Postgame Quote Sheet
LA Galaxy 4, New York Red Bulls 0
Sunday, Sept. 28 – 5:30 p.m. PT
MLS Regular Season
StubHub Center – Carson, Calif.
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On Landon Donovan’s performance:
“He was a key figure in the first goal. In the second half, I thought he was outstanding. He showed his quality in the second half. Our team, in general, played quite well in second half. Give the Red Bulls credit; they had a good 15, 20 minutes in the first half where they put a lot of pressure on the team. We got better in the second half.”
On Robbie Keane’s performance:
“Good performance. Two important goals. Obviously, the first one was a classic Keane goal. Spectacular goal. Overall, very good game.”
On Jaime Penedo’s performance:
“He’s improved. I think over the last six weeks he’s played very well. Tonight, I think, he made a bunch of key saves in the first half to prevent the Red Bulls from getting back into the game. Like anyone else, [Jaime had to improve] a little bit in every area. He’s just gotten better. His confidence has improved. He’s feet have gotten better. He’s very good coming off his line on a couple of plays tonight.”
On Landon Donovan tying the all-time assist record:
“Rarely do you see a player with the combination of being able to score goals and create goals. Those qualities are excellent. He used to be, I thought, purely a goal scorer. He’s a much better creator now. He’s a good passer of the ball. He’s improved. He’s gotten better. Him and Robbie [Keane] have been responsible for bring Gyasi [Zardes] along. I think their ability to pass and move is critical to our success.”
On the remaining games of the season:
“I don’t want to do anything differently. We want to try and keep getting better as a team. There is certainly a bunch of challenging games ahead. We are playing teams to close out the season that all are important. Toronto is fighting for a playoff spot. Dallas is jocking for a good position. And obviously, Seattle is with us battling for the first spot. All these game mean something.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER LANDON DONOVAN:
On tying MLS’ all-time assist record:
“I’m proud of it. To get an assist record you have to have a lot of people scoring goals so it’s not just putting the ball in the right place, its people finishing. They scored three very good goals tonight, which helped. I’ve had a lot of guys score a lot of goals on my behalf so it’s a credit to all of them too. I’ve always tried to be a guy who makes the right play in front of the goal. So if that means making the pass that leads to the pass that scores, if that means making the pass that leads to the goal, or if that means shooting when you need to shoot. I try and make good decisions in those moments, they come fast and it’s not always easy to make the right decision, but I’ve tried to always make the right decision when I can. More often than not, when I’ve made the right decision, guys have gotten in good spots and scored. So that’s something that I’m proud of. I’ve always wanted to be that type of player. I didn’t want to be one dimensional; I wanted to have all sorts of different parts to my game and I hope that showed.”
On tonight’s performance:
“We started great. Again, we had a lull for about 15 minutes, 20 minutes in the first half where we couldn’t really get it figured out. Once we got it figured out, I think we really were very dominant. Half-time was good for us, we were able to regroup and figure out what we needed to do, and I think they really died in the second half. I think our energy and the way we pressed really wore them down, they couldn’t hang.”
On Jaime Penedo’s saves:
“We needed them too. Bradley Wright-Phillips had some fantastic runs. Got himself in some good positions which he has done all year. Against all the other goalies, he scored those goals. Jaime did a great job, he came up big when we needed him. We don’t often need him to make many saves because our defense does a great job. But tonight we needed him, he was excellent.”
On A.J. DeLaGarza:
“A.J. [DeLaGarza] is a great player. He has been doing that for a number of years. Him and Omar are very comfortable in the back, I thought they were excellent again tonight.”
On the team’s performance:
“I think all of these games at home now for us are big. Obviously a New York game on a Sunday when we probably have a lot of people watching is a little more exciting. For us, it’s about continuing to get points. We relish the chance to play in these games. We don’t want to win, we want to win well. We want to win in style, and I think tonight we were dominant in the way we played.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD ROBBIE KEANE
On the team’s strong performance:
“We knew that was a game that we certainly had to set the tone out from the start, get them on their back foot and put a bit of pressure on them. It always helps in any game when you get an early goal. It calms everybody down and puts a bit more pressure on them and then you have to come out and try and play. Obviously in the second half is utterly important. I said to the lads in the huddle that it’s important we get that second goal, because you have good players on the team that can change the game. Got the second goal early and obviously from then on, it was a convincing performance.”
On his comfort within team:
“In football, the most important thing is consistency. If you’re consistent every year and you continue and strive to do better than you did the year before. Every year since I’ve been here, I’ve done that. That’s all you can ask for. More assists than the year before… More goals this year. To challenge yourself every season to do that. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done this season and, as I said, every year the aim is to do better than the year before.”
On Landon Donovan tying the assist record:
“Congratulations [to Donovan]. I knew it was fairly close, and I said to keep going. Keep getting more assists… So I always tell him to keep going. To have the most goals and the most assists, it’s an incredible achievement for anybody.”
On his first goal:
“If you ask the players in training, I’m always doing it. And it’s better when it comes off, obviously. Tonight it came off, a couple weeks ago against Chivas it came off. At the angle I had… I had to strike it low otherwise I wouldn’t have scored, it was too much of an angle. The only thing I really had was the chip, and as soon as I get an angle like that, I’m always going to do that.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD GYASI ZARDES
On Landon Donovan tying MLS’ all-time assist record:
“Landon is a phenomenal player. He always leaves me speechless and I’m just trying to learn as much as I can from him. Just to help him tie that record is a blessing upon me. I hope he conquers and beats every record there is in the MLS. He is a phenomenal player and is so effective with our team. If you see this game, I think he had numerous assists; that speaks for itself. ”
On his goal:
“There was a through ball, I brought it back and passed it to [Stefan] Ishizaki and I ran off. Took a couple of touches with my left and I saw [Landon Donovan] just posted right there and I just played him in, got it right back and just tried to focus on putting the ball in the frame and it worked out pretty well.”
On Robbie Keane:
“I’ve watched Robbie Keane over the years, and he has always been consistent. He is an incredible and phenomenal forward. So just seeing that today from the chip, from his other goal, it’s just wonderful to see that and play alongside of that.”
On New York Red Bulls’ performance:
“This game was pretty tough. Although we scored four goals it was still a battle. It may look easy, but New York played an amazing game.”
On Thierry Henry:
“It feels good [to play against Henry]. I used to watch him when he used to play for Arsenal. I was a kid sitting down on the couch and my dad watching every single game of his. Just to play on the same field as him is an incredible feeling. Just to score a goal on the same field as him is just a landmark within my career.”
On his confidence:
“Scoring goals is always good for confidence. But against Dallas I had numerous opportunities, didn’t put the ball in the back of the net, and just to put the ball in the back of the net this game was just wonderful because the hard work that I do within practice pays off when the game comes around.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER OMAR GONZALEZ:
On defeating the Red Bulls 4-0:
“It feels great. I only wish I would have scored that goal, I would have had the game winner [laughs]. That was a good play on the guy off the line. But now everyone here is extremely happy for Landon Donovan finding the assist record and now next week we have to look to get another win.”
On the team’s performance:
“At the very beginning of the game, Robbie Keane with the world-class finish, a chip over the ‘keeper. After that goal, after Dan Gargan came in, New York controlled the game for a little bit. But hey, that’s fine. We did well to keep them at bay and stop some of their good chances and they put a lot of effort into that first half, and you can see that in that second half they really died down and we really took advantage of that by scoring another three. Just a good solid performance from all of us tonight. From top to bottom, great stuff and getting a shutout as well is a great deal.”
On Jaime Penedo’s play and his big saves:
“All around Jaime [Penedo] did a great job tonight, stopping those chances where Bradley [Wright-Phillips] got him behind; [Thierry] Henry running at you is never easy because he can put the ball wherever he wants and Bradley Wright-Phillips with good runs in mind, they’re going to get chances and that’s the way soccer is. They’re going to get chances in games but Jaime came out big and saved us the clean sheet.”
On Penedo improving his goalkeeping skills throughout the season:
“He came back from the national team with a lot of confidence and that’s great to see. I love seeing my ‘keeper like that. Moving forward we hope he continues to play the way he has been and if he is going to keep playing like that then that’s big for us.”
On the team’s second-half performance:
“We just wanted to keep on pressing them, and that’s exactly what we did. Not give them enough time in the midfield to look up and play balls in behind them, and when they did look up and had the looks we were quick to drop and make sure that they weren’t getting in behind. It was a bit chippy of a game and I thought all of us did well to match the aggressiveness that New York brought to the game and we didn’t back down. We kept it going and we put four on them, so that’s great.”
NEW YORK RED BULLS HEAD COACH MIKE PETKE
On the importance of putting the loss behind them:
“Yeah, that’s all we can do. It’s all about the three games, specifically at home. In the end, the last game is on the road. That’s it.”
On the team’s approach going in against LA Galaxy:
“It’s best team that we faced all year, by a long shot. [The plan] was to be organized and look to sprint on some counters. I thought in the first half, it worked to an extent. We had almost three breakaways on goal. Another one or two half-chances, and we didn’t put any away. They capitalized on our mistake, which was the theme that I thought we got rid of long ago, but it definitely haunted us tonight. And on the quality side, if we don’t finish our chances, and give them opportunities, they are going to finish it.”
On whether he was pleased to see the team’s performance after the one goal deficit:
“I don’t think I can use the word ‘pleased’ after the 4-0 loss. I thought that it was better. I thought there were moments where we were better .tonight. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t a 4-0 game, However, the scoreboard said it was. You have to go by that.”
On the team’s attitude going into the next games:
“Every game has been a playoff game. We did well the previous four games, and this one, we have to put it behind us.”
NEW YORK RED BULLS FORWARD BRADLEY WRIGHT-PHILLIPS
On the importance of putting loss behind:
“Let’s see if we can get over this one or not when we are actually training to see what we did wrong. Then we will try to go from there.”
On LA Galaxy’s clinical finishes:
“Very very impressed. Myself included, we had some chances in the early stages that we should have took. When they had their early chances, they took it. They were a very good team, the best we played this season I thought. They deserved this win.”
On MLS being underestimated in Europe:
“I think people, until they come over and play, they won’t understand it. It was good. You could see that today. Galaxy was the better team and there was a lot of quality out there.”
On whether the team was affected by their Champions League elimination:
“No. I think we are disappointed to go out of the Champions League, but we can concentrate on the playoffs now. We’ve just got to focus on that.”
On Jaime Penedo’s saves:
“He has done well. The second one I think I should have scored, but the first one he has done well. He came out, kept himself big. I got to hit the ball a little hard and he saved it. I’m more disappointed with the second one. That had nothing to do with him. That was more on me. I should have got that contact on it.”
On Robbie Keane’s brace:
“Growing up, Robbie Keane was my favorite player. We had something in England like a player camera that you could follow that player around, and I used to watch his move and his touch. He is a tremendous player. He hasn’t lost it at all.”
On Landon Donovan setting to break the All-time MLS assist record:
“Yeah, Of course, he is a great player and he has done well today. It’s sad to see him retiring, but he has definitely got it. I’m sure he will get that next assist and plenty more.”
NEW YORK RED BULLS FORWARD THIERRY HENRY
“I’ve only got one thing to say…Well done LA.”
