Thursday, January 22, 2009

Thursday Night Notes

In addition to announcing the March 14 friendly against Chicago at Sun Devil Stadium, there have been a couple of other news items that have come up today.

  • The club has also finalized a preseason friendly against the Houston Dynamo on Thursday, February 12.
  • Josh Boateng arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday night and made his training debut this morning under a light rain at The Home Depot Center. A native of Ghana, Boateng will wear the number 33 shirt this season.
  • Dema Kovalenko arrived today and will participate in training for the first time on Friday morning. That will leave David Beckham, Landon Donovan, Omar Gonzalez and Donovan Ricketts as the lone absentees from camp so far.
  • Goalkeeper Charles Alamo has announced his retirement and will return to school. Alamo played in one Reserve Division game for the club in 2008 but suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in a preseason friendly against Houston in February and again in his Reserve Division appearance against San Jose in August.
  • Former Cal State Dominguez Hills goalkeeper Miguel Benitez trained with the club today.
  • Sean Franklin returned today from Germany where he underwent sports hernia surgery earlier this week.
  • Shortly after his selection by the Galaxy at the SuperDraft, Kyle Patterson spoke with the Press Association (based out of England) about become a member of the Galaxy. Here is what the former West Bromwich Albion schoolboy had to say. Also, here is Patterson's headshot from back in his early days at West Brom.
  • Landon Donovan continued his strong form on loan at Bayern Munich, scoring twice in their 5-0 win over Mainz 05. Landon now has four goals in five friendlies while on loan to the German club. His first competitive game with Bayern comes on the 27th against Stuttgart in the DFB Cup, with his first league game three days later against Hamburg.
  • The Galaxy's other loan star, David Beckham has started each of his two Serie A games with Milan, helping the Rossoneri to a draw away to Roma and a home win over Fiorentina. Milan is back in action on Sunday away to Bologna.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

wonderfull, 2 more games :)

thanks for the pics, links and updates.


Ben

Anonymous said...

Great info. Thanks. I know that the competition, anticipation, nerves, and doubts are going to be all-over-the-place during these next several weeks. But, the players have got to let their professionalism, their abilities, their skills, their concentration show and be on field at all times. Ultimately, it lay to the coaches for selection decisions to be made. They players have got to keep learning, studying, practicing.
Welcome Josh & Dema - to our LA Galaxy. Hopefully, there's another training session video coming soon. Wish Charles Alamo good luck going back to school. I really hope Sean recovers completely and fully.
Landon is just on fire at Bayern. Good for him. It is so good to see him play so determined and competitively. I relaly hope things work out for him over there.
David is doing quite well, also. He is indeed trying his best to play that central midfields role. Though it's obvious he is so much more comfortable and naturally shifts to the right. It will take time - which is why this AC Milan training, playing time, playing position is so good for him.
Folks down in Phoenix are going to get a real treat getting to see David, Landon, and Blanco. Too bad that many of us can't make it to the Feb. 12th Friendly with Houston. No way to make it if it's played at 11 am on Thursday (weekday).

Anonymous said...

I am so sick of reading story's like this one http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110/major-league-soccer/2009/01/23/1074305/report-beckham-keen-on-milan-stay Tell Bruce to sell him so we can actually make the playoffs this year! Becks is not worth all of this crap!

Anonymous said...

I hope Landon stays one more year he owes it to the team and the fans. We have had to suffer through three horrible seasons