CARSON, Calif -- The LA Galaxy have, with their last two results, turned a winless streak into an unbeaten streak.
Going into their four-game road trip, which continues with match No. 3 in San Jose this Saturday (10 pm ET; Univision and Facebook.com in US | MLS LIVE in Canada), the club was winless in four, and now with two straight wins, they’re suddenly four matches unbeaten.
But for head coach Curt Onalfo, that thin margin between bad streaks and good streaks is why he wasn’t too concerned about the criticism directed at him earlier in the year. Not that he reads the criticism in the first place.
“I don’t listen to a word anybody says,” said Onalfo after Galaxy practice on Wednesday. “That’s the complete honest truth. I don’t read anything about myself or the team, in good times and bad, just for those reasons.
“The difference between winning and losing is so slight. I could look at every game we played this year, except for the Seattle game, and draw conclusions that we could have gotten a result.”
The Galaxy began their rough patch with key injuries in the attack and on the backline, which didn’t make coming out of training camp under a new head coach any easier. Now they’re still dealing with the bumps which come in any MLS season - losing midfielder Baggio Husidic for an at least 6-8 weeks brings the unavailable midfielder count up to three - but now they’ve found the rhythm needed to go from a group of players to a team.
“It takes time for all that stuff to jell,” said Onalfo, “For guys to get to know each other, for the coach to get to know their players, for the players to get to know their coach. So the signs are good but we just need to keep full throttle and keep pushing in the right direction.”
Despite knowing the line between winning and losing can be so thin, Onalfo doesn’t believe results come down to luck. The breaks that can mean the difference between one point and three are more a result of a team starting to play for each, and the opportunities that start to come from belief in a common goal.
“Sometimes things go a little bit your way,” said Onalfo, “But we were finding ourselves. We had a lot of adversity - we dealt injuries early on, suspensions, enormous change. It takes time to settle, get your equilibrium, and build.
“It takes enormous strength of character and the group has that. Through those times of adversity it has made us better. I do think that it’s all part of the process. Obviously we’d like to have more points than we have, and if we did I think the rhetoric outside would be a little bit different.”
