LA Galaxy 1, Columbus Crew 0
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Home Depot Center – Carson, Calif.
Scoring Summary:
LA – Sean Franklin 1 (Unassisted) 70’
Misconduct Summary:
LA – Gregg Berhalter (Yellow Card) 16’
CLB – Julius James (Yellow Card) 65’
LA – Juninho (Yellow Card) 85’
LA – David Beckham (Yellow Card) 92+
Lineups:
LA Galaxy: Josh Saunders; Sean Franklin, A.J. DeLaGarza, Gregg Berhalter, Todd Dunivant; Jovan Kirovski (Michael Stephens 83’), David Beckham, Juninho, Landon Donovan©; Juan Pablo Angel (Bryan Jordan 85’), Miguel Lopez (Mike Magee 69’).
Subs Not Used:Brian Perk, Omar Gonzalez, Hector Jimenez, Jack McBean.
Columbus Crew: William Hesmer; Sebastian Miranda, Julius James, Chad Marshall©, Josh Gardner (Jeff Cunningham 88’); Eric Gehrig, Robbie Rogers, Eddie Gaven, Emmanuel Ekpo, Bernardo Anor (Justin Meram 75’); Andres Mendoza (Tommy Heinemann 4’).
Subs Not Used: Andy Gruenebaum, Rich Balchan, Kevin Burns, Dejan Rusmir.
Referee: Andrew Chapin
Referee’s Assistants Greg Barkey and Matthew Kreitzer
4th Official: Alejandro Mariscal
Notes:
- With the win, the Galaxy are now 11-2-9 on the season, leaving them with a league-best 42 points. LA remain in first place in the Western Conference and are now four points ahead of FC Dallas and Seattle who are tied for second place with 38 points. Dallas won 1-0 in Toronto earlier tonight while Seattle lost 7-0 to Manchester United in the Herbalife World Football Challenge.
- The Galaxy are the first team in MLS with 40 or more points this season. They were also the first to reach 20 points and 30 points
- The Galaxy are now unbeaten in their last 13 league games, going 7-0-6 in those contests for 27 of a possible 39 points.
- The 13-game unbeaten streak is the third longest unbeaten streak in Galaxy history. The only streaks longer than their current streak, which is the longest for an MLS team this season, are a pair of 15-game unbeaten streaks, the first of which happened during the 1997 and 1998 seasons while the other started late in the 2009 season and ended in June 2010.
- The Galaxy have now won two straight at home and are 6-0-5 at home this season.
- Against the Eastern Conference, the Galaxy are now 7-0-7 on the year, including 5-0-4 at home. This was LA’s final home game of the year against a team from the Eastern Conference.
- Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena made three changes to the team that defeated the Chicago Fire 2-1 on July 9 at The Home Depot Center in their last league game. Sean Franklin returned to the lineup at right back, A.J. DeLaGarza was back in central defense, Jovan Kirovski was on the right side of midfield and Miguel Lopez was up front. Franklin and DeLaGarza replaced Bryan Jordan and Omar Gonzalez, each of who began the game on the bench, while Kirovski came in for the suspended Chris Birchall and Lopez replaced Paolo Cardozo, who did not dress for the game.
- In addition to Birchall being suspended, the Galaxy were also without Sean Alvarado, Chad Barrett, Frankie Hejduk who all missed the game because of injury.
- Sean Franklin and Mike Magee each returned from injury and were able to play in the match while Omar Gonzalez, who suffered a fractured nose in training last week, was on the bench but did not play. This was the first time in Gonzalez’s MLS career that he began a game on the bench and did not appear.
- The game was tied 0-0 at halftime. This was the fourth consecutive league game that the Galaxy were tied 0-0 at the half, with three of those coming at home.
- Sean Franklin gave the Galaxy a 1-0 lead in the 70th minute with his first goal of the season.
- That goal was also the first of Franklin’s MLS career. He scored once last season in the CONCACAF Champions League, but never in MLS play. The goal came in his 86th regular season game with the club.
- Franklin’s goal was the Galaxy’s sixth in the final 20 minutes of a game, though just the second of those that was a game-winner.
- Franklin is the 11th different Galaxy player to score a goal in the regular season. Including the Reserve League, Open Cup games and international friendlies, 15 of the 30 players on the Galaxy roster have scored at least one goal.
- Josh Saunders equaled a career-high by making six saves in the game. He now has 11 saves in his last two regular season games, allowing just one goal.
- Saunders is now 5-1-3 with three clean sheets on the season.
- This was the Galaxy’s 11th shutout in 22 regular season games.
- He made his 10th appearance of the year in tonight’s game. He had made just 10 MLS appearance for his entire career before this season.
- Gregg Berhalter was shown his first yellow card of the season in the 16th minute of the game for a foul on Bernardo Anor.
- David Beckham was shown his MLS-high eighth yellow card of the season in second half stoppage time. Because of the booking, Beckham is now suspended for the Galaxy’s trip to Vancouver on July 30, which is their next league game.
- Jovan Kirovski made the 100th regular season appearance of his Galaxy career in the game. He has played in 170 career regular season games during his MLS career, with the other 70 coming for Colorado and San Jose.
- Juninho made his 20th appearance of the season. He needs to play in just five more games this season to equal his total from 2010.
- Todd Dunivant once again played the full 90 minutes at left back for the Galaxy. He is the only player on the club to start all 22 regular season games while also play the full 90 minutes in each.
- Dunivant is tied with the Sounders Kasey Keller for the most minutes played in MLS this season with 2,060.
- Sixteen-year-old forward Jack McBean was in the 18-man squad for the first time this season. He was an unused substitute.
- This was the Galaxy’s fifth 1-0 win this season, with three of those coming at home.
- LA are now 8-1-0 this season in games decided by a single goal.
- The Galaxy will travel to Columbus for the reverse fixture on Saturday, September 24.
- The attendance for tonight’s game was 24,709.
- The Galaxy are back in action on Sunday, July 24 when they host Manchester City as part of the Herbalife World Football Challenge. That game, which will be played at The Home Depot Center, kicks off at 1 p.m. and can be seen live on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and online at ESPN3.com.
- On Saturday, July 30, the Galaxy will return to MLS action when they travel north to Vancouver to face Vancouver Whitecaps FC. This will be the first-ever meeting between the two sides in MLS, though they met twice before in friendlies with the sides playing to a 0-0 draw in November 2007 and Vancouver winning 2-1 in May 2008 in Edmonton. Saturday’s game will kick off at 4:30 p.m. (PT) from Empire Field and will be shown live on FOX Soccer starting with the Soccer Night in America pregame show at 4 p.m.
Quotes:
LA Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena
On the game:
“Good win for our team. Difficult game, both teams played hard. We had some chances to get a goal, probably, in the first 60 minutes of the game to make things a little easier. Columbus defended well, got out on the break pretty well, and were dangerous right until the end of the game.”
On the set pieces:
“A lot of corners for sure. I’m not sure we had too many dangerous free kicks. I remember the one with [David] Beckham in the second half. I think we got behind them. I think in this game we were much more balanced in our attack, generating opportunities on the left side of the field as well as the right, and that helped create those corners.”
On Landon Donovan’s performance:
“He was very good tonight. I thought in the first half he was excellent. He played a good game tonight on both sides of the ball. The first half he was the best attacking player on the field. I think overall he had a very good game.”
LA Galaxy Defender Sean Franklin
On his first MLS goal:
“I’m excited. I think it might have been deflected. They might call it an own goal, but I’m going to try and claim it as my first goal. I’m happy that I got it, but more happy that the team played well tonight. We created numerous chances—corners, shots—the whole team’s effort was great tonight.”
On the missed chances:
“I think what’s more frustrating is that we’ve had a lot of chances and we just aren’t putting those in. We know we have to get three points at home. Tonight we did that, and hopefully, three points at home will start to come a little more easily.”
On the shutout:
“It’s good. A.J. [DeLaGarza] and Gregg [Berhalter] are huge as was Todd [Dunivant]. Josh [Saunders] was good tonight. It just wasn’t the back four tonight. Our midfield was moving, our forwards were pressing. Everyone was doing their part to play defense tonight and it showed.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder Landon Donovan
On the team’s 16 corners:
“It’s unfortunate that on a night like tonight we didn’t have Omar [Gonzalez], because Omar would have been dangerous on them. We still got a few good chances out of them. I think it was indicative of the pressure we put on them all night.”
On the team’s performance:
“We did a good job, for the most part, of being organized. We got a little stretched out at the end of the game. They took some chances and made some opportunities, but for the most part it was relatively comfortable.”
LA Galaxy Forward Juan Pablo Angel
On the team’s performance:
“I felt like it was a good performance by us. The team that we played against is a very a solid team. I think we as a team looked better today, although we created a number of chances that we could have probably get another goal or two. I’m pretty happy with the performance.”
On his dry spell in front of goal:
“I’m trying to get goal and it’s just not happening right now. I felt today I was more involved in the game. I had a couple of chances. Hopefully, the goal will come for me at the right time. I’m frustrated today. I would have loved to score a goal. I felt I was a little more involved in the game, participated more in the build of the game.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder David Beckham
On not scoring on any of the corners:
“It’s frustrating. We had 16 corners and we’ve got chances. They had a couple of big guys…unfortunately when you have big guys in the middle like that its tough for us to get on the end of them. We had enough chances to win the game tonight and I think we deserved to win the game in the end. It was a tough night.”
On Sean Franklin’s first MLS goal:
“I’ve tried to tell him it’s an own goal, but he’s not having that. He had a shot in the first half which he could have scored from. He hit this one really well. We needed it tonight it was important for us to get the three points tonight and we said yesterday that Seattle was starting to creep up, so it was important tonight.”
Columbus Crew Head Coach Robert Warzycha
On the result:
“We gave them a little bit too many corner kicks. Other than that, I don’t think we gave them too much. They had one chance in the first half. Overall, I think we played pretty well. That last pass hurt us a little bit. And, they got a goal on a set piece.”
On set pieces:
“It doesn’t affect my plan. We have to defend. Obviously, Beckham will serve a good ball. You try not to give up free kicks in a bad area.”
Columbus Crew Goalkeeper William Hesmer
On the goal:
“Their free kick hit into the ball, bounced back out to Franklin. He hit it well; it deflected and went it in.”
On the Crew’s defense:
“I thought we defended great. I thought our defending was really good. Our guys were fighting hard, tough to play against, tough to breakdown. There is only so much pressure you can absorb before you give up an unfortunate goal.”
Columbus Crew Midfielder Bernardo Anor
On the Crew’s performance:
“I think we started off moving the ball pretty well. In the last couple of minutes in the first half, we got a little bit distracted and they served good crosses. I think overall I think we did really pretty good. It was a shame that they scored the goal off a rebound.”
