CARSON, Calif. -- The LA Galaxy have moved on from their shock 2010 defeat in the CONCACAF Champions League preliminary round to the Puerto Rico Islanders, but they have by no means forgotten.
In 2010, with the LA Galaxy flying high in league play, LA suffered a 4-1 defeat at The Home Depot Center in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League's preliminary round series with the Islanders. Fueled by two goals by Jamaican forward Nicolas Addlery, the Islanders crushed the Galaxy and advanced to the CCL's group stages a week later on a 5-3 aggregate after LA defeated the Islanders, 2-1 in Bayamón.
For LA Galaxy midfielder Mike Magee -- who went 23 minutes during LA's victory in Puerto Rico -- the impetus will be on the Galaxy to match Puerto Rico's intensity to prevent a repeat of 2010.
"That's not still in our mind. I think I remember a little bit when we saw them on tape earlier that kind of reminded us, but we have a much different team now and if anything, we can just take that on any given day anyone can beat anyone. So we definitely need to match their intensity at least."
(On Puerto Rico's recent inability to score goals...)
MAGEE: "They're not? They obviously scored a lot of goals on us a couple years ago. They look fast, they look fit and they have a lot of guys that we saw a couple years ago and played in the league who are dangerous so obviously, this is going to be a game where they're going to try harder so we've got to match them."
(On dangerous players for Puerto Rico...)
MAGEE: "Addlery....when he played us last time, he was a complete handful. Obviously, I haven't followed that league too much, but last time we played him, he was amazing and i think single handedly beat us."
(On whether or not LA overlooked Puerto Rico in 2010...)
MAGEE: "For sure. Sometimes you assume that just because they're in a different league that you can kind of play half a game and to be honest, if we don't play our best and we don't play our hardest then obviously we know that they can beat us but they can smash us."
