first time since October’s MLS Cup 2001 when it was beaten, 2-1, in an exhibition by the A-League’s Portland Timbers at Portland on Tuesday. “Hopefully, there will be some lessons learned,” Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid said. Dallas was shut out, 2-0, by the league champion San Jose Earthquakes in its opener, then rebounded to edge D.C. United, 2-1. Burn forward Eddie Johnson will be out for six to eight weeks after suffering a severe left ankle sprain in training Wednesday.
Tickets--(877) 342-5299.
