Postgame Quote Sheet
LA Galaxy 1, Houston Dynamo 0
Friday, May 22, 2015 – 7:30 p.m. PT
MLS Regular Season
StubHub Center – Carson, California
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On Oscar Sorto’s performance:
“Oscar played well. He had a really good game. Right from the start, he showed a lot of confidence. He played really well.”
On the red card:
“It was certainly a foul. You can certainly give a yellow card on that play.”
On Robbie Keane’s performance:
“He’s an influence and obviously, he had an assist on the game winning goal. He’s been out for so long and to ask him to play for 35 minutes is pushing it a little bit. I think under the circumstances he did really well.”
On Alan Gordon:
“My impressions right now are very good. Alan does what he does. He’s scored four goals this year. He’s done really well. He understands how to play at the end of the game. I give him a lot of credit.”
On Jose Villarreal’s return to the lineup:
“It’s very important. I’m not sure you are aware but we’ve been missing an awful lot of players, and he’s just another piece of the puzzle. He’s going to take him some games to get him back as well at full strength. He’s a plus to have back in our line up.”
On building on this win:
“It helps. No question about it. I think you are going to find out at the end of the year, this league; top from bottom is going to be pretty close.”
On the team’s performance:
“There were moments we were good, but we can still create more chances and more quality chances. It was solid performance, and having said that there were a couple times they caught us and they were dangerous. Overall tonight, our guys played a solid game.”
On getting the three points:
“It’s nice to get three points. We have to take advantage of the games at home, like every team in the league. It’s important for us to win these types of games. We fouled up in a bunch of these games this year. Tonight, it’s a real good sign. Still at the end of these games, we have to close it out in a better fashion. Tonight, we end up getting red carded in the 93 after scoring a goal. You scratch your head. We’ve just got to be better in these moments and hopefully, we will be as the season progresses.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD ROBBIE KEANE
On how it felt to return:
“It was nice; I’ve been looking forward to it for a while so it was nice to get back in the swing of things.”
On Alan Gordon:
“He’s unbelievable at heading the ball. Every time I’m there, as soon as he’s on the field, I always know where he’s going to be. A few times last year, it was the same thing. If you find his head, you know nine times out of 10 it’s going to be in the back of the net because he has that accuracy where he can loop it over the goalkeeper or hit it on the ground. It’s very difficult for a goalkeeper because you just don’t know what he’s going to do. He came up big today.”
On his own impact:
“I’m not a player that eases into things. As soon as I’m ready, I want to jump right in and help the team as much as I can. Obviously, I did that tonight and I’m delighted with the lads performance even though it wasn’t pretty at times. When you’re going through a little bit of a rough patch as we are at the moment, what is important is winning games.”
On the team’s play:
“We moved the ball well without creating anything. We were definitely the better team, there’s no question. Thankfully, the three substitutes came on and connected well. When Nacho [Ignacio Maganto] came on for 10 minutes, I thought that he was lively. … All around good evening, and now it’s up to us as a group of players to continue to move forward, progress and get some results.”
On his groin and if he’s ready to start:
“Of course. If you’re out for that length of time, it’s going to take some time no matter how much training that you do. I’ve been in the gym doing some running but I only really started training on Tuesday with the team. It’s only been three days so it’ll take me a while to get in the swing of things but I’m quite clever on how to use my runs and how to save myself which I did tonight. Of course, the more training that I do, and the more games that I play, the fitter I’ll get.”
On his run against Beasley:
“You forget sometimes. Of course, I wanted to test myself and do the best I can for the team, and certainly if anything was going to test my injury, it was going to be that run. Fortunately afterward it felt fine and I was lucky.”
On Oscar Sorto’s red:
“Very strange. He took a yellow card out and put it in his pocket. To be honest, I hate even saying this but I thought that the referee was poor all night. He made some strange, strange decisions and if he’s got an assessor upstairs, I’m sure he’s thinking that he didn’t have his best game. We all, at times, don’t play well but he had some fairly easy decisions to make, and he wasn’t calling. It was very strange. For Oscar, it was his [first] start, he had a great game, the referee was standing right beside him and could clearly see that it was a yellow card, it wasn’t from behind, it was from the side. The guy came from in front of him, so it wasn’t like he was trying to [injure] him. It definitely wasn’t a red card so whoever makes the decision to rescind that call, if they don’t rescind it, it’s an absolute embarrassment. The kid did not deserve get to sent off tonight regardless if it was his second game or his 500th game, he didn’t deserve to get sent off. He had a great game, and it was ruined by an erratic decision. It wasn’t even erratic because he took the yellow card out so he had a few seconds to think about the call. He was thinking about the call but changed his mind because someone 50 yards away decided it was a red card. Surely if the referee is standing five yards from the play, he’s in a better place than the fourth official… If he can honestly see it from where he is and the ref can’t see it from five yards than something needs to be done about that. It was a very bad decision.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD ALAN GORDON
On goal scored:
“When you play with somebody, you pick up their tendencies and it’s something I know Robbie’s [Keane] is going to look for. If he isn’t going to shoot, he is going to look for me in the back post. So I faked him side to the back post and he played a wonderful ball. I did my best to get it back post and it just kind of looped in.”
On coming off the bench:
“It’s not easy; there is nothing easy about it. We’ve been working real hard to get points, and these three points are huge for the entire team. I feel blessed and lucky to be a part of it and to be able to help this team get three points. I’m here to help this team. Bruce bought me here to play several different roles, and I’ll fill in when I need to. But I am a reserved player, I know that. We have guys up top that are very capable.”
On good ball possession:
“We are getting healthy bodies back. We have Jose [Villarreal] that played great tonight, Oscar [Sorto] stepped in and had a stellar game I thought and did really well. With more healthy bodies, it’s just more quality we are going to have on the field. So it makes everybody’s job a little bit easier, and everyone is going to look a little bit better. In the second half I thought we were doing better at creating opportunities, and obviously with Robbie coming in, he is our creative spark and it’s all going to help us move forward. But we have got a lot of work to do, and the next game is coming up pretty fast.”
On turning around the season:
“There is always the next game. We have got to still have the same mentality, the same work ethic. I think one of the best parts of about the game was how hard everybody worked. Defensively, we were very good. Everybody in the backline, everybody in the midfield worked real hard so everybody working together was the key for us.”
On Oscar Sorto:
“I have to look at the play, but it didn’t look like a red card to me. But I thought he had a great game. He stepped in, and played like a veteran I thought. He was really composed and played very well. I love seeing new guys step in and play with confidence, and he certainly did that tonight.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD JOSE VILLARREAL
On playing time:
“It was good, it was good. I’m happy we got the win, which is the important thing. I got banged a few times, but it’s part of the game.”
On ball possession:
“I thought we played well… we didn’t create enough chances, but we kept the ball pretty good and we worked like bastards out there. Gordo the redeemer, so that’s fine with us.”
On Keane’s impact:
“He is the MVP for a reason, so it’s not surprising for us. That’s what he does, and we’re happy when he does things like that. I’ve played with him a few times before, he likes to play with me and I like to play with him so we kind of know each other. ”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER OSCAR SORTO
On starting:
“To be honest, I was very emotional before the game. I’ve been waiting two years to start for Bruce, and I was just happy to start in that game. I just tried my best because obviously left back is not my actual position, and I was just trying to make the game simple on the field and it came out good. Bruce told me two days ago that I was going to start, so since then I’ve just been mentally prepared.”
On red card:
“It’s up to the ref, I felt like I touched the ball first and then the guy just crossed into me. I didn’t see [the yellow card pulled out first] because I had a cramp. He [referee] told me that it was a foul from the back, and I didn’t want to get mad about it so I just walked away. I didn’t want to keep adding minutes to the game, so I left.”
On starting red card appeal:
“It’s up to the coach, I just did my job today and I’m going to continue to do my job.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO HEAD COACH OWEN COYLE
On the play of Houston’s defense tonight:
“I think our goalkeeper didn’t have a save in the game. We were the better team tonight, in my estimation. We were the team with the chances; I don’t recall Tyler Deric having a worthwhile save in the game.”
On Alan Gordon’s goal late in the game:
“Yea, well obviously Alan Gordon wins the initial header and then Robbie Keane is just an outstanding player and he goes to get a shot away and David Horst blocks it well and then the cross comes back in and Alan Gordon does very well. It was a terrific header there is no argument with that. From what we have seen, I know you probably follow LA, we felt the penalty late on was inside the box and the referees give us the kick four yards outside the box, so at the end of the day we don’t want anything that is not ours, we only want everything that we think is fair and that penalty was missed.”
On the overall play of the Dynamo tonight:
“I thought first half we could have passed the ball better, second half we certainly did. For me we were the better team in the second half, we had chances. I know we didn’t have a ton of shots on target but we had a few great opportunities and caused them problems. Our goalkeeper had no saves tonight and that is coming into the home of the champions, they are the champions for a reason because they have outstanding players and a very good team. That is twice we have been here and we certainly feel that on both occasions we should be leaving with points, it is disappointing that we should have had a positive result that we didn’t get, so we will take that horrible feeling, which doesn’t sit well with yea and will pick ourselves up and get ready to go again. We have a good team, we are in the process of building that as you know from what we inherited last year and we know moving forward, I have said it before, when you come into the champions and perform as we did two games like that then you are going to cause everybody else a lot of problems.”
On the team’s improvement over the last 3 games:
“This is not about three games; this is over a period of time. We are certainly trying to implement some ideas and have a platform to move forward. You don’t come in with fairy dust and think everything falls into place, it takes hard work, it takes repetition and training, it takes good players to implement those ideas and that is what we are trying to do. We came here in good form as you know and I think we certainly deserved something tonight, we never got it, but that is what this game does, it can be a cruel cruel game, we have to pick ourselves up Monday and go again and that is what we are going to do.”
On the last play of the game:
“Well it was a penalty, there is no ‘it could have been’, the foul takes place inside the box and we been awarded a free kick 4 yards outside the box. I will let you think about that one yourselves without me getting into any trouble.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO FORWARD WILL BRUIN
On his opportunities early on in the game:
“I saw Giles [Barnes] get in and I peeled off the back post and it was a little far to head it. I had Brad [Davis] behind me I could have laid it back to him but I honestly thought I was a little closer and I could maybe head it over him but it didn't do that. On the second one it was a long ball down the line and I was in. My second touch got a little away from me and I thought [Jaime] Penedo was going to come out and he didn't so I tried to slide it to my lower right and it was just chopped and it got up a little too high and it hit him in the gut. I wanted to go bottom right but the second touch was a little too far from me.”
On Robbie Keane:
“Obviously he is a world class striker. When he is in the game you have to have eyes on him the whole time so that kind of changes the dynamic of your defense you always have to be aware of where he is at. When he gets the ball they go. The offense kind of goes through him. When he came in obviously we have to be on our toes, we have to know where he is on the field at all times. I thought we handled it pretty well but just unfortunate at the very end.”
On tonight's game:
“I thought in the first half we could have been better but the important thing is that we kept at zeroes. I think we all know that we could have played better in the first half but we didn't really hurt ourselves with the way we came out in the second half we played much better. We kind of controlled the tempo for the most part. We had our chances we just couldn't convert. We played very well until the 93 minute or something when they got the header so it is very unfortunate. Have to go back and look because I am not sure when Dave [Horst] was fouled if he was in the box or not so I have to go back and look at that. It is just a bad taste in our mouth with the way that ended.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO GOALKEEPER TYLER DERIC
On tonight's game:
“On the day I thought we fought hard as a group and I don't remember that having too many clear cut chances on goal, I didn't have too many saves to make. That is why it is unfortunate to lose the way we did especially with a header in the last couple of minutes in the game. It is really tough to take.”
On the Galaxy's goal:
“I think we got caught a little spread out and I think it was late in the game and we could have been more organized and that falls on my shoulders and I'll take responsibility for that but I think as a team we played really well and fought hard the whole 90 minutes.”
On Houston's performance in the first half:
“That is the way the game was going in the first half. They were pressing high up the field, they had a lot of options up top, they were stretching us. I thought we did a great job of staying organized and staying compact for as much as they wanted to pull us apart and they had at least four options up top, so all our centerbacks were picked up with guys I just thought we did a great job in the first half.”
