Edson Buddle's goal in the 5th minute was the difference as the LA Galaxy dominated the New England Revolution to win their home opener, 1-0, on Saturday night.
The LA Galaxy struck early as Landon Donovan fired a beautiful cross in from the left sideline that found the head of Buddle. The forward was able to muscle past Pat Phelan and head the ball past goalkeeper Preston Burpo.
New England struggled due to the absence of midfield stalwart Sharlie Joseph , who was out with a hip flexor injury. This created a great deal of space for the Galaxy offense to roam as New England struggled to handle the faster Los Angeles side. Without Joseph, the Revolution were unable to maintain possession and forced to resort to long balls into their strikers, a tactic that was easily handled by towering Galaxy defenders Omar Gonzalez and Leonardo.
Galaxy Goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts saw little action, but was able to maintain the shutout for Los Angeles.
No kidding! I do live in St. Louis though, so I am looking forward to seeing Ralston in action as a player/coach for AC St. Louis. He’ll be back at the MLS level when AC St. Louis becomes the next expansion team 😉 I can dream.
Agree with comments Donovan should’ve taken the shot on that last breakaway. I thought he was too reticent too shoot at Everton and it looks like that pattern is continuing with L.A. The question he should ask is, `Can the guy I’m passing to finish better than me?’ In most cases, probably not. Especially if no one’s there to receive the pass. He needs to maintain confidence in his 1 v. 1 finishing for the World Cup, if nothing else.
Something you’ve got to wonder from time to time with Donovan… I choose to believe he thinks there’s more to be gained by giving one of the new players some scoring confidence.
The left side (Tierney and Sinovic) looked good for the Revs and Schilawski also looked promising especially with so little service from the center mids. Nyassi was a defensive liability at right mid but threatening on the attack (this sums up his career to date). The center mids for the Revs weren’t very good. Phelan and Nioucky got outplayed, had lots of bad touches and passed poorly. It is too soon to judge Nioucky after one road game, so hopefully he will improve. With Joseph healthy soon (hopefully) and Petrovic just signed to play attacking mid, that should help the Revs a lot. Gibbs and Alston played well and in general the defense was good. Defense against set plays needs to improve, although if Joseph and Reis are playing that gets better for that reason alone. Burpo should have come out and had the cross that resulted in the only goal (Buddle struck it inside the six yard box). Burpo did have two good saves in the second half.
Although the SBI story reports that the Galaxy “dominated” this game, I disagree. For the most part the Galaxy did not threaten the Revs often and a 1-0 home win against a depleted Revs side shouldn’t cause people to prematurely declare them as championship contenders. The galaxy did have a number of chances in the last 10-15 minutes, but that was with the Revs pushing numbers up in the attack for the equalizer. If I were a Galaxy fan I’d hope to see Donovan moved from striker to midfield as the Galaxy midfield failed to serve Donovan effectively and he went w/out the ball for long periods of time in the game.
I watched it online and i really liked what I saw from Schilawski. If Dube could finish at all last night we could have had a decent game. We really could have used say… Steve Ralston.
if anyone is going to be rookie of the year it has to be schilawski hands down. I dont think Joseph has to worry as much as last year on the attack with this guy there now. what an outstanding player. he gave the galaxy a handfull the whole game. If it wasnt for Kovalenko also having a great game i would fear the worst i think. Go Galaxy!
Agreed. I didn’t get to watch the game as I don’t have FSC, but from the highlights I have seen we have some problems. Dube can’t finish for anything. And what was Niouky thinking when he “cleared” the ball into Gibbs’ chest? Our left side actually looked pretty good from highlights with some dangerous crosses. Anybody know how Schilawski did? All I saw of him was a pretty good moment in the box where he laid it off to Dube nicely.
hey dude, you should be a headline writer. As for LA, they were breathtaking to watch. The speed was something unparalleled in mls. You could see Donovan dripping with confidence and maturity. I hope the display made Becky want to get on the field much sooner then possibly sept…like perhaps august. I just wish it had been a full house.
Indeed, I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud but that was probably one of the most poorly played games I’ve seen in a while except for the free-kick goal and the last 15 minutes or so of the game.
The passing was so bad I had to turn this game off after 60 minutes.
As a revolution fan I think I’ll be seeing this scoreline a lot this year
The Galaxy had plenty of chances to score more but they couldn’t take advantage of it. It may be that they need to play together more to learn what everyone will do or (I fear) that Buddle is just not good enough.
I loved the Donovan interview after the game. He was asked if Goldenballs had given any advice to the team and said that the man was on a lot of drugs at this time.
The tale of two halves. LA dominated the first, NE dominated the second.
WTF was Donovan thinking on that breakaway by not shooting? Easily should have been 2-0
I’m happy with the result
They’re all old nat teamers too, right? Arena calling on his boys.. 😉
The new Brazilian Centerback, Leonardo, had plenty of shaky moment in this game. Had the Revs had a healthy Twellman then I can see the Galaxy losing this game. Luckily it was an out of form Kheli Dube wasting the chances for the Revs. Juninho showed flashes of his brilliant offensive play but I’m not too convinced on Alex Cazumba other than more speed than Lewis.
On another note, what was Arena thinking when he assembled this team with plenty of old men? Berhalter is injured before the season kicks off and then Eddie Lewis gets injured after only 25 minutes. Kirovski and Mathis are struggling to get game fit as well.
hahahaa “Bundle”….it could be worse. They could have made a bad pun headline as well such as:
“LA closed its season opener with a Bundle of confidence”
This is the headline over at ESPN Soccernet:
Bundle leads Galaxy past Revs in 2010 opener
Sorry Posh Spice, LA aint going anywhere.
New England’s offense is terrible, just as expected.
Back to drinking.
Landon looked great tonight. A little to unselfish at the end but, he is really hitting his prime. Omar is the next great defender for the US.
Once Beckham comes back and feeds Donovan service, this team will walk to the cup.