CARSON, Calif. -- Juninho is the toast of the LA Galaxy at the moment and with two goals, he helped lift the club to a 4-2 win over Toronto FC.
With his two goal showing, Juninho now has an MLS career high seven goals along with four assists this season. The Brazilian also have six goals in his last six league games for the Galaxy.
Following the win against Toronto, Juninho's coaches and teammates were quick to heap praise on the Brazilian.
Below are thoughts from Bruce Arena, Todd Dunivant, Mike Magee and Landon Donovan on Juninho's run of form and his goals."
ARENA: Juninho’s obviously on a terrific run, the free kick was a terrific free kick. The goal on the run of play was awesome, simply outstanding."
DUNIVANT: “He’s incredible. You can see, not just the goals. The way he’s playing, the way he’s spraying the ball, the confidence that he has, the bite that he has on defense, I think it’s everything.”
MAGEE: “I think that you all saw our reactions after our goal, we all got into a little huddle and sang Bruce happy birthday and we all just told him to shoot. If he wasn’t already, whenever he gets it, he needs to shoot because the form that he’s in right now is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not in practice, not in games, not on tv or anything. Anytime he shoots, its either going in or hitting a post or something...“[All Juninho's goals] all look the same right, every time that he scores a goal, it’s like déjà vu. I don’t know which one was better, but it’s actually bizarre the streak that he’s on.”
DONOVAN: "He’s got a lot [of goals] man. The first one was, he just struck it well and there were so many people in the wall that the goalie really had no chance, he couldn’t see it. And the second one, it’s a goal anywhere in the world, and he’s had a lot of them, he does it in training all the time and we’re encouraging him to keep going forward and shooting, and when he’s doing that we’re really hard to play against because eventually, teams are going to have to step to him and that’s going to open up a lot of space. If they don’t step to him, he can just keep scoring and we’re happy with that."
But what did Donovan think of Juninho's sixth place finish in MLSsoccer.com's 24 Under 24 list?
DONOVAN: "That’s a joke, we all know that. He’s by far the best player on that list. There’s no question."
