The Los Angeles Galaxy begin their quest to repeat as MLS Cup champions tonight when they take on the Vancouver Whitecaps in the Knockout Round match at Home Depot Center (10:30pm, NBC Sports).
The Galaxy overcame a terrible start to the season to reach the playoffs, and hit an outstanding second half that has them looking every bit like a title contender despite having to play in the wild card round. They will be heavily favored tonight against a Vancouver side that managed just one win on their last ten regular season matches.
The Whitecaps defense will be key to the visiting team’s chances tonight, having allowed just one goal in their past four matches. Jay DeMerit and Andy O’Brien will have the task of trying to slow down red-hot Robbie Keane and playmaking maestro Landon Donovan.
If you will be watching tonight’s action, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below. You can also follow SBI on Twitter (@soccerbyives) for match updates.
Enjoy the action.
won’t beat San Jose playing like that.
If the penalty was “blatant” in the LA box, how can the two on Donovan not be in the same class? Your hate is delicious.
Twitter exploded calling Donovan out on his dive and now a blatant penalty not given to Vancouver as Gonzalez slaps a Vancouver player in the face and trips him?
Hard to take the league seriously when it comes to the Galaxy.
(sorry I just HAVE to, sorry but I do)
Yeah but at least Barca are perfect little angels with ZERO play-acting/diving/etc to influence games their way, right??? Riiiiiiight???
No.
Busquets dives pretty frequently. Doesn’t make it right and doesn’t mean I can’t criticize blatant dives when others do it.
I think it might have been a dive. But given the missed call in the first half, wouldn’t you call it cosmic justice?
I have no patience for this comment. That scenario could happen in EPL, La Liga, any league in the world. Tell me what league’s fans would say they love their refs??? Good game with shaky ref-ing all around, though Keane and Beckham played really hard, looking forward to the next round.
Yeah I’m sure twitter exploded considering there was an nfl and nba games on tonight
Done with MLS for the playoffs.
Officials going to F every team that’s not LA. That’s is abundantly clear now. Later.
Wow this league is an absolute joke.
What a freaking joke.
if you had cried when Landon was fouled in the area at the end of the first half like you do on other stuff I’d have more respect for your in game posts. you don’t do that though. you just post your agenda
Yeah, that wasn’t a foul.
There’s no agenda to seeing Donovan dived. I’m a Fire fan as it is. And regardless of my agenda, Donovan still dove. My agenda doesn’t change that fact.
he didn’t outright dive, but the fact you posted nothing about him being tripped in the area with no call in the first half says it all on what you see and don’t see
It was the first thing I said.
“Yeah, that wasn’t a foul.”
Beachbum, some advice, don’t bother arguing, attempting to reason with Liga. His middle name is hyperbole. The worst. The most. Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Bob Loblaw.
Definitely entertaining tho. Can’t begrudge him that.
I would prefer Ray Hudson thank you.
Liga? Talk about a league full of floppers. Hi Ronaldo
Mickey Mouse league officiating strikes again.
Not only was that not even a foul, you could argue Donovan deserved a card for embellishing. He’s such a b*tch.
Makes up for the clear penalty in the first half…
If Luis Suarez did that this entire website would be hating on him for diving.
That was utterly pathetic from Donovan and even more pathetic from the commentators to say, “oh the defenders arm was on his chest and he clearly had to be thrown to the ground.”
how quickly the game devolves once people start going to ground easily. And I remember after Dempsey’s dive at the end of the Guatemala game thinking “I didn’t know the foreign influence on diving came from America.”
Vancouver has blown this, should have put it away 2-0
The moment where Landon rediscovers the fire?
I had exactly the same thought. Landon looked pumped up after that one, hopefully it comes out to the USMNT. Just before the pk Keane broke a sick move to be in on goal, LA is relentless at the moment.
Ehhhhhh not sure about that pk call. Will have to see replay
Oooooooo I wouldn’t call that a PK. Ugh hate that
It was a pathetic call. Donovan flopped to the ground like a fish.
agreed. close call. both fighting for the ball. not sure i saw much of a foul, more so bodying eachother
Wow.
Pathetic flop from Donovan. Landycakes.
Wrong.
Penalty for LA! I think the ref got it exactly right, it was a foul but definitely not a RC
Magee loves doing big things as Mr Underrated when no one expects it. ThanksJesus for Magee
You mean thank Magee for Jesus.
Magee! NO SH*T! Mr. Comes Up Big Again!
Magee AGAIN!
Beckham is playing his a$$ off tonight, mad respect whatever happens with the game
Great second half after medicore first half. Great response from him second half
Holy HELL. What Fuster Cluck! I can’t believe LA isn’t down 2-0 after that!
WOW! Vancouver could have sealed the game.
Ay ay ay. C’mon Gals. Quit playing like a bunch of gals!
and now Marcelo does enter for Jiminez in the 52nd minute
Good call. Now we’ll see if coach Beachbum could win LA a game 😉 hope youre tactics are right
I really can’t see Vancouver holding up against this constant pressure for another 40 minutes.
amending my comment to now read “another 30 minutes”
I’m getting nervous now …. Like for realz
You heard it here first…eventually.
Half-time stats: shots (og), LA – 13(3), Van – 3(1)
Possession: LA 73%, Van 27%
If LA can’t find a goal or two, they deserve to lose and drop out of the tourney.
down a goal at the half, your statement is mathematically accurate 🙂
I get what you’re saying though
Game has been reffed evenly so far. Glad to see no issues there so far *knock on wood*
Andy O’Brien found a way to stop Donovan there, by running over him.
LA still can’t fill their modestly sized stadium for a playoff game? With Beckham, Keane and Donovan? It’s barely half full.
They have an agreement with the stadium HDC is on that they have to limit attendance for midweek games because of parking issues. It’s usually limited to 7k for midweek games but they negotiated 20k
*campus instead of stadium
who does that?
The land where they built the HDC belonged to the California State University-Dominguez Hills system and they negotiated that since they had the leverage as they had the land LA wanted…there was other land about 3 blocks south but that was developed into retail space
Modestly? It’s the Biggest Soccer Specific Stadium in all of MLS and the 2nd biggest in MLS if you only take into account the Soccer configurations and if you want to talk about the parts they can easily open it’s the 3rd since Vancouver can seat about 50k at BC Place if needed, but LA still has the 2nd highest attendance despite places like NY and Vancouver have larger capacities with realistic abilities to pack more than 20k..
But like Colin in MT said, they have an agreement about Midweek games….as it happened last year vs the Red Bulls, when there was only a limit of 20k allowed and they pretty much filled the stadium to that 20k… The agreement is that during school semesters if they play in the middle of the week they can only have a limited crowd
attendance is pretty week but its a school night so galaxy were only allowed to sell a certain number of tix
Helluva save!
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but what’s the deal with this Harvey character? Man he looks turrible. His futile attempts at crossing could be better performed by my sister ( no offense ladies).
Demerit having a great defensive game tho.
Vancouver GK doing a good job coming out on corners thusfar.
another great save off Beckham free kick
At this point man of the match is going to Vancouver GK. He had a fantastic first half.
Knighton has been great
Knighton with the first bobble of the night.
Gals amping up the pressure. LA goal coming soon.
Beckham not playing well yet, 40th minute. LA up the flanks aseemingly at will to cross it in, but haven’t won too many headers in the area and the ones won were not converted.and now an open net is missed by Omar, served up by Landon. lots of Galaxy chances just no cigar yet and Vancouver converted there chance nicely
What is the attendance at this match? It looks somewhat empty to me.
Maybe but it doesn’t sound empty. You didn’t enjoy the Boy George Galaxy song?
No problem with Boy George…I guess I was just shocked to see so many empty seats for a wild card playoff game. (Admittedly haven’t watched a lot of MLS this season.)
Lol, I was just being “ironic” (ask TomG about it) regarding the Boy George comment.
But honestly It’s not too surprising that there are some empty seats. While it sucks maybe it’s not entirely surprising still.
You mean TomG of “Donovan can’t talk about his current feelings about his career because of Hurricane Sandy” irony?
The very one! I think there is irony, and then there is TomG irony. They are quite different and the latter can be used in a wide variety of instances. Maybe we need another word to differentiate the two? Tomirony? Tirony?
How about “irony”? Or maybe NOTirony?
Oh Mem, you continue to flaunt your ignorance. So funny. It’s like you’re proud of it. What you just used was “sarcasm” not irony. Every word you say only continues to prove my point (and unfortunately make everyone around you that much dumber). You just make it so easy.
LOLZ. Again. Oh man this is rich. Ok so NOT ONLY do you not understand the usage of irony, you clearly do not understand the usage of quotes.
TomG, you’re just like this guy I was playing soccer against tonight. He was tasked with marking me and because I pretty much had him in my pocket all night, he was resorting to cheap shots like elbows, grabbing jersey and whatnot to gain a advantage over me. I just turned to him, gave him a little wink and told him how much I enjoyed it; it only made him angrier and he resorted to threats and name calling. You’re like him. You can’t handle getting owned so you bust out the cheap tactics. The only one who ends up looking bad is….well that guy, and you.
Hahaha always the funny one, Mem. Yes, clearly I’m the one getting upset :). BTW, I know you’re challenged in this regard, so I’ll be clear. That was sarcasm, my girl.
Just to clarify, my comment was meant to be sarcastic, not ironic. An example of irony would be someone who mistakes inanity for irony lecturing everyone else on the meaning of irony.
Where is the crowd
How in the world is that not a yellow card?!?!?! What a reckless challenge. Wow some real LA bias early on.
Meh. I think ref got it right. Both players challenging similarly for the ball. One got a little rougher end of it but no malice whatsoever and it was a 50-50 ball
Sarvas for Jiminez. Neither are true right backs but Marcelo is a ball player, plays with confidence
Whitecaps countering right now and it’s working for them. LA better start creating so good looks so they can take down some Vancouver swagger.
*some* good chances
Jiminez exposed in just the third minute at right back, in there for Franklin…goal Mattocks.
Ouch. Mattocks. That hurts.
So irritated with my tv package lately. Paying out the ass for the sports package and HDDVR on directv and yet it doesn’t carry NBCS. Oh and don’t get me started with the lakers and TWC. Greedy bastards!
So, TSN or NBCsn – who will be least annoying?
We were all being trolled by Canada. Way to go, ‘Caps.
ok, seems to be on now…
NBC sucks, come on get the pop warner football game over with!
anyone have any stream suggestions?
Atdhe.eu had loads of links
Btw the trick with atdhe.eu links is to get the feed to full screen. You do NOT need to download ANY software to watch any of the links (it’s malware). If a link isn’t working it means it isn’t working. There is no need to download ANYTHING. It’s all spam. Once you figure out how to ignore ALL the stupid ads and get a feed to full screen atdhe.eu is one of the best places online to get feeds.
Thanks guys. Found one.
wtf? So has the game actually started? Can’t find it anywhere.
It is super frustrating when sports channels schedule games back-to-back w/out any fluff buffer in between. So irritating — annoying to race home to see some garbage you aren’t interested, annoying to have your DVR cutoff the end of the game because the game didn’t start on time. Just annoying in general. Hope this isn’t how they treat the premier league too.
Wow. And we thought that we were growing. Oh no! OVERTIME. WTF?
NBC needs to move that CFL game to another channel.