CARSON, Calif. – It is, after all, only a two-game winning streak the LA Galaxy have put together entering Saturday’s game against FC Dallas at The Home Depot Center (7:30 p.m., KDOC, KWHY, lagalaxy.com/gamedaylive), but there definitely is a level of confidence that wasn’t there when the club won only one of their first three regular season games.
WATCH: Saunders saves PK
Last week’s 2-1 win in Colorado, punctuated by Josh Saunders’ save of a penalty kick by the Rapids’ Omar Cummings in second half stoppage time, helped to strengthen that new resolve.
“Football is about winning games and getting your confidence up,” striker Robbie Keane said after training Thursday. “At the moment it’s only a couple of games and you can’t get too carried away, but you certainly can see the steeliness in the team that maybe we hadn’t had at the start.
“We certainly have it now and it’s important to keep that going. It’s important that we keep ourselves going up the table.”
READ: Keane, Galaxy look to climb the table
Match Preview: LA vs Dallas
FC Dallas (3-3-2), which is winless in three road games this season, enters Saturday’s Western Conference matchup fresh off a 1-1 draw with Real Salt Lake on Wednesday in Frisco, Texas, and will welcome back leading scorer Blas Perez (3 goals, 3 assists), who sat out Wednesday after being fined and suspended for elbowing Vancouver’s Jordan Harvey on April 21.
The Galaxy (3-3-0) are 11-2-1 all-time against Dallas at The Home Depot Center during the regular season and definitely enter Saturday’s game feeling good about themselves after last weekend’s win that almost wasn’t.
David Beckham agreed it could have a galvanizing effect on the team.
“We saw it with Chelsea and Barcelona the other night, it happens,” he said, referring to the UEFA Champions League semifinal in which Chelsea eliminated the Spanish giants despite playing a man down for nearly an hour. “You have a player go off or a decision like that the other night go against you and it comes out the way it did, it can definitely spike a team up and push it into a different level.
“We’ll see if it brings us together a bit more.”
READ: Another win, more momentum for suddenly stable Galaxy
But coaches and players want to make it clear they’re not satisfied by any means with their mini-run.
“The last couple of years two wins hasn’t really been that uncommon for us,” Mike Magee said. “We’re not going to get content at all.”
Said Landon Donovan, “We’ve definitely turned the corner, there’s no question. But that can go away quickly with a bad performance. It’s just being consistent now, and that’s what this team’s been about the last few years, consistently doing things the right way.
“We’re not always perfect or always pretty, but we do things in a way that makes it difficult to beat us. And if we keep doing that it’s going to be hard to beat us.”
