LA Galaxy 3, Portland Timbers 1
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The Home Depot Center – Carson, Calif.
Scoring Summary:
POR – Kris Boyd 3 (Eric Alexander 3, Darlington Nagbe 1) 23’
LA – Landon Donovan 1 (Unassisted) 44’
LA – Juninho 1 ((Unassisted) 83’
LA – David Beckham 1 (Landon Donovan 2) 91+
Misconduct Summary:
POR – Kris Boyd (Yellow Card) 14’
POR – Hayner Mosquera (Yellow Card) 26’
Lineups:
LA Galaxy: Josh Saunders; Sean Franklin, David Junior Lopes, Tommy Meyer, Todd Dunivant; Landon Donovan©, Juninho, David Beckham, Mike Magee (Pat Noonan 80’); Robbie Keane©, Chad Barrett (Edson Buddle 67’).
Subs Not Used: Bill Gaudette, Andrew Boyens, Bryan Jordan, Kyle Nakazawa, Marcelo Sarvas.
Portland Timbers: Troy Perkins; Steve Purdy, Hayner Mosquera, Eric Brunner, Mike Chabala; Diego Chara, Jack Jewsbury© (Lovel Palmer 74’), Kalif Alhassan (Franck Songo’o 58’), Eric Alexander; Darlington Nagbe, Kris Boyd (Jorge Perlaza 81’).
Subs Not Used: Brian Rowe, Andrew Jean-Baptiste, Freddie Braun, Bright Dike.
Referee: Jair Marrufo
Referee’s Assistants: Eric Boria and Frank Anderson
4th Official: Jasen Anno
Notes:
- With the win, the Galaxy are now 2-3-0 on the season for six points. They are now in eighth place in the Western Conference, two points ahead of the Timbers and two points behind the Vancouver Whitecaps, who are in seventh place with eight points.
- The win snapped the Galaxy’s two-game losing streak and improved their home record to 2-2-0 on the season.
- All four Galaxy regular season home games have finished with 3-1 scorelines.
- Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena made three changes to the team that lost 1-0 at Sporting Kansas City last weekend. Chad Barrett and David Beckham each returned to the starting lineup in place of Edson Buddle and Michael Stephens respectively while David Junior Lopes made his Galaxy debut in central defense in place of A.J. DeLaGarza.
- Lopes was making his Galaxy debut after being acquired in a trade from Chivas USA on Tuesday. He was second on the team with three shots and had one shot on goal while playing the full 90 minutes alongside Tommy Meyer.
- DeLaGarza and Stephens each missed the game because of injury while Buddle began the game on the bench before replacing Chad Barrett in the 67th minute.
- In addition to DeLaGarza and Stephens, the Galaxy were also forced to play without Omar Gonzalez, Leonardo and Brian Perk because of injuries.
- For the third straight game, the Galaxy fell behind 1-0 with Kris Boyd scoring Portland’s first goal.
- The Galaxy equalized late in the first half when Landon Donovan scored his first goal of the season. That goal came in the 44th minute, making it the fastest goal that LA has scored this season.
- Juninho scored the eventual game-winning goal in the 83rd minute beating Troy Perkins with a low, right-footed shot inside his right post.
- That was his first goal of the season and his ninth goal in all competitions for the Galaxy. Of those nine goals, eight have been scored from outside the penalty area.
- He was playing the 60th regular season game of his Galaxy career.
- David Beckham rounded out the scoring with a goal in the first minute of stoppage time, curling a shot past Perkins from outside the area.
- That goal was also Beckham’s first of the year and his first from the run of play since October 2010.
- Landon Donovan was credited with the assist on Beckham’s goal for his second assist of the season. He is now tied with Beckham for the team lead in assists this year.
- Donovan is now four assists shy of becoming the second player in MLS history with 100 career goals and 100 career assists.
- With the score tied 1-1 midway through the second half, the Galaxy nearly took the lead only to see David Junior Lopes’ header cleared off the line by Franck Songo’o. Seconds later at the other end of the field, Eric Alexander curled a left-footed shot off the crossbar for the Timbers.
- Josh Saunders finished the game with two saves for his second win of the season.
- Todd Dunivant, Sean Franklin, Robbie Keane and Josh Saunders all played the full 90 minutes for the Galaxy. They have now played all 450 minutes that LA have played in the regular season.
- Of that group, Dunivant, Keane and Saunders have played every minute that the Galaxy have played in all competitions.
- This was the third time this season that the Galaxy were not booked in a game. As a team, they have been shown just three yellow cards in five regular season games.
- LA are now a perfect 2-0-0 all-time at The Home Depot Center against Portland, scoring six goals in those games while conceding just one.
- The attendance for tonight’s game was 22,143 at The Home Depot Center.
- The Galaxy will be back in action on Saturday, April 21 when they travel to Colorado to face the Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. That game will kick off at 6 p.m. (PT) and can be seen live on KDOC in English and KWHY in Spanish.
- The Galaxy Reserves are back in action on Monday at 11 a.m. when they take on Seattle Sounders FC at The Home Depot Center.
Quotes:
LA Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena
On tonight’s game:
“Well, obviously it was a good win for the team. Certainly a game we needed to win. Overall, I thought it was a good performance over the 90 minutes. Not perfect, but certainly improved from our previous one during the MLS season.
On David Junior Lopes:
“I thought he played real well. We were a little concerned going into the game with his fitness for 90 minutes but he hung in there and did a great job. You can see that he’s an experienced player. Obviously, he has some qualities we’ve been lacking in that position. We’re hopeful we can build on his performance and our teams’ performance.
On Juninho being off pace:
“Juninho was signed to a new contract with this club. I think that wasn’t a negative. But I think part of his issues were when he left us in Australia in December he literally did very little, he had an injury he suffered next to last game in our tour in December. Then when he showed up in Sao Pau for training he was not involved in the first two games. He was behind and he came in and he was behind. We knew we had to deal with that. And that’s the prime minimum in moving forward as best as we can. Obviously it has taken a while and he’s still not where he needs to be but that’s probably the reason of him being a little behind the rest of the team. He still has a way to go.”
On the third goal, David Beckham:
“He hung in there for 90 minutes, was obviously a great goal and sealed the win tonight, 3 points. It was big for the team and big for the player.”
On the teams performance:
“I think inside the team they have probably what they did individually, as a group as a team it was better. I think at the end of the day you have to be a good team and we haven’t been a good team in the early goings. Tonight we were a good team.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder Landon Donovan
On the result:
“I thought we deserved it, and I thought the way we played deserved a win. I’m glad we got it.”
On the importance of the win after a slow start:
“It’s important, because you can’t sit on the bottom for too long, so it was good to get ourselves out of the cellar. We played better last week, today was, I think, our best performance all around of the season. We’ve got to keep carrying it to the coming weeks. It’s not good enough to have a couple better games then have a bad game; we have to be consistently better.”
On Juninho:
“He’s starting to find his form again. I thought tonight he was back to the old Juninho. And his goal was obviously very important, but a great goal.”
On David Junior Lopes:
“You can tell he’s a competitor and he was frustrated at Chivas that he wasn’t playing. We’re glad to have him. Hopefully as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. For us, he was fantastic. It’s hard to see why he hasn’t been playing. I thought he was great tonight and I think he’s only going to get better when he’s more comfortable.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder David Beckham
On the importance of the win:
“It’s a big win obviously because of the run we’ve been on, the way we’ve been playing. I think overall, our performance was 100 percent better than it has been all season. We played as a team, we attacked and defended as a team, and we deserved to win tonight.”
On his goal:
“It was a terrible first touch, but it took me into a shooting position and I knew as soon as I hit it that it was going in. I enjoyed it.”
On David Junior Lopes:
“You can tell that he’s confident on the ball. He can play the ball around and he’s not afraid to throw his head at the ball. That’s the type of player he is. He’s a great addition to have in the team and I thought he was one of our best players tonight.”
LA Galaxy Defender Todd Dunivant
On the team effort:
“I thought all over the field we had a good bite tonight. It really tired them out. Once we got possession we opened up and I thought we did a great job of keeping the ball. The mood of the team felt a lot different than it has. We can build on that. [If] we come to play like, we’re not going to lose many games.”
On David Junior Lopes:
“He did an awesome job. He’s physical, he’s big, he stepped right in. We have two practices I think and you saw the result, I think he did great.”
LA Galaxy Defender David Junior Lopes
On his debut:
I’d like to first thank the fans and thank the ownership and the supporters, they definitely gave me the strength and the welcome to go ahead and put in a good effort. It was a good win, we needed that. The goals didn’t come today, but with time they will.”
On nerves before the game:
“I was definitely nervous. Like any other game, I’ve played in many places, many leagues and the first game I’m always nervous. But I was excited. It took me a while to get going and realize that I’m playing for the Galaxy, one of the biggest clubs in MLS. Even though I’ve played in this league before, I was still very nervous. And I think I did OK for my debut.”
Portland Head Coach John Spencer
Overall thoughts on the game:
“I don’t think it’s a fair reflection but it’s what the result is. They scored three goals, we scored once, and that’s what it is. For us, we had chances in the first half and a couple half chances in the second half. Second half you start the game over, slower game, and came into a couple of half chances that maybe could have affected the score. We never did it. And then we have to win our individual battles at the top of the 18. Juninho wins it, takes a touch or two and it’s in the back of the net. So it’s disappointing.”
On if his offense has quality:
“I think I still believe that we have quality, and we have quality to win the games. For me confidence is obviously a big factor when you have a losing streak and it’s the same the other way when you go on a winning streak and you feel unbeatable. I think we performed at time, played some real good football tonight and it’s unfortunate with a 3-1 scoreline against.”
It looks like the team hasn’t lost confidence:
“Of course, it’s a long season and obviously you want to be winning. Like KC goals you want to win four, five or six in a row. The guys in there will be able to look back at this month and it will be a distant memory. Hopefully we’ll be in a position for to make the playoff and we’ll look back.”
On change in momentum:
“Goals change games. Change outlook of games, change perspective of games. I think we were well in control of the game in the first half. I think we had a couple other chances that were never capitalized on. Most good teams will come back and punish you if you give them an opportunity.”
Portland Goalkeeper Troy Perkins
On how to overcome the loss:
“Forget about it. We can’t come into the locker room and say, ‘oh, we should have done that, we should have done that,’ you know? ‘Cause It’s over with. You can’t change any of it. That’s the thing we’ve been preaching all week, is show it on the field. You can’t say, it’s my fault, or your fault, so forget about it.”
On what was being done to shut down Galaxy:
“I think we were kicking the ball better. Our movement off the ball was better and made them have to come back and defend. But you can’t do it forever. You’ve got to be smarter in certain situations.
Portland Timbers Kris Boyd
On how to overcome the loss:
“We have to stick together. We’ll come out of it and I’m sure we to stay positive and hopefully again next week we go at it and hopefully we get three points.”
On facing the LA Galaxy:
“I go into every game looking to score a goal. Our possession is key. The Galaxy are one of the better clubs in America but no different than any other team. Like I said before the most important thing is to get the three points and we’re disappointed not get that..”
Portland Forward Darlington Nagbe
On the first half compared to the second half:
“We were just kicking the ball better and everyone was moving better.”
On Galaxy’s defense in the second half:
“I don’t think it was anything better, it was just up to us and we just missed our chances. But we were creating chances so it was a good thing.”
On how frustrating the loss feels:
“It’s just as frustrating as the other ones. It’s time to stop talking and just get winning. Eliminate mistakes.”
