CAROLINA, Puerto Rico -- Here is the second portion of Tuesday afternoon's LA Galaxy press conference featuring Bruce Arena and Landon Donovan.
I'll have more once the club heads off for training later this afternoon...
Below are Donovan's thoughts from the press conference...
(On whether he is capable of going 90 minutes…)
DONOVAN: “I think so yeah. When you’re out awhile, it takes some time to get fit. I was a little tired towards the end of last week when I came out, but I think if I had to go ten or 15 more minutes than I could have gone through it. The only caveat to that is that this is a different environment. It’s hotter, it’s humid and that could play into it.”
(Could Saturday’s match play into that…)
DONOVAN: “We’re fortunate with this club that we’ve got a number of guys that are not only capable of playing, but have kept themselves fit enough to play 90 minutes in any game that we have during the year. A lot of times with guys that don’t play a lot of first team minutes, you lose fitness, but our guys do a really good job and the Reserve League has helped with getting guys a lot of minutes. It gives Bruce a lot of options when he’s choosing his lineup and he doesn’t have to worry about guys that can only play 45 and 60 minutes. It’s nice to have a lot of options.”
On what the young guys bring to the squad…
DONOVAN: “The young guys have been terrific and the older guys who aren’t getting a lot of minutes with the first team have also been terrific. It doesn’t always happen that way. I can’t say that it’s been this way in the past. That game a few weeks ago, Bruce was able to rest a number of guys who have played a lot of minutes in a row and he could put a team on the field that was still capable of doing well. We all saw how well they played in that game. It’s a luxury to have as a coach and as a club. I think that their attitude is great and I think that the Reserve team coach Curt Onalfo has done a great job. Us as players and Bruce would say the same thing as a coach, we have full confidence that any one of those guys could step into any game and be effective for us. It’s good to have.”
(On the attitude of the young guys being infectious and whether he enjoyed playing with them…)
DONOVAN: “I quite enjoyed it, that’s part of my role that I’ve tried to get better at and I think that it’s good for them to see how seriously we take every game regardless of the circumstances. Conversely, it’s good for us to have their energy and their excitement to play all the time. We’ve got a number of guys here that may or may not have been part of a [game day] 18 in other games earlier in the year in league games, but they’re very excited about the chance to contribute. You could tell a few weeks ago when we came off the field off the Puerto Rico game that they had really felt like they made a big contribution and they did to the whole group.”
(On whether the Galaxy have the firepower to win the CCL…)
DONOVAN: “I think so, I think that when you have our league and a tournament like this, the most important thing is having a number of players that can contribute because you can’t play the same 11 guys 45 or 50 times a year. Bruce has done a great job creating a team that has a lot of depth and a lot of guys that can contribute. When it comes down to it, we have enough talented players and enough players with experience and are capable enough to win any game that we play in this part of the world. It doesn’t mean that it happens every time, but we feel confident that we can compete with any team in this part of the world.”
