CARSON, Calif. -- FC Dallas arrived at The Home Depot Center as one of the league's hottest offenses, but departed with a shutout by and large thanks to an LA Galaxy defense led by center back Omar Gonzalez.
In Sunday's 2-0 victory over FCD, Gonzalez was dominant as he was able to shut down a pair of Dallas' most dynamic attackers in Jackson and Blas Perez. After a pair of early chances from Dallas, Gonzalez and the rest of the Galaxy back line were able to quickly establish control in the second half to limit the opportunties and ultimately, pick up the victory.
Below are Gonzalez's thoughts on the game...
(On the defensive effort…)
GONZALEZ: "I thought that we all did well. They got a couple of chances here and there, but it wasn’t nothing that we couldn’t handle. We just, we gave them a little bit of time in the beginning part of the second half but we got it under control and moved on from there. I thought we played pretty solid tonight."
(On preventing them space to run…)
GONZALEZ: "No, not at all. When they did have the ball, and they were trying to run behind us, we just dropped and got to the space before them and when they moved the ball backwards, we took that space up so I think our whole team did a good job putting pressure on them and we all just did good tonight."
(On whether the game was simpler after Castillo left?)
GONZALEZ: "Yeah, it was a lot easier. I don’t know if Perez is known for his speed or not, but he’s still a good player, so he was, for him, we had to worry about crosses coming in and they had one good chance, other than that it was all pretty easy."
(On cutting down on their speed…)
GONZALEZ: "Like I said before, we just sort of tried to read what they were trying to do and the dangerous areas for them were the space behind us, and we just tried to cut that out."
(On getting a shutout…)
GONZALEZ: "It feels great. Shut outs is what we defenders play for, we just want to keep on getting shut outs. It makes it easier for us to win the games. All we’ve got to do is score one goal, two goals and we walk away with the win."
(On getting better with each game...)
GONZALEZ: "I do, I find myself getting better each game, more confident and just have to keep on moving forward and take the mistakes that I make, look them over after the game and just move on from there and try not to make the same mistakes twice."
(On the play of Dallas' defense...)
GONZALEZ: "Kudos to them, they held their own, but with us, we just have such a potent attack where we just keep on coming at you, and you’ve got to be sharp the whole game. They ended up making one mistake, and that cost them. Just one costly mistake, I know they’re probably beating themselves over it but for them too they just have to move on too."
