Postgame Reaction

Here is the official quote sheet form tonight's game...

MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER QUOTE SHEET
SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 – LOS ANGELES GALAXY 1, NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION 0

LOS ANGELES GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On tonight’s match:
Certainly, a good win. We were challenged a lot and had to defend a lot of restarts from the New England team. Their throw-ins in the last half of the field looked dangerous. Our center backs played real well on the evening. It was just a blue collar type of game tonight. You have to win these games in this league. Obviously, both teams are missing players, and it’s never an excuse. You have to deal with it. [Josh] Saunders did a great job coming in for Donovan Ricketts. We are missing some other players. We are happy we didn’t have to use [Dema] Kovalenko tonight; we can save him for another week, which is a real plus. Obviously some other guys are missing. We’ll have some additions over the next couple of weeks, but to get these last two wins at home are very important. It helps us move up the ladder a little bit, and position our team to be competitive for hopefully, a playoff run in the second half of the season.

On Alecko Eskandarian:
I thought that obviously besides the goal, he was really pretty active. He offers us some good mobility. Partnering up with Buddle, they were able to combine and create some chances. We certainly didn’t anticipate having to play him 60 odd some minutes. He wasn’t expected to be in the starting line-up, but with the unfortunate injury with [Alan] Gordon—he came and did a great job.

LOS ANGELES GALAXY FORWARD ALECKO ESKANDARIAN
On joining the Galaxy:
It’s pretty good so for. I thank Bruce [Arena] for bring me in, and having the confidence to let me start today. It was a last second thing, but I can’t say enough about Bruce, coaching staff and my teammates making me feel so comfortable right away. I felt like I’ve been with them for three weeks instead of three days.

On his first Galaxy goal:
I know I timed my run perfectly, so I knew that I was onside, but I was just hoping the linesman wouldn’t blow the call, so I knew that I was on side. It came on my right foot, which is my weaker foot, I just wanted to guide it into the goal. With a ball like that, it was a great ball by Todd [Dunivant], you’ve got to hit it on the first time, so I did my best to keep it low and hit it toward the corner and it worked out pretty good.

LOS ANGELES GALAXY DEFENDER TODD DUNIVANT
On the win:
It’s great. It’s huge for us. We haven’t been able to put two wins together all year. Doing it 1-0 was the hard way, but it’s also a good sign because we haven’t had a lot of those victories in the past few seasons. It shows that the team is making progress, and I think the character of this team is really showing throw.

On physicality of the game:
It was a physical game. A lot of fouls. It was one of those games, again, that we scored a goal and then lost our momentum, lost our flow of play. It’s something we have to work on. I guess we haven’t been used to leading a whole lot this year, and we’ve done it the last two games.

LOS ANGELES GALAXY GOALKEEPER JOSH SAUNDERS
On his clean sheet:
It’s awesome. Ian [Feuer]’s been saying it all week—if you put the effort it and you are going to reap the rewards. It said it to me after the game, “See when you work hard, that’s exactly what comes of it.” He said he was extremely happy for me, and I ultimately trust him with everything we do. It’s definitely showing on the field.

The whole backline is awesome. Since the beginning of the year they have progressed as a unit. Their ability to move together and feed of each other and know where they each other is going to be, is great. Gregg [Berhalter] is a great leader back there. He’s hard on us. He expects the most from us. It shows. We’ve gotten a lot of results. There might not be a lot of wins in the win column, but we’ve gotten a lot of results keeping the goals now. I can’t say enough about the four guys in front of me.

NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION HEAD COACH STEVE NICOL
On the match:
Well, I guess the bottom line is that the score is one-nil, sometimes in this game you don’t get what you deserve and we absolutely deserved at least a point today. We had a right winger playing left back, we had a ton of things against us tonight, but we stood up and we showed what we are made of. We could’ve had a penalty at the end. We didn’t quite get on the end of some things in the penalty box. Whether that means we need to put a better ball in or make a better run. But, we absolutely gutted it that we didn’t get a point.

NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION MIDFIELDER JEFF LARENTOWICZ
On the team’s performance:
I’m very proud of the guys. We came out slow and we went down a goal, but everybody played hard, everybody fought hard until the last minute. There shouldn’t be a guy in the locker room that is not proud.

NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION MIDFIELDER KENNY MANSALLY
On the Revolution’s schedule:
We are unlucky because we’ve been playing a lot of games before coming here—SuperLiga and stuff like that. But, I think we did well. In the second half, we came out all out, but we couldn't finish it. The Galaxy played a great game.