LA Galaxy 1, Montreal Impact 1
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Olympic Stadium – Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Scoring Summary:
MTL – Davy Arnaud 2 (Nelson Rivas 1) 8’
LA – David Beckham 2 (Unassisted) 62’
Misconduct Summary:
LA – Dan Keat (Yellow Card) 44’
MTL – Matteo Ferrari (Yellow Card) 46+
LA – David Beckham (Yellow Card) 54’
LA – Juninho (Yellow Card) 58’
Lineups:
LA Galaxy: Brian Perk; Sean Franklin, Dan Keat, A.J. DeLaGarza, Todd Dunivant; Michael Stephens (Mike Magee 46’), Juninho (Marcelo Sarvas 74’), David Beckham, Kyle Nakazawa (Pat Noonan 69’); Landon Donovan ©, Robbie Keane.
Subs Not Used: Bill Gaudette, Tommy Meyer, Bryan Gaul, Chad Barrett.
Montreal Impact: Donovan Ricketts; Hassoun Camara, Matteo Ferrari, Nelson Rivas, Jeb Brovsky; Justin Mapp (Justin Braun 58’), Felipe, Collen Warner, Lamar Neagle (Sanna Nyassi 85’); Davy Arnaud (captain), Bernardo Corradi (Andrew Wenger 68’).
Subs Not Used: Greg Sutton, Shavar Thomas, Patrice Bernier, Callum Mallace.
Referee: Jasen Anno
Referee’s Assistants: Peter Manikowski and Craig Lowry
4th Official: Mathieu Bourdeau
Notes:
- With the draw, the Galaxy are now 3-5-2 on the season for 11 points. They remain in seventh place in the Western Conference standings, one point behind FC Dallas and two points ahead of Chivas USA.
- The result snapped LA’s two-game losing streak, though the club has now gone four straight games without a win for the first time since May 2009 when they went five straight games without a win, collecting five consecutive draws.
- Through 10 games the Galaxy have 11 points on the season, which is equal to their tally in the 2009 season when they opened the year with a 1-1-8 record.
- Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena made four changes to the team that lost 1-0 at home to New York last Saturday. Brian Perk, Dan Keat and Kyle Nakazawa all made their first starts of the season while Michael Stephens returned to the starting lineup for the first time since April 7. They replaced Bill Gaudette, Tommy Meyer, Mike Magee and Edson Buddle. Gaudette, Meyer and Magee all began the game on the bench while Buddle did not dress because of a right adductor strain.
- In addition to being the first start of the season for Keat and Perk, it was also their first appearance of the year for the club in regular season play. Keat had made one appearance in the CONCACAF Champions League, but this was Perk’s first appearance in all competitions after missing the last six weeks following sports hernia surgery.
- With the changes, the Galaxy have now made at least one change to their starting lineup in every game that they have played this season. In only one of those games did LA make fewer than two changes.
- In addition to playing without Buddle, the Galaxy were once again without Omar Gonzalez and Leonardo who are each on the club’s Disabled List, as well as David Junior Lopes, who missed the game with right hamstring tightness.
- Josh Saunders missed his fourth straight game in order to attend to personal matters.
- The Galaxy fell behind 1-0 in the 8th minute behind a goal from Davy Arnaud. This was the sixth time in their last seven games that LA have allowed the game’s opening goal.
- Arnaud now has seven goals in 22 career games against LA and has scored once against them every season since 2007 with the exception of last year.
- That goal was the first that Perk has allowed in his MLS career.
- The Galaxy equalized in the 62nd minute from a David Beckham free kick. That was his second goal of the year, leaving him tied with Landon Donovan for second on the club.
- Beckham’s goal snapped a streak of 242 minutes without a goal.
- He was booked eight minutes before his goal, in the 54th minute, giving him a team-high three yellow cards on the season. He has now been booked in each of his last three games dating back to April 28.
- Dan Keat was also booked for LA, collecting a yellow card for a foul late in the first half. That was the first yellow card of his MLS career.
- After failing to put a shot on goal in the first half, LA had six in the second half.
- Former Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, who was presented his 2011 MLS Cup Championship ring before the game, made five saves in the second half.
- The Galaxy limited Montreal to just two shots on goal in the game and none after the 54th minute.
- Brian Perk made one save in the game.
- The Galaxy have now given up at least one goal in each of their 10 regular season games this year. Last year they had four clean sheets in their first nine games of the year.
- The Galaxy finished the game with nearly 63% of the total possession and completed nearly 79% of their passes compared to 37% possession and 67.5% passing accuracy for the Impact.
- Montreal made 305 passes in the game while LA had 301 passes in the first half alone and 492 over the 90 minutes.
- Matteo Ferrari was the only Impact player to be booked, collecting a yellow card in first half stoppage time for a foul on Landon Donovan.
- For the seventh time in their 10 games, the Galaxy did not score in the opening 45 minutes.
- LA have still not scored a goal inside the opening 15 minutes of either half while conceding five goals in that time.
- In each of LA’s ties this season they have overcome 1-0 deficits with second half goals.
- Sean Franklin once again played the full 90 minutes for the Galaxy. He has started all 12 games that the Galaxy have played this season in all competitions and has played every minute of the club’s 10 regular season games. He is the only player on the club’s roster to do both.
- Neither Chad Barrett or Edson Buddle played in the game, ending their streaks of playing in every regular season game for the club this season. Now only Sean Franklin, Juninho and Mike Magee have played in all 10 of the club’s regular season games.
- Those three have also played in all 12 of LA’s games this year in all competitions.
- The Galaxy are now 2-1-4 all-time in Canada in regular season play and unbeaten in their last five games north of the border.
- LA are now 16-15-7 in their first-ever game at a stadium.
- The attendance for tonight’s game was a sellout crowd of 60,860 at Olympic Stadium. The largest crowd in the history of Canadian soccer, this is the fourth biggest crowd ever to see the Galaxy play a regular season game on the road.
- The Galaxy will be back in action on Saturday, May 19 when they play the first of three legs of the SuperClasico against Chivas USA at The Home Depot Center. Chivas USA will be the home team for that game, which starts at 7:30 p.m. and can be seen live on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes.
- Prior to that game, the Galaxy will head to Washington D.C. where they will be honored for their 2011 MLS Cup championship by President Obama at The White House on Tuesday.
Quotes:
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
About Donovan Ricketts...
Donovan made the difference in the game today for Montreal. He had a couple of excellent saves, positioned them to get a point and maybe win the game. He was outstanding. He was a very important part of our success over the last three years and we certainly didn’t want to lose him. We had to make some moves and unfortunately we lost the best goalkeeper in the league.
About the Impact...
Montreal has a good team. They are going to get better as the year goes on. It’s an outstanding franchise with a good defensive corps, like we saw today.
About the play of goalkeeper Brian Perk...
Perk played well. He wasn’t tested a lot. For his first game this year, he has to come back from surgery and he did well. His distribution was very good today.
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER DAVID BECKHAM
About the game...
We’re disappointed not to have the three points. In the second half, we created so many chances. I knew once we got the first goal, our confidence would grow up. At first, we played with not enough belief, but in the second half we came in and showed the character that we have and created a lot of chances.
About the crowd...
Playing in front of 60,000 fans is incredible. Wherever you play, that’s what you want. Home or away, even if people are for or against you, it’s great to play in this atmosphere. We want to thank the Impact fans and the football fans. It was a great day for the game.
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER LANDON DONOVAN
About the game...
It was a good soccer game. The second half was great. Donovan Ricketts did a good job. He made some good saves and got them a point.
About the Galaxy’s play...
We wanted to keep being aggressive in the second half. Too often it’s been our story this year. We played well enough to win, but haven’t. We have to stop making some mistakes, but the attitude and the effort is really good and you can’t fault anyone for that.
IMPACT HEAD COACH JESSE MARSCH
On the positives from this game…
We came here with some heavy legs, played a really good team and still managed to get a point. In this stadium, we haven’t lost, so that’s another positive. Even though we weren’t the sharpest today, getting the point when earlier in the year we might not have was big for us.
On planning to limit Beckham’s set piece opportunities…
We gave him too many. One is too many for him. In these moments when they get on a break with their quick and crafty players, it’s not that easy to just stand them up. You might get a piece of them sometimes and they are good at earning fouls.
On Ricketts’ play…
He did very well for us. He was excited to play against his old team. He’s been in really great form and in the locker room guys really look up to him. Even though he isn’t the most vocal guy, he is still one of our leaders.
IMPACT GOALKEEPER DONOVAN RICKETTS
On coming up big in the first half…
I do whatever I can to help my team win. Today we were under a bit of pressure and I helped out the best I could. Sometimes they bail me out. I have an easy game like Portland, where I’m not busy. Other times I work like today. It’s a team effort.
On not allowing a second goal to Galaxy…
We are an expansion team and we are growing. We were playing the defending champions. We could have easily felt overwhelmed, but we held our ground, were solid defensively and came out with a point.
IMPACT DEFENDER HASSOUN CAMARA
On considering the tie a moral victory versus defending champs and star players…
With the great players they have, it can be considered a good result. But we were going for the three points. We should be satisfied with our performance. Now we go to training this week to work on getting a win next week.
On playing with Matteo Ferrari and Nelson Rivas…
Playing with guys like that makes my job easy. They have experience in some of the biggest clubs in the world, so I listen when they talk to me. Things went well tonight and I hope that we can get better and have continued success.
