Major League Soccer – May 1, 2010
LA Galaxy 3, Philadelphia Union 1
LA Galaxy Head Coach
Bruce Arena
On tonight’s
match:
“It was a good win.
The guys came out and played very well in the first half. I think, also, at
times in the second half. We could have finished off a few more plays. Overall,
I’m very satisfied.”
On what the team can
improve on:
“There is a lot to
work on. Every part of our games needs to get better. We’re a better team
tonight than the final score, 3-1. There’s plenty to work on. Our passing can be
better; our concentration can be better; our finishing can be better.”
On Edson Buddle’s
performance:
“He’s played well. I
think that maybe even his best play tonight was his assist. Fabulous ball he
laid across and A.J. [DeLaGarza] did a hell of a job getting into that position,
and finishing off the play.”
On Buddle’s
goals:
“Who would expect
anyone to have nine goals in six games? We know he’s very capable player. He can
certainly score goals. The combination of him and Landon has been excellent.
Landon had another very big game tonight. Our team’s playing well, and putting
Edson in position to score some goals. His finishing has been
outstanding.”
On the upcoming road
games:
“The point is that we
do have two tough games on the road, and we have to recover properly from this
game. Get everything sorted out the right way and have the right kind of
understanding on how we need to approach the first game in Colorado. And, try
and go there and get a result. It’s never easy, but that’s the challenge that’s
ahead of us. After the Colorado game, we’ll deal with Seattle. It’s not going to
be easy. We know that. We’ve prepared ourselves for this. We’ll see how the team
prepares for this challenge.”
LA Galaxy forward
Landon Donovan
On the early
goal:
“Great start for us,
great goal. It was a good play by Mikey [Stepehens] in the midfield to get it to
Edson and Edson played a great ball. A.J. took a chance and got rewarded for it.
It was a great start for us.”
On the team’s
confidence going into next week’s two-game road trip:
“We were disappointed
with last week in Kansas City and we wanted to atone for that and we were
playing a team that we should beat, at home, so that in upon itself made it an
important game to win. And then when you look at the week coming up, it’s a
difficult week with Colorado and Seattle both on the road, so it’s going to be
tough.”
On the play of Edson
Buddle:
“His confidence is
high. Balls are seeming to find him in the right spots and then when they are
finding him, he is doing the right think with it. When those three things
combine – and you’re talented – you’re going to end up scoring a lot of
goals.”
LA Galaxy forward
Edson Buddle
On setting up A.J.
DeLaGarza for the first goal:
“Mike [Stephens]
played a good ball and I actually wanted to take a touch to goal and it kind of
got away from me and that gave me some more time to get away from my defender
and I was able to look up and saw A.J. in front of his man so I put it across
the front of the goal and he found the back of the net.”
On the factors that
have led to his strong start:
“I think that the
goals are coming from the weight of the passes. The weight of the pass gives me
more time and the quality of the team we have makes things a lot
easier.”
On his continued
goal-scoring exploits:
“It’s a good feeling
and it never gets old so I’m going to enjoy every part of it. I’ve never started
this way and it’s a new experience. But I love new experiences.”
LA Galaxy midfielder
Michael Stephens
On the first two
assists of his career:
“Any time you get an
assist or a goal you are helping out the team so obviously that’s a good thing
and tonight I was able to get myself into better positions and was able to play
the ball forward more and they turned into goals.
On the team’s
defensive shape helping to start the attack:
“It helped a lot. Our
objective was to make it tight in the middle and I was able to do that and as a
result, I found myself in good positions when the ball turned over and I was
able to look forward to find guys running through.”
LA Galaxy defender
A.J. DeLaGarza
On his
goal:
“I saw that the back
side was open so I just tried to get in behind the defender and Edson played in
a good ball and I just wanted to finish it off.”
On scoring on his
former college teammate Chris Seitz:
I told him that I was
saving one for him jokingly, but it was pretty crazy that it
happened.”
On becoming the first
Galaxy player besides Edson Buddle to score a goal this season:
“Edson’s been doing so
great I kind of feel bad for breaking his record. He could have had nine in a
row but this is good.”
LA Galaxy midfielder
Clint Mathis
On making his 2010
debut:
“I felt good. It’s
been a long time coming. As I’m older it takes a little longer to recover, my
knees aren’t in the best of shape, but my knee felt really good out there, it
feels pretty much back to normal it’s just about getting fitter now to where I
can hopefully play 90 minutes.”
Philadelphia Union Head Coach
Peter Nowak
On Edson
Buddle:
"It’s very good. It’s a
very good sign. Edson is still a very dangerous guy up top. Even when he’s
playing by himself, he’s still able to find the space and find the right moments
to engage and find the spots to score the goals. It’s a positive sign. I think
he’s a good example for all these players who have been around the
league—year-by-year they try more. He looks like he’s very hungry for the goals.
It’s a good sign even for our youngsters to see how he works."
On the team’s
performance so far this season:
"Of course, we didn’t
expect to be able to start with five wins. Of course, we believed that the way
we will compete and play on the field would bring the results. We knew it was
going to take time, and more experience. It’s going to take time to get the
players familiar with each other. After our win in the second game, I think we
forgot we were an expansion team. And sometimes we got punished by ourselves.
That comes with the games; that comes with the minutes; that comes with the
experience. The locker is still positive. These guys want to compete. They
should that in the second half, even against a team that is very good. They
still competed; they never slowed down and scored a goal. It’s a good sign for
the future."
On the young
players:
"We bring a lot of
energy today. Jack [McInerney] is pretty young. He just needs minutes. These
guys need experience. These guys need the minutes. We are fortunate to give them
the minutes, and give them the time and experience to look inside out for what
it’s going to take to compete in this league, and be very good in this league.
Jack showed us in the preseason that he can score from different positions. He’s
very unpredictable as a striker and he has a nose for the goals, and knows how
to finish them. It’s going to take time. Him and the other young guys—they are
on the right path right now. I’m going to give them the minutes. I’m going to
give them the experience, even if we are going to go through the pains. This is
the future of our franchise, our club. That’s where we want to be."
Philadelphia Union Forward Alejandro
Moreno
Difference in second half
“Second-half we worked hard for each
other, stayed organized, and got a goal back. We showed some of the things that
we can do well. We’d like to play with eleven men on the filed and not give up
early goals.”
Affect of Miglioranzi red card
“It’s not ideal but we’ve
done it before and we seem to pick up the tempo of our game with ten men and
seem to work for each other quite well, and we’ve done that so far this year,
but ideally we’d like to keep eleven men on the field and like I said, not give
up early goals because that puts us behind the eight ball and makes it very
difficult for us to come back.”
Philadelphia Union Forward Jack
McInerney
On first career goal
“I think [Omar] Gonzalez gave the ball away
and Fred stole it. We had a two on one and Fred dribbled it past… I don’t know
who it was, but he created some space for me and played it through. I had a
first touch and slid it past [Donovan] Ricketts.”
Overall thoughts on
game
“Of course we have to be disappointed with the result. We were unlucky
with the goal in the first minute of the game… it really just shot us down, but
we got to keep our heads up and keep playing.”
