Postgame Quote Sheet
LA Galaxy 1, Real Salt Lake 0
Saturday, July 12, 2014
MLS Regular Season
StubHub Center – Carson, Calif.
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On today’s result: “I think we played a fairly solid 90 minutes tonight. Had chances to get a second goal on a few occasions in the second half. We could have made the game a little easier. It’s good for us to win a game like this. It’s what I would call a good ugly game against a good team. We did a job good on the defensive end of the field. That was encouraging. Any time you get a shut out speaks volumes for the whole team. I think for the most part we played well and deserved to get the three points tonight. We know we need to get a little bit better. That’s certainly not a perfect performance.”
On the goal: “Good goal. If I remember correctly, Marcelo [Sarvas], on the right side, cut a ball in and I think Landon [Donovan] dummied it to Gyasi [Zardes]. And, obviously a pretty good finish off the two posts.”
On Robbie Rogers: “He’s getting a lot of experience in that position. He’s been very good defensively and does a good job going forward. We are very pleased with his performance.”
On Zardes, Donovan and Keane: “They did alright. We could be better. We were playing against three good players in [Kyle] Beckerman, [Nat] Borchers and [Chris] Schuler. It was a good battle for 90 minutes, but I think they did well.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER LANDON DONOVAN
On the game being a missed opportunity:
“We’ve played a number of games this year where we’ve dominated possession, dominated chances, and tied or lost. And it’s okay to have games like this during the year where the positives are the effort and the defending and the competitiveness. Tonight I thought that was excellent, they were great too, I mean they played well too; give them a lot of credit. But we were smart enough to, not having a lot of the ball, but defend well and create a number of chances for ourselves. Jamie did well, the back four did well, and our only fault was not scoring another goal.”
On both teams’ lineups:
“That’s how we both lined up; we both had a lot of players in the middle of the field. The wide guys had a lot of the ball on both sides. That was always going to be the way it matched up tactically. In the end, they made a lot of good chances that way, we made a lot of good chances that way, and we got that one goal that we needed to win.”
On Gyasi Zardes’ goal:
“I’m not sure how it got to Marcelo [Sarvas]. I ran through the middle, I knew Gyasi [Zardes] was coming with me so I let it run. He took a touch, their defender did a good job getting near him, but Gyasi [Zardes] was strong, fought the guy off and it was a fantastic, fantastic finish.”
On the team coming together:
“We’re getting there. We’re getting, in my opinion, the best defender in the league back soon, and that can only help. I think defensively we’ve been very good this year. In most games we shouldn’t have allowed goals and we’re getting back to having a really good defensive mentality. Having Omar [Gonzalez] there will help us, and attacking wise, we’re starting to get better. We’ve had a lot of different guys coming in and out of the lineups, so that sort of hurts with continuity, but tonight was good. We realistically should have scored three or four goals probably. We’re playing well on that end of the field, but if we keep defending like that we are going to be hard to beat.”
On Gyasi Zardes:
“He is becoming a real player. All the exciting stuff is fun, and fun to watch, but he’s been effective now. Obviously teams put a lot of emphasis on Robbie and myself, and when he is getting chances, he is making them pay. So at some point, teams are going to have to start paying attention to him, and if they don’t, then he’ll just keep scoring. With young players, a lot of times you get a lot of excitement, a lot of talent, but you don’t get the end product all of the time. Part of becoming a mature player and a real professional is being effective; and he’s been effective. You don’t look at him and say he was the most exciting third on the field tonight, or he had all of these great chances, but he was effective, he ran hard, he defended well, he stretched them, put them under pressure, and when he got his chance to score, he scored and that’s all you can ask for.”
On the Galaxy’s defense:
“We’re concentrating more, and we realize that every play matters. In all these games, we can’t shut off for five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes; we can give up a goal if we don’t. There is something to be said for us being the only team in the league that’s lost three games now, and a lot of that goes down to our defending wall. When we concentrate over 90 minutes, we’re going to create chances. We create chances in every game we play; we never go through a game where we don’t create chances. So if we concentrate and focus for 90 minutes on every play, more often then, we’re not going to get scored on.”
On playing at the top of the diamond:
“I love it. I think our best games as a team, and my best games have come with me playing there. I think that the guys around me, like having me there. I like running from a deep position, I like facing the field when I get the ball, and it’s good to have two good really good attacking players ahead of me that I can get the ball to. I think, hopefully, that is a spot that I can continue to play. I think we’ve done well there.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER MARCELO SARVAS
On tonight’s match:
“I think the most important is three points against a great team. A team that plays very good with the ball; placements, same system for a long time, they know how to find the space to keep the ball. I think that’s the most important today. I think we could play better, but the most important are the three points.”
On his performance:
“Of course, we always look to the clock and remind ourselves, ten minutes left, six, five left, and everybody gave 100 percent today. I think that was the key for today’s success.”
On the team’s future:
“I think it’s a team that has a target. We had the games to play, some points behind, and we want to be on top. That’s our target, and we are doing everything to get there.”
On Gyasi Zardes:
“I think every goal and everyone that scores is important. We had a couple of chances, especially at the end of the game. But there is a consistency in this league, when you start winning the game; normally you think you’ll finish ahead, so the goal was very important for us.”
On the missed penalty kick:
“I was very confident in the game. Last minute, [Landon] Donovan let me kick the penalty. That happens; it is not the first one we lose of the season. I won’t ask anymore, I had my chance. But I’m just happy that we won. I think I could’ve scored, but [Nick] Rimando had a good save; he moved pretty good in the line.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER A.J. DELAGARZA
On the team’s performance:
“I think you saw a bunch of guys making plays that haven’t been. All around, a good team defending day. I don’t think they had too many chances, I think [John] Stertzer had one I remember, but nothing too dangerous. When they are throwing numbers forward, it was good to see him [Gyasi Zardes] make that change just to have some more height back there. I think this is Galaxy 2010, we would win one-zero, but we won games dirty or clean, no matter what it was. I think you always see a pretty good game when we play these guys. Two teams I like to play, it’s a good game to be in. I think it’s one of the better matches of this league.”
On Gyasi Zardes:
“He has the skills and the talent. He can play in the midfield and up top. He is deadly, he is dangerous, and now he is scoring goals. He is coming to his own. I think right now he is pretty consistent, scoring goals, not too much you can ask for him right now.”
On Tommy Meyer:
“Tommy [Meyer] is good. We’ve played together for quite a while. He has been here for a couple of years so we know each other well. It takes chemistry to be two center backs who are working with each other and I think now we’ve been doing that pretty well. He is not giving up much, so that is good to see.”
REAL SALT LAKE HEAD COACH JEFF CASSAR:
On the game:
“I felt like it was a fantastic game for everyone in the stadium. Obviously, it wasn’t the outcome we wanted. But our commitment, passion, quality tonight was fantastic. I am so proud of our players. I think if we had couple of small turns go our way, it would have come away with a different result.”
On RSL’s performance:
“We knew that they were capable of countering quickly. We talked about making sure that if they were able to turn and come at us, we either stop the play with a foul, or make sure we get in position to make sure that they weren’t able to turn and come at us. I thought we did a good job of that for 90 percent of the time. And obviously, towards the end of the game when we are pushing, we left ourselves exposed a little bit. But I thought the guys handled it extremely well. We did get numbers for it which was something that we wanted to do.”
On what RSL has to improve:
“We just got to keep putting them in position. That’s the beauty of our team it doesn’t have to come from one certain area. But it is important that those guys get rewarded for some of the work that they are doing. Obviously, finishing off goals are important but we just got to continue doing a better job of getting them into the position and then seizing the opportunities.”
On the referee’s call
“If you put yourself in those positions enough times, the calls aren’t going to be good calls. But, that’s a foul. Chris [Wingert] isn’t putting his head down below to get kicked in the face. It’s right there. It’s on whether he has the gall to make that call, but he chose not to. But we put ourselves in those positions. I’m really proud of the guys.”
On the loss against the Galaxy:
“You want more, obviously, but they are a good team. Two games were at their place. So we got away with getting even at their place and getting one point at ours. It’s deal-able. But obviously, we want more. But the commitment from the guys tonight I thought was fantastic.”
On not finishing opportunities on goal:
“We are creating chances, it’s not like we are not. That’s the most important thing. The goals will come. If we keep putting ourselves in those positions, the goals are going to come. I think the last time I looked; we were third in the league for scoring goals. That’s without our leading goal scorer for a good portion of the season. So that means everyone will have to pick up the differences, not just the forwards, but the midfielders, set plays, attacking set plays, that’s how collectively we are going to score goals.”
On not scoring:
“If we look at a lot of the leading scorers in the league, they get two hat tricks. That’s six goals right there. Then they score six in the next four months, so a lot of the time, they come in bunches. But really, the thing that I am concerned about is the way we are playing and the way we are putting ourselves in the position to score.”
On giving up a goal:
“It was the referee giving us the advantage, and the play breaks down. I will take a free kick from the 25 yards away from goal anytime. Doesn’t go back and give the guy a yellow card, which clearly was a yellow card. I don’t know on the top of my head how many times Javier [Morales] was fouled tonight. But it was a lot of times. When did they get their yellow card? Their yellow card was on the 90th plus minute. That doesn’t work.”
On the referee’s call that led to the goal:
“The rules say that they don’t have to stop, they don’t. That is what it is. But the referee gave the advantage, that’s his decision. Maybe it wasn’t always the right call, but I would have liked to take a free kick with my whole team set up. But now, you give advantage, we give away a ball on the next pass, and we are out of shape…”
On other teams’ results this week:
“That’s good, Chivas [USA] beating Vancouver [Whitecaps]. I like the team at the bottom beating the teams next to us. I think almost every result besides ours went our way today, which is important. You’ve got to keep an eye on that. But if we play like this against Vancouver, we are going to win. If we had that same type of passion and commitment from our starting eleven and our substitution that came on and did a great job. Ned [Grabavoy] created some awesome chances. Garcia was threatening. Luke made couple of nice passes. Everything is right there, now it’s just putting them back together.”
REAL SALT LAKE GOALKEEPER NICK RIMANDO
On tonight’s game:
“I’m not that really upset about the match. Obviously the result didn’t go our way but I thought we controlled the game and our possession was good. Our movement was good. We created a lot of chances but we just didn’t put them away and against these teams you have to put your chances away. Unfortunately we didn’t and the result stayed 1-0.”
On being 1-1-1 this season against the Galaxy:
“It is a loss. It doesn’t matter if it against the Galaxy or anybody else. It’s the second half of the season and we want to get as many points as we can. Away or home it doesn’t matter we are looking for results. Galaxy or another team we are trying to maximize on points and results and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that today.”
REAL SALT LAKE DEFENDER TONY BELTRAN:
On tonight’s game:
“I thought we were right there. If we were a little cleaner with the ball maybe we could have come away with a result today but we are unfortunate not to. They are a team that thrives on the counter attack. That is how they got their goal. We did a decent job limiting their opportunities but it is overall frustrating because I feel like we could have earned a little bit more.”
On the team having trouble scoring:
“We trust our forwards and our midfielders. We know they are capable of finishing chances when they get them for whatever reason they are not going in right now. We will keep working on it on the training ground and keeping positive. It will come.”
On looking on to the second half of the season:
“The rest of the season is going to go really quickly, a lot of games in a row the next couple of months and some important games at home. We need to put points in the board so we are right there at the end of the season.”
