Postgame Notes & Quotes: LA @ DC

LA Galaxy 1, D.C. United 1
Saturday, April 9, 2011
RFK Stadium – Washington D.C.

Scoring Summary:
LA – Mike Magee 1 (David Beckham 3) 12’
DC – Charlie Davies (Penalty Kick) 91+

Misconduct Summary:
LA – Todd Dunivant (Yellow Card) 29’
DC – Santino Quaranta (Yellow Card) 40’
LA – David Beckham (Yellow Card) 41’
DC – Santino Quaranta (Yellow Card/Red Card) 84
LA -- Jovan Kirovski (ejection; Abusive Language) 95+

Lineups:

LA Galaxy: Donovan Ricketts; A.J. DeLaGarza, Omar Gonzalez, Leonardo, Todd Dunivant; Sean Franklin, Juninho, David Beckham© (Jovan Kirovski 81’), Mike Magee; Juan Pablo Angel (Chad Barrett 90’), Miguel Lopez (Paolo Cardozo 75’).

Subs Not Used:Josh Saunders, Frankie Hejduk, Michael Stephens, Bryan Jordan.

D.C. United: Bill Hamid; Chris Korb (Andy Najar 72’), Dejan Jakovic, Ethan White, Marc Burch; Clyde Simms, Santino Quaranta, Dax McCarty© (Branko Boskovic 81’), Chris Pontius; Josh Wolff, Blake Brettschneider (Charlie Davies 53’).

Subs Not Used: Pat Onstad, Daniel Woolard, Fred, Joseph Ngwenya.

Postgame Quotes:

LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On the game:

[It was] a hard-fought game. Obviously it was a game where we felt like we should have walked away with the three points.

On the officiating:

Well, the officiating in this League is what it is. Unfortunately we’re all conditioned to it now anyway and accept it. It is what it is.

On the penalty kick at the end of the match:

I didn’t think it was a [penalty], but that’s the job of the referee. We’ll look at it on tape and we’ll see.

LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER MIKE MAGEE
On the importance of scoring the early goal:

Any time you get on the road it’s nice to get an early goal, so that helped carry us for a while.

On playing in DC:

Yeah, I think usually when you come on the road you try to weather their storm, especially in D.C. they like to come out fast so to get a goal, that definitely played to our advantage.

On his team’s effort:

I was happy with the way we played, although the result wasn’t what we would have liked.

On his play:

Personally I think that I had some good chances that I kind of squandered and I think on a better day I could have had two [goals], but we fought hard tonight on the road and we deserve two points and we felt we were robbed of it.

LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER DAVID BECKHAM
On the game:

Disappointed, disgusted. I felt we deserved the game. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be walking away from this stadium tonight with three points.

On playing central midfield:

I enjoyed it [playing central midfield]. I think it’s a position that I’ve played before and again I enjoyed it. I think we kept the ball well, we played some great soccer at times and deserved the win.

On what his team can improve upon:

I don’t think there’s much to improve on because I think that we played well tonight. We passed the ball around well, we worked well, we defended well, so we just need to continue that. There’s not much that we need to work on, but we need to just work on obviously playing like that again and hopefully winning.

D.C. UNITED HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN
Overall thoughts on the match:

I’m happy we battled back and found a way to get a tie but overall, it’s not good enough and that starts with me and I think we may be fortunate tonight and I will take the blame for that. We got some work to do and we get back at it this week to try and fix some things that I didn’t think we did well enough.

Overall I thought we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be tonight, I thought the energy was there but we just weren’t a good enough soccer team. We need to become a better passing team.

On Ethan White’s Debut:

I thought he was a stud. The guy’s as athletic as you are going to see and he seems to be a guy that when you give him a stage he does well.

On Charlie Davies’ fitness:

He practiced two days this week, he’s been hurt. The other guys I knew were going to be 100 percent physically and could give me 90 minutes. I have no doubt in my mind that [Davies] is 90 minutes fit. But I know he’s chomping at the bit to get the start. I wouldn’t be happy either if I wasn’t getting the start, but give him credit, he came in and gave us a big play and that’s what he’s been doing for us off the bench.

On coaching against Bruce Arena:

It wasn’t my first go-around with the guy, but everyone knows how I feel about the guy. He’s a mentor to me.

On wanting to be a better passing team:

We have a couple guys that under pressure can still find a way to play soccer and that’s what we are striving to do.

On putting Andy Najar in at right back:

We needed to exploit that wide space because it was open all night. We didn’t do a good enough job of getting our outside backs forward, Korb did a little late and Burchy had a good game as well, but we just never got up and exploited the space with our outside backs. So Andy came in and did a pretty good job. He looked lost once or twice back there on defensive end but that’s the risk you take when you are down a goal and looking for a tie.

D.C. UNITED FORWARD CHARLIE DAVIES

On coming on as second half substitute:

My job is to come in and change the game – to bring energy and use my skills to get a goal, whether scoring or creating [a goal].

On the earning the penalty:

I saw an opportunity to get the ball and go against the defense. I saw Omar Gonzalez and I was one-on-one with him, and I thought this is my bread and butter, I have to go at him. I did a step over and was able to get by him, but he put his hands on me and I was able to get a penalty.

On taking the penalty:

Yeah, I knew that [Donovan] Ricketts is a big guy, and he can definitely get quickly to the corners [of the goal]. I thought down the middle would be open and that he would give it to me, and he did. I saw him diving, and I saw him on the ground. I thought for a minute he stayed in the middle, but he went, and it was such a relief to see the ball in the back of the net.

On his goal celebration:

I was definitely trying to get in the car – it was locked. On Friday after training I was able to run over there and see if the car was open, and it was, so I planned for the team to get in the car. As soon as I got over there I saw it was locked, but it was worth it.

On the RFK crowd:

It’s actually unbelievable. They provide an atmosphere and give us a boost, and their reaction after my goal tonight was nothing short of amazing. I thank everyone for coming out and making it an unbelievable atmosphere.

D.C. UNITED DEFENDER CHRIS KORB
On his third consecutive MLS start:

It was a great experience playing against some of those big time players and playing in front of the best crowd supporting us. We’re happy to salvage a tie and to get a point.

On rising to the occasion against MLS strikers:

I definitely enjoy a challenge – I’m a competitive guy. Once you start playing against some of the big players in MLS it’s just a great experience.

On the collision with Todd Dunivant:

I couldn’t really feel my leg for the rest of the game. I’m starting to get feeling back in it, and we’ll see how the rest of the week goes.

On his individual progress:

Every start I start to feel a little bit more comfortable. The more experience you get the more you settle down. It’s been great, and I’m looking forward to continuing to learn.

D.C. UNITED DEFENDER ETHAN WHITE
On his MLS debut:

Benny [Olsen] called me earlier at 3:00 p.m., so I had a little time for preparation [to start]. It was the best moment of my life, so it felt great. You have no idea what it means [to play for United.] Looking around at the fans at the end of the game it was amazing.

On the game:

It was a tough game, a bit fast paced, I thought we were flying forward a bit too much – we could have kept the ball more. It feels good to battle back and get the 1-1 tie in the end.

On the game’s final set piece:

My eyes always get big on corners, I always think [the ball] is coming to me.

Notes:

With the draw, the Galaxy are now 2-1-2 on the season, giving them eight points. The Galaxy are now tied with Colorado for second place in the Western Conference, one point behind Real Salt Lake.
Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena made two changes to his team that defeated Philadelphia 1-0 last weekend at The Home Depot Center. A.J. DeLaGarza and Mike Magee each returned to the starting lineup in place of Chris Birchall and Landon Donovan. DeLaGarza started at right back with Sean Franklin moving to Birchall’s spot on the right side of midfield and Magee starting on the left side of midfield in place of Donovan.
Birchall missed the game after being sent off in last weekend’s win over the Union while Donovan was held out of the game for precautionary reasons after picking up a knock on his right knee in that game.
In addition to Birchall and Donovan, the Galaxy were without Gregg Berhalter, Adam Cristman and Hector Jimenez, who all missed the game through injury.
Mike Magee gave the Galaxy a 1-0 lead in the 12^th minute, heading home a David Beckham corner kick.
Each of the Galaxy’s last three goals have come from set pieces, with Beckham assisting on all three.
LA’s goal in the 12^th minute was the earliest that they have scored a goal this season.
David Beckham was shown a yellow card in the 41^st minute of the game. This was his fourth booking of the year, meaning that if he gets one in any of his next three games he will be forced to serve a one-game suspension. If Beckham does not get booked in any of those three games, he will have one card expunged from his record.
United finished the game with 10 men after Santino Quaranta was sent off for his second booking in the 84^th minute.
D.C. equalized in the first minute of stoppage time when Charlie Davies converted a penalty kick after he was taken down in the box a minute earlier.
That was the second penalty kick allowed by LA this season.
That goal snapped a string of 201 minutes without allowing a goal for LA.
Donovan Ricketts made three saves in the game.
The Galaxy are now unbeaten in their last six games against United, dating back to June 2008. In those six games, all of which have come with Bruce Arena as the club’s head coach, the Galaxy are 3-0-3, including 1-0-2 at RFK Stadium.
The Galaxy are back on Wednesday night (April 13) when they play the second game of their current three-game road trip against Toronto FC at BMO Field. That game can be see live at 5 p.m. through MLS Direct Kick and Match Day Live through mlssoccer.com. An audio broadcast of the game will also be available at www.lagalaxy.com.