Players and Coaches React to Game 1 Draw

Los Angeles Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena
On today’s game:
Well I thought it was a good game. Certainly a good game for the fans, good for television, I don’t know about for the coaches, but I thought it was a good game. We made a few mistakes that cost us and I am sure they would say the same. It was a good match, a pretty even match. It wasn’t going to be easy for either team and that was the case today. Certainly creates a heck of a second game in this playoff series.

On the two Chivas USA goals:
The first goal you have to give [Maicon] Santos some credit, it was an excellent finish. Could Omar [Gonzalez] maybe have done a little better on the play, sure, maybe Donovan [Ricketts] as well but you got to give their striker some credit that was an excellent finish. Second goal was not a good play. It wasn’t nerves it was simply a mistake. Hopefully by the 50th minute or whenever that was, nerves weren’t a factor. It was a mistake and hopefully [Omar] learns from it.

On tonight’s result:
I think in our case we give up an early goal and fight back real hard and had the lead at half but Chivas played very well the first twenty minutes of the second half. I thought we were certainly at fault after we give up the second goal not converting some of the opportunities we created. We had a couple of advantages with Landon [Donovan] and Alan [Gordon] that didn’t end up in the back of the net that could have made a difference in the game. Overall I think it was a pretty close contest certainly there were opportunities for both teams to win the game, but neither team took advantage of those opportunities. I think the second game is still going to be a heck of a contest and we’ll see who comes out the better team next week.

On Beckham and Birchall switching positions in midfield:
It was just an observance of some of the things that they were doing on the field. We thought it was best to move David [Beckham] to that spot. Really they were shadowing David with Lahoud.

Galaxy Goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts:
On the result:
“I think that the most important thing is that we didn’t lose. Next week is our home game so we just have to take advantage of that.”

Galaxy Defender Sean Franklin
On whether it was a fair result:
“Yes and no. No because we didn’t lose the game, but yes because we know that we didn’t play as well as we could have. We’ll work hard on some like our shape and we’ll get it right for our second game on Sunday.”

On allowing the first goal:
“We knew that they were going to come out flying and that the first 15-20 minutes was going to be important. And they got a goal pretty early, but we didn’t let that beat us, we fought back and got two goals in the first half, so it was okay.”

On the pace of the game:
“Everyone is pushing a little bit extra, but we’ll be fine for next week. We now have a whole week to prepare and get ready for our home game on Sunday.”

LA Galaxy forward Landon Donovan
On his overall thoughts on the game:
“I think we felt really good about were we we’re at going into halftime and then we started poorly in the second half, made a bad mistake and we let them back in the game. And that put some pressure on us. We we’re lucky not to get scored in that time. Toward the end, I thought we did good job of trying to get that third goal. It’s going to be a real home game next week and I think we are happy with were we are at.”
On the game’s physical nature:
“It’s normal. It’s normal for the playoffs and it’s normal for games versus them. I expect the same next weekend.”

On his goal:
“Very weird. He [Maicon Santos] popped it up and I just kind of got next to [Carey] Talley. [The ball] kind of bounced around. I just tried to get a toe on it and it went through Zach’s legs.”

On next weekend’s second game:
“If you told us before the year that we would have one game, a real home game against Chivas USA to advance to the Conference Finals, we’d take that in a heartbeat.”

LA Galaxy midfielder David Beckham
On his overall thoughts on the game:
“We’re kind of disappointed with the 2-2 draw and the fact that we start both halves really poorly and you get punished. That’s what happens when you reach these stages and you’re playing against a good team. I think overall it was a fair result in the end. We got some things to work on, but also there were some pluses out there. We go a goal down and then come back, that show’s the character in the team.”

On some of the game’s mistakes:
“That’s soccer sometimes. There’s certain games where there’s no errors, but today both teams made them. There’s nothing wrong with that because there are mistakes made in games and it’s about learning from them. And as a team, we will do that. It’s entertaining for the public, it’s not so entertaining for the managers and the players when mistakes happen and you don’t play as well as you can. But that’s life.”

LA Galaxy forward Mike Magee
On his goal:
“Landon Donovan did well to put the ball in a dangerous spot. Cuesta was going to clear it and I tried to put something in the way of it, luckily I did and got the ball in front of me and finished it.”