Onalfo likes new-look Wizards lineup

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- After Saturday afternoon's 2-0 victory against the Los Angeles Galaxy, Kansas City Wizards head coach Curt Onalfo revealed some stubbornness.

"Regardless of the result today, my intention was to try and play the same exact way next week. I saw a lot of good things in training that I liked," he said. "We're going to build on it."

The "it" is the newfangled lineup that showed sparks of promising possibilities and produced two memorable goals in the victory. Four new faces who were not in the lineup for the 3-1 loss to Houston the previous week dotted the starting 11. Furthermore, two players had a different role on the field.

Davy Arnaud teamed with Jack Jewsbury in the center of the park for the first time and the newly acquired Herculez Gomez was at right midfield where he has played sparingly.

"With all the changes we made, it took us a little time to adjust to each other," Onalfo said. "Once we did that, I thought we were pretty darn good."

One reason Arnaud and Jewsbury were in the middle, said Onalfo, was to take advantage of their ability to test goalkeepers from long range. So far so good, as Jewsbury forced a dangerous rebound in first-half added time with a rising 28-yard drive. Forward Abe Thompson nearly cashed in on the follow but was denied by an alert Troy Roberts defending for L.A.

Arnaud grabbed the limelight though with his 69th minute golazo, a 33-yard strike into the upper right corner of the goal that inspired an "are you kidding me?" out of television analyst Zoran Savic. The goal came after Arnaud earned the second assist on Josh Wolff's opener just two minutes earlier.

But Jewsbury and Arnaud were not the only ones spraying head-ducking drives around the Arrowhead field. Gomez took free kicks and corners for the Wizards in his first start since joining the team Sept. 3.

In the 64th minute, Gomez previewed the Wizards' two-goal explosion with a pacy 41-yard free kick that dipped and bounced as Wicks scrambled left to knock it down.

Three minutes later it was a low, steaming cross from Gomez that Wolff deftly spun for at the near post in the six-yard box and tucked inside the far post. Clearly the speed of the ball was critical.

"He whips in an unbelievable ball. The problem is our guys aren't used to how fast it's coming in," Onalfo said before joking that the Wizards could need some Jamaican sprinters to get on the end of Gomez's feeds. "[The crosses] are certainly dangerous."

Gomez gave a bit of credit to the Galaxy's David Beckham for inspiring his free kicks and crosses saying he had "a bit of competition in that area today." The former Colorado and Los Angeles man is ready to better learn his new position.

"I didn't get as forward as I'd like to, but we got the 'W'. I was just a small part of the big picture today," he said. "I'll play anywhere on the field. ... I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I'm just trying to just get in there and help the team any way I can."

And he is going to get that chance.

"[Herculez] is very, very good in front of the goal, so we have to work on getting him close to the goal," said Onalfo. "He has good pace and needs to get a feel for playing that position. He's more of an underneath forward, but he has a good work ethic."

Onalfo was happy with the team's wide play, his center midfielders and his forwards in the win, but he wants more.

"We can do a better job of when we win the ball having [the wide midfielders] continually causing havoc, but that's part of the progression," he said. "We can continually have better wide play, which is going to open us stuff for our forwards. The combination of Thompson and Josh was very, very good. Abe is extremely physical, very good in the air -- better than I thought he was, and Josh makes smart runs."