CARSON, Calif. -- LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena spoke to reporters after the Galaxy's 4-2 victory over Orlando City SC.
On the circumstance that had to be in place for Landon Donovan to play and what he thought of his performance:
“First off, I really don’t think that’s the story of the game. And I don’t want to be critical of your journalistic qualities and all, but the certain conditions would be a 4-1 lead with about 10 minutes left. You see he has a long way to go; he’s on the treadmill now. It’s going to take a while, we knew that. Probably no other circumstances would have allowed me to play him today, but I wanted him to get out there and reward the crowd for showing up and all. It helps Landon see how far he has to go.”
On the performance of his players over the age of 30:
“Two goals from guys over 30…is there a rule against that? Manchester United has a pretty good striker that’s about 35-36 years old. This age stuff is kind of stupid I think. To a certain degree, you’ve got to understand there are some issues associated with older players in professional sports. You see it all the time, but at the club level in soccer it can be done. It’s done all the time. I can probably name a dozen players of high quality…easily a dozen players of high quality in their thirties and some that are in their mid-thirties. You don’t want to field a complete team of players of those ages, but I don’t think we spend a whole lot of time thinking about that, although it is a point of consideration for sure.”
On the impact of Jelle Van Damme as a playmaker:
“Well he had a good game. He’s been a good player for us all year and he’s a real leader. He obviously has a great presence on the field. Even though we screwed up a little in conceding that goal– of which Jelle was probably a little bit responsible for – but he’s a great leader and a great player and the team feeds off him. You could argue he’s been our best player to date this year. He has a real presence and he’s an important player on the field.”
On if he was surprised by how fast Van Damme was able to return from injury:
“It’s been two weeks. I think they told us 2-3 weeks and we saw early in the first week that there was a chance that he could be back for this weekend. So it was a pretty quick recovery.”
On the performance of Rafael Garcia:
“He played very well. Jeff Larentowicz played two full games this week if I’m not mistaken, against Columbus and Salt Lake. For the last 4-6 weeks, I think Rafael has looked very good in training. We got him a game with Galaxy II about a week ago in Arizona. That was important for him. I thought he brought some energy and could get around the ball a little bit better than we’ve seen since Nigel de Jong departed and that was the case today. I thought he played a real good game as did Raul Mendiola. That’s his second start with us in his career. I think those players did very well. Emmanuel Boateng continues to grow. Heck of a ball he played Giovani dos Santos for the second goal. Giovani continues to grow. He’s getting fitter. I think his effort for his first goal was pretty special – the way he got up the field. I think the younger players are getting better. We’ve got a long way to go though. We’re still making some mistakes we shouldn’t be making, but hopefully we can get a little better as we try to close this season out.”
On Giovani dos Santos’ defensive effort over the past few games:
“He’s doing very well. This was a little bit of an issue, but I think he’s now a year into playing on a full time basis. As heralded as he was and is, he has not played on a regular basis in his club careers. Now he’s a year in and this season is probably the fullest season he’s had in his career. And now he’s a year in. This season is probably the fullest season he’s had in his career. And you can see that he’s now getting fitter, getting more experienced, understanding this league and understanding the things that he needs to do to make himself a better player and also make our team a better team. And you can see that happening. He has 14 goals now. For that position, that’s pretty good. In that position, strikers usually score that many goals and he’s not a striker. It’s pretty good stuff.”
On the level of trust he has in starting Raul Mendiola and Rafael Garcia at this time of the season:
“Real good people as a starting point, but you don’t win any games that way. But they work real hard in training and they have a great work ethic. They understand what they can bring to the team and they force themselves on you. These are the guys, when you pick sides, you don’t mind picking them because they compete so well and they know how to play through mistakes and they give you great effort. And on any team in any sport you need great players with those kinds of qualities
