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Galaxy DPs drop five goals on Timbers in 5-3 shootout at Jeld-Wen Field

KeaneDouble (Getty)

Saturday night's match didn't start out the way the LA Galaxy would have wanted, but the rest of the night could not have gone much better.

The Galaxy shook off an early Kris Boyd goal by rattling off four unanswered goals in just nine minutes on their way to a 5-3 victory over the Portland Timbers at Jeld-Wen Field on Saturday night.

David Beckham stole the show with a pair of beautiful first-half goals, including a long-range blast and a perfect free kick. Robbie Keane provided his first of two goals while Landon Donovan added a penalty kick to give the Galaxy a 4-1 lead just 28 minutes into the match.

The Timbers made it 4-2 on a Kosuke Kimura goal but that's as close as the Portland was able to get. Keane added his second on a beautiful passing sequence including Beckham and Sean Franklin to make the score 5-1 before Boyd added a final goal in the eight-goal thriller.

Here are the match highlights:

What did you think of the match? Impressed with Beckham's performance in his first match since returning from suspension? Think the Galaxy are officially back as a title contender? See Portland being able to fix their struggling defense in time to make a playoff push?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. That first goal reminded me of Beckham’s first MLS season when he beat Perkins with a similar free kick when Perkins was in goal for DC United. I felt sorry for the poor man.

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  2. Free kick for LA’s second goal was week. Donovan got too many calls as usual. PK call was ridiculous. Keen celebrating in front of Army shows no class. Beckham getting a head injury on a cheep shot was well deserved.

    Easy to hate LA.

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  3. The main problem with the Galaxy defense is the continual decline of Sean Franklin and Todd Dunivant. They are both very good at getting forward and getting good balls into the box but their main responsibility is defense and I find my self screaming at the TV every game questioning their positioning and decision making. Every goal or almost goal you can find Franklin looking around with his hands up asking what happened and his reoccurring poor decisions to foul outside of the box (and going away from the goal like last night) are hurting the Galaxy with their known bad defense on set pieces. Dunivant isn’t as bad but he is getting beat more often these days and has some questionable passing at times going sideways and back. Omar was a huge loss for the Galaxy but teams’ abilities to consistently abuse our wing backs and draw close to goal fouls based on our backs poor decisions is what is really hurting the Galaxy.

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  4. Would you rather see a great defensive 0-0 game or a 5-3 game? Would you rather watch soccer as it is played in the Dutch league (both teams attack and emphasize offense) or like it used to be in the Italian league (both teams park the bus all game emphasizing defense)?
    The MLS should look to the Dutch league for how it, as a league, promotes attacking offensive games, including how the refs call games, how teams choose coaches and players.

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  5. Last night was Saunders’ sloppiest, shakiest game of the season, by far. It’s just fortunate for him and the team that the DPs were on fire. Sometimes offense is the best offense.

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  6. disagree on the defense.
    in fact last year’s Galaxy team, arguably the best MLS team ever, won WITH defense! Everything you cliam is missing from the league defensively was actually on full display all last year to win the MLS Cup!

    what’s amazing is how Arena has adjusted to this year’s team, its strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to last year’s, and the Galaxy are playing some incredibly entertaining games right now with goals galore, win or lose

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  7. I know this game wasn’t necessarily the best example of the league’s defensive standards. As the commentators mentioned last night, the league average is three goals per game, so eight goals is clearly an extraordinary amount.

    It simply brought to mind the way I’ve been feeling about the overall quality of the defenses in MLS, albeit in a exaggerated manner. Team cohesion within MLS will eventually catch up to the individual skill level, it’ll just take some time.

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  8. I kind’a hear what you are saying but I am not sure if you can judge the league’s defensive strength on a game like this. There are too many factors…

    You’ve got an LA team that is coming to life offensively but is struggling defensively as they lost the 2 time defender of the year (that D has issues everyone knows that). That happens to many teams in many leagues – you lose a mainstay it shows (especially in D).

    Portland is recovering from the sacking of the teams coach, who many of the guys personally liked. Plue they were being coached by a tactically inept standin (who probably now realizes what Spencer had to deal with, though truth be told Spencer had some issues of his own, he’ll learn).

    Now back to your eigh goals comment – just last year my Manchester United did something kinda nasty to Arsenal and had something equally nasty done to us by the Blue Scum. My point is games like these happen in every league and I don’t think it’s fair to judge a leagues stregth on a game like this. Is MLS anywhere near the Prem, nope. But this is not an easy league to score in, you can bet on that. If it was we’d be seeing 30+, 20+ golden boot winners every year.

    I agree with your point that MLS is getting better and I am really loving this season. This league is getting bertter and better.

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  9. Eight goals certainly doesn’t speak well for the defensive quality of the league, but seeing the DPs light up the scoresheet, and with some eye-catching goals, is great for MLS. I’m a big Kris Boyd fan, I can only imagine how he’d produce if he had someone like Beckham or Brad Davis providing regular service.

    The athleticism and individual skill in MLS is wonderful, but team defense and the ability for defenses to contribute to a cohesive attack leaves much to be desired.

    It’s come a long way and I can’t wait to see where the league is in 5 to 10 years.

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  10. Don’t see that. Two of Portland’s goals were Saunders’ fault, though, and you could see on his face he knew it.

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  11. last time I checked 2 of those goals were the goalies fault and not the defense at all (you could argue they weren’t marking the rebound but he still should have caught it!).

    As mentioned on the broadcast, its easy to blame the defense but what happened to all the sitters missed by the offense over the first 10 games. Keane should have 15+ goals already.

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  12. It was a great game to watch. Beckham’s free kicks (and his first goal was basically a free kick during the run of play) and I love watching Keane’s celebrations. Those two guys are everything you want from a DP. However, seems that LA will need to score 5 goals every game if they are going to keep winning. Defense is still not great.

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