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Magee winner lifts Galaxy to opening playoff win over Red Bulls

MageeLANY (Getty)

The chants of "Red Bull Reject" rang out in Red Bull Arena, but the player they were aimed at didn't hear them.

No, Mike Magee was too focused on the task at hand, helping the No. 1 seed Los Angeles Galaxy post an opening playoff win against the New York Red Bulls, which just so happened to be Magee's former team.

Magee did just that on Sunday, collecting a David Beckham pass and blasting home the lone goal in the Galaxy's 1-0 victory over New York.

One goal was all the Galaxy needed as goalkeeper Josh Saunders made a handful of stunning saves and the stingy Los Angeles defense slowed down a New York attack that had been playing well in recent weeks.

"When you go on the road, you want to be in this position. To go home with three points," said LA head coach Bruce Arena. "It's a good position to be in, but this series is far from over."

The Red Bulls created more of the chances on the day, but failed to really test Saunders early on, leaving the door open for Los Angeles to jump out to the 1-0 lead in the 15th minute when Beckham picked out Magee with a long past into the penalty area. The Red Bulls defense lost sight of Magee, in part because several of their players were signaling for an offside call.

"It's a little tricky on the goal," Backe said. "First, (Robbie) Kean was offside, but I think we have seven guys raise their hand and call for an offside, and of course you can't do that.

"You can't give away a goal like this," Backe said. "You just have to be more sharp. It's a frustrating goal to concede."

The Red Bulls really began to test Los Angeles in the second half, with Saunders making a clutch stop on a Dane Richards shot early on. Saunders made arguably his best save of the day in the 50th minute when he slapped away a close-range Luke Rodgers shot.

The Galaxy had a golden opportunity to make it 2-0 when Landon Donovan got away with a push on Tim Ream and broke in free on goal, but Red Bulls goalkeeper Frank Rost made a clutch save.

The Red Bulls controlled the play late, only to see a late Marquez chance halted by another clutch Saunders save. New York never got any closer to finding an equalizer.

The end of the match was marred by a scuffle that began after Rafa Marquez threw a ball at Landon Donovan after the final whistle. Adam Cristman responded by pushing Marquez, which set off a scuffle that saw Marquez attempt a headbutt and punch at Cristman and Galaxy midfielder Juninho make contact with Red Bulls defender Stephen Keel.

Both Marquez and Juninho were issued red cards after the match, ruling them both out of the second leg, which is set for Thursday at the Home Depot Center.

Comments

  1. what’s worse? the fact that since it is a weeknight game, LA can’t sell out. Luckily they get to have more than the usual 7,000, but they can only cap it at 15,000. The contract with the college should have stated that, “In the event of a weeknight playoff game, previous agreements are null and void for each game under those circumstances.”

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  2. Should have been drinking beer with the fans ala Frankie Hejduk a couple years ago. That 2-can of beer helmet Frankie wore didn’t look any worse than the record spinning by Solli.

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  3. I think with what happened after the game yesterday, there will be a lot more people in between watching Thursday. If the game was even at 9pm (6pm LA) that wouldn’t be bad at all.

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  4. I live in LA and I completely agree. It’s on at 11 pm your time, which means kick off isn’t until 8 PM our time; that’s pretty damn late for a soccer game, or any sporting event. 6:30 or 7 (9:30 or 10 eastern) makes more sense for both coasts and everyone in between… there are people in between, right?

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  5. Rafa should definitely be out, Christman maybe, but what about Taino? The guy was throttling Juninho!

    On a side note, it was really fun watching Marquez falling on his back onto the soft grass clutching his face after tripping over Keel.

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  6. But was one of the teams involved from the East coast? If so, than the NBA is more dumb than I thought. Hope Garber doesn’t follow their lead into a lock-out.

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  7. I think one of the worst things about the next game, is that it isn’t on until 11pm EST. Don Garber has a game begging for high ratings, and he decides to have it at such a stupid time. What other league in this country has a playoff game start at 11pm on the east coast??

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  8. Seriously, DJ Solli on the decks while suspended for a red card. His finger dancing was classic, too. What an embarrassment. Not just today … this organization, this manager.

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  9. Passion, I saw that, it was cheap and the guy is showing me less class than coach.
    We need to get Ricardo Clark back in the league to kick Marquez in the ribs while he’s on the ground.

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  10. Apparently everyone missed Henry making zero attempts to avoid having his cleats ‘make contact’ with Beckham’s back towards the end of the game.

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