August 1, 2015 — The LA Galaxy’s First Road Win of 2015!
- Updated: August 3, 2015
On August 1, 2015, the LA Galaxy surprised all of its fans, the Colorado Rapids, and its fans, and the entire Major League Soccer community. The struggling team finally won a regular season match on the road—their first since August 20, 2014, against the Rapids!
Starting Lineups and Substitutions
| LA Galaxy | Colorado Rapids | ||||
| 1 | GK | Donovan Ricketts | 1 | GK | Clint Irwin |
| 14 | D | Robbie Rogers | 16 | D | James Riley |
| 22 | D | Leonardo | 23 | D | Bobby Burling |
| 4 | D | Omar Gonzalez | 33 | D | Jared Watts |
| 20 | D | A.J. DeLaGarza | 3 | D | Drew Moor |
| 17 | M | Sebastian Lletget | 11 | M | Marcelo Sarvas |
| 19 | M | Juninho | 6 | M | Sam Cronin |
| 8 | M | Steven Gerrard | 8 | M | Dillon Powers |
| 11 | M | Gyasi Zardes | 7 | F | Vicente Sanchez |
| 9 | F | Alan Gordon | 9 | F | Kevin Doyle |
| 7 | F | Robbie Keane | 19 | F | Charles Eloundou |
| 12 | GK | Brian Rowe | 8 | GK | Zac MacMath |
| 33 | D | Dan Gargan | 4 | D | Marc Burch |
| 21 | D | Tommy Meyer | 44 | D | Axel Sjoberg |
| 3 | M | Mika Vayrynen | 2 | M | Nick LaBrocca |
| 25 | M | Rafael Garcia | 17 | M | Dillon Serna |
| 16 | F | Edson Buddle | 10 | F | Gabriel Torres |
| 15 | F | Ignacio Maganto | 15 | F | Juan Ramirez |
Baggio Husidic and Jose Villarreal remained on the injured list, and Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard’s statuses were questionable. During their loss to the Houston Dynamo, Keane injured his right shoulder, and Gerrard suffered a slight muscle strain.
The LA Galaxy also acquired a new player—Donovan Ricketts, a goalkeeper from Orlando City SC. The team recently released Jaime Penedo after a mutual agreement to end his contract—the Panamanian player supposedly disliked the instability of it. Only a day later, LA signed Rickets, who previously played for the Californian team from December 2008-November 2011 shortly after the Galaxy won the 2011 MLS Cup with him as their starter.
At first, it seemed like the Galaxy started the match off in the same manner as every other away game this season—not well. They looked disorganized and not ready to play.
In the 12th minute, Marcelo Sarvas—a former LA Galaxy midfielder—scored a fairly simple goal. Robbie Rogers cleared the ball with a backward kick, but it went straight to Dillon Powers who passed the ball into the box. It bounced off Gyasi Zardes’s shoulder and into the feet of Sarvas. He nimbly moved it past Ricketts and into the net after the Galaxy defense pretty much just stood and watched him—except for Leonardo who performed a late slide tackle.
The Galaxy played catch up and attempted to equalize the game, but to no avail in the first half. Alan Gordon and Colorado’s Drew Moor almost broke into a small fight after Bobby Burling hit Gordon from behind. Moor and Gordon exchanged words as they set up for a free kick and kept at each other for the rest of the half. A minute later, Sam Cronin received a yellow card for talking back to the referee about the foul.
The second half changed the Galaxy’s fate. In the 56th minute, Sebastian Lletget ran down the left side of the field and passed the ball to Juninho. The Brazilian then held the ball for a couple of seconds and then returned it to him. The Rapids’ defense left Lletget wide open and he easily shot the ball into the right side of the net for the equalizer. LA finally started some real momentum!
Ten minutes later, Gordon received his own chance. Steven Gerrard took a shot that Clint Irwin deflected, and luckily Gordon stood right there. Normally, he scores using his head, but he opted for his right foot this time. With the goal open, he easily tapped it for the game-winning goal.
Robbie Keane could barely resist driving the nail in deeper. He stole the ball from Juan Ramirez and led a three-man charge with Steven Gerrard and Edson Buddle (who replaced Gordon in the 70th minute). Keane dribbled it down and then passed it to Gerrard who gave it right back. He probably should have shot it himself because he passed it rather poorly to Keane, but luckily the Irishman recovered and put it past Irwin for the last goal of the night.
The Galaxy made up for their earlier mistakes and earned their first three points on the road, but one question still sits with me. Will they be able to continue this momentum and win more away games—or was it a fluke?
LA will play the Seattle Sounders next Sunday, August 9, on ESPN. It’s a home game at the StubHub Center, so it should go well for the Galaxy—Sounders have not beaten LA there. Will we see Giovani Dos Santos start? Not sure. He hasn’t trained with them yet and suffered an injury in the Gold Cup, so it might be a week or two—who knows, though. I wonder who will sit out for Dos Santos. Probably Baggio Husidic still because of his injury.
The LA Galaxy must keep their fitness, teamwork, and momentum up. They need to win these next couple of games in order to stay in playoff position.
MLS Soccer — Donovan Ricketts Profile
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