CARSON, Calif. – Real Salt Lake’s demolition of the LA Galaxy last Saturday night meant a night of pain and frustration for the Galaxy. The trick for the club now, though, is to not let it linger.
The club completed its first on-the-field training session Tuesday in an attempt to leave the 4-1 loss to RSL behind and begin moving forward towards Saturday’s match against Philadelphia at The Home Depot Center.
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And if LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena has anything to say about the after effects of the loss, that result will have no bearing this weekend.
“Believe me, it’s not going to linger,” Arena said. “It’s over with now. Now we’re getting on the business of getting the team a little bit better, hopefully getting some guys back.”
The Galaxy split up into two teams and played short-sided games during Tuesday’s workout, and Arena laced the practice with a few profanities and plenty of vocal direction for this squad.
“We just did not play well,” Arena said. “None of our guys had a good game. That’s pretty obvious.”
Added central defender A.J. DeLaGarza said, “You view whatever mistakes you made and put it in the file cabinet. My old college coach used to say that. You’ve got to learn from it and do better the next time.
"Thankfully we have a game on Saturday here in front of our fans and hopefully we can come out better than we have.”
The Galaxy were missing goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts (hamstring) and defender Omar Gonzalez (shoulder), as well as Landon Donovan (international duty). Donovan figures to return against Philadelphia, while Arena said the prognosis for both Ricketts and Gonzalez continues to improve.
Ricketts trained with the team on Tuesday as he was in goal during the short-sided games. In previous weeks, he had not been healthy enough to participate in such activity.
“He’s close,” Arena said. “He’s training now. He’ll be back in the near future. When? I can’t exactly promise you at this point but he’ll be back.”
Whatever players were absent, though, was no reason for the club to have played as poorly as it did on Saturday.
“Our starting 11 is really guys who have been here,” DeLaGarza said. “There are no excuses for what happened, and we’ve got to take it upon ourselves to do better.”
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