Defense Shines and Buddle Scores in 1-0 Win at New York

LA Galaxy 1, New York Red Bulls 0
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Red Bull Arena – Harrison, N.J.

Scoring Summary:
LA – Edson Buddle 13 (Juninho 2) 10’

Misconduct Summary:
NY – Juan Pablo Angel (Yellow Card) 59’
NY – Roy Miller (Yellow Card) 76’

Lineups:
LA Galaxy: Donovan Ricketts; Sean Franklin, Omar Gonzalez, Gregg Berhalter, A.J. DeLaGarza; Chris Birchall (Chris Klein 83’), Michael Stephens, Juninho (Jovan Kirovski 90’), Landon Donovan©; Edson Buddle, Tristan Bowen (Mike Magee 61’).

Subs Not Used: Josh Saunders, Leonardo, Bryan Jordan, Eddie Lewis.

New York Red Bulls: Bouna Coundoul; Chris Albright, Carlos Mendes, Tim Ream, Roy Miller; Rafael Marquez (Macoumba Kandji 71’), Dane Richards, Tony Tchani, Joel Lindpere; Thierry Henry, Juan Pablo Angel© (Sinisa Ubipaipovic 85’).

Subs Not Used: Greg Sutton, Danleigh Borman, Mike Petke, Carl Robinson, Seth Stammler.

Notes:
• With the win, the Galaxy are now 13-3-4 on the season and remain alone in first place in the Western Conference with 43 points. The Galaxy are now seven points clear of Real Salt Lake, who host the Columbus Crew later tonight, at the top of the Western Conference and six points ahead of Columbus in the race for the best record in MLS.
• Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena was not on the bench for the game after being released from the hospital earlier in the morning. Arena was admitted to the Hackensack University Medical Center on Thursday because of viral complications and spent two nights there before being released this morning. He watched the game from a private box at the stadium.
• In Arena’s absence, Associate Head Coach Dave Sarachan and Assistant Coach Cobi Jones led the team.
• The Galaxy made two changes to the team that lost 3-2 to Chicago in their last league game back on August 1, with A.J. DeLaGarza replacing Todd Dunivant at left back and Juninho replacing Jovan Kirovski in central midfield.
• DeLaGarza was making his first start since July 18 at D.C. United.
• In addition to Dunivant, the only other Galaxy player to miss the game through injury was David Beckham, who remains on the Disabled List after undergoing surgery in March to repair a torn Achilles tendon.
• Mike Magee was back in the 18-man squad for the first time since May 29 in a 2-0 Galaxy win at Columbus. He underwent surgery to repair a bilateral sports hernia in late June. He was placed in the Disabled List on June 24 and missed the next six games before returning tonight.
• He entered the game in the 61st minute, replacing Tristan Bowen.
• Edson Buddle, Landon Donovan, Omar Gonzalez and Donovan Ricketts were all in the starting lineup for the Galaxy after playing for their respective national teams in the middle of the week. Buddle, Donovan and Gonzalez were all in action for the U.S. in their 2-0 loss to Brazil in New Jersey on Tuesday, while Ricketts played in goal for Jamaica in their 3-1 win at Trinidad & Tobago on Wednesday. All four trained with the club on Friday before starting in today’s game.
• Buddle scored his MLS-best 13th goal of the season in the 10th minute. The goal was his first in the league since July 22 against San Jose and his fourth in six games since returning from the World Cup.
• Juninho collected the only assist on the goal for his second assist of the season and first since April 17 against Real Salt Lake. Both assists came on game-winning goals scored by Buddle.
• That goal gave the Galaxy a 1-0 lead in a game for the first time since the 2-1 win at D.C. United on July 18. LA had allowed a goal in the opening five minutes of each of their last two league games before today’s match.
• This was also the first time since that game that the Galaxy did not allow a goal in the first half of play.
• Donovan Ricketts made two saves to earn his 10th clean sheet of the season and his first since June 26 at Toronto FC. The 10 shutouts are one more than Ricketts recorded in 2009, his first year with LA.
• Ricketts is now one shutout shy of tying Kevin Hartman’s record of 11 clean sheets in a single season, which he set in 1999.
• LA is now one clean sheet away from tying the club record of 12 shutouts in a season, which they set in 2009.
• LA had allowed a goal in their last five league games before tonight.
• The win was the Galaxy’s 13th of the season in MLS, one more than they recorded in all of 2009. Additionally, the Galaxy’s 43 points are just three fewer than they had last season.
• The Galaxy are now a perfect 13-0-0 when scoring the game’s opening goal, compared to 0-3-1 when allowing the first goal.
• The Galaxy are now 7-2-2 in 11 games on the road this season, including 3-1-2 against the Eastern Conference. This was their eighth clean sheet away from home this season.
• With Todd Dunivant missing today’s game, Micahel Stephens is now the only Galaxy player to have played in all 20 of the club’s regular season games this year. He started and played the full 90 minute in midfield against the Red Bulls.
• Donovan Ricketts played the 45th game of his MLS career tonight, while Sean Franklin played the 55th.
• Neither Chris Birchall nor Juninho were booked in the game, meaning that both are eligible to play next weekend at San Jose. Both players are one caution away from an automatic one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation.
• No Galaxy players were booked in the game after the club tied a club record with five yellow cards on August 1 against Chicago.
• This was the Galaxy’s first-ever game at Red Bull Arena. LA are now 14-13-5 all-time when playing their first MLS game at a new stadium.
• Prior to the game, the Red Bulls honored former New York and Galaxy star Clint Mathis, who retired last week.
• Injured Galaxy midfielder David Beckham accompanied the team to New York and sat on the bench with the team’s coaches during the game.
• The attendance for today’s game was a sellout crowd of 25,000.
• The Galaxy are back in action next Saturday, August 21 when they head north to take on the San Jose Earthquakes at Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. That game kicks off at 1 p.m. (PT) and can be seen live on Fox Sports West starting with Galaxy Live at 12:30 p.m. and Telefutura.
• For more about today’s game, please visit http://www.lagalaxy.com/.