CARSON, Calif. -- Following the LA Galaxy's 5-2 victory over Isidro Metapan in the CONCACAF Champions League, LA Galaxy defender Todd Dunivant was dumbfounded by the events surrounding the last 20 minutes of the match.
Below are Dunivant's thoughts postgame...
(On the emotions at the end of the game…)
DUNIVANT: “Yeah it was emotional. I think that we felt unjustly given a PK against us and strange sequence on the red card. It’s frustrating when people try and take over the game like that, and don’t let the playing do the talking. So we had a three goal lead, and goal difference is important in this tournament, so getting that fifth goal to put us up three goals was huge. We had a lot of emotion with that.”
(On his perspective of the Keane red card…)
DUNIVANT: “Your guess is as good as mine. First he gives a yellow card for diving, and then compounds that mistake by giving him a red card. But a lot of times referees like to be bigger than the game and that was the case tonight.”
(On whether or not the referee was a typical CCL moment…)
DUNIVANT: "It was strange. You’d have to ask him. It’s crazy that a professional referee would come out and want to take over a game like that. It’s about the guys on the field; it’s not about the guys in the stripes. It blows your mind when things like that happen. There was a lot of frustration on our part with that, and we’ve got to learn from it and on move on.”
(On whether referees were a topic pre-game…)
DUNIVANT: “Absolutely it is. That was said. Robbie’s our captain; he should be allowed to talk to the referee. That’s part of how that relationship works. The captain is the guy that’s able to talk and to be a professional referee and have skin that thin is remarkable to me. You’ve got to have thicker skin than that.”
(On his perspective on Metapan’s first goal…)
DUNIVANT: “I don’t particularly remember the play leading up to it. I remember the ball kind of started to loop to the back post over Josh and I got a little piece of it, kept it out initially and then there was a scramble in front and I don’t know if David hit it or if their guy hit it. But it went off the post, across the goal and in, so kind of a fluky weird play. There was a little stretch in the first half where we kind of lost our composure a little bit but we responded well and got a goal back pretty quickly.”
(On whether or not he could hear what Robbie said…)
DUNIVANT: “I did not, no.”
(On whether Keane was simply frustrated…)
DUNIVANT: “Yeah, understandably so. That’s part of the game, to not know that as a referee is crazy to me.”
(On scoring five goals…)
DUNIVANT: “Yeah for sure it’s a positive. I mean, we won the game by three goals tonight and that’s huge. Goal differential is going to be big and there’s a chance that, last year there was a tie breaker with three teams and we won the group on it, so goal differential is big and we used that to our advantage last year and we started off well again in this tournament.”
