LOS ANGELES GALAXY 3, COLORADO RAPIDS 2
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH RUUD GULLIT
On the match:
"I think it was a crazy match for a coach. I think that the first half we played very good. It was a good match. Good goals also. I enjoyed watching my team. I think the send off of Alan Gordon was a critical moment for the game itself. He gave us so much space, so much running and everything. It could go either way. I think the second half instead of being four-nil up, we made it difficult. Unnecessary. It was a crazy game."
On losing international players:
"It's important to play with all your players, also Landon Donovan isn't here. He's scored nine goals for us, and he's with America. It's really hard for me to still play while your players are having international duties. Normally, you have a break or something like that. That break would be perfect also for your players. In Europe, you play a lot of games, like here, but here you also have a lot of traveling. It costs a lot of energy. Time difference and all these kinds of things. It would have been nice if we had a break in the period when they play international games. Unfortunately, it's not like that."
On the defense:
"I think the first half we did really well. If you see the opportunity we had today, of course you say, how did you defend, but because all of a sudden we gave it away the attention comes to yourself. The defense had nothing to do with it because it has to do with what you do up front. Every ball go forwards, every ball goes backwards. We had Edson there and we had [Alan] Gordon there. He could hold the ball, and then the midfielders could go forward. Every ball comes backwards. For us, it started up front."
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER DAVID BECKHAM
On the game:
"It was an interesting game. When you play as well as we did in the first half, 10 minutes into the second half lead by three goals, we made it difficult for ourselves because we stopped playing the ball around. We stopped keeping the ball and being in the locker room it's like we lost the game. We're disappointed in the way we played in the last 30, 35 minutes, but we got three points. We knew it was going to be a difficult game tonight. We know that they have a lot of quality. It was an important game for us to win, and we won it. Three points was important, but we still have to work on a few things. We're happy with the three points, but a lot of hard work to still be done."
On the ejections:
"It shouldn't have really much difference because both teams are playing with 10 men. There just should have been more space on the field and there just wasn't. It was a lot more space to pass the ball around, but when you don't kick the ball, you don't keep possession. It makes it makes it a tough game, and that's what happened 10 minutes into the second half. We stopped playing our football. We kept on giving the ball away and it made it a difficult game. When they've got players like they've got on their team, they are going to create chances and they did."
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER ELY ALLEN
On the win:
"Obviously, a win's a win. I'm sure we'd like the scoreline to 3-nil, but a 3-2 makes me have the game winning goal, which is also good. We're happy with a win. A win's a win, and I think that's put us in first place, if I'm correct."
On Colorado's goals:
"I was a little nervous. I put the towel over my head, closed my eyes with five minutes left, but you have to put trust in your teammates, and I did. 3-1, I was like 'OK, one goal.' 3-2, I was like 'uh, OK.' When the referee finally blew the whistle, it was a big relief."
On his emotions on scoring his first goal:
"I mean obviously I'm pretty excited. Right now I don't think it's come out but when I get home, away from everyone I think it'll be crazy. I'm very excited. I'm relieved to get the first goal."
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH FERNANDO CLAVIJO
"I thought they played well in the first half. They dominated. We had some chances. We had a tough time putting together chances. In the second half, I thought it was better. When we needed to I thought had the urgency to go forward. I thought we did a good job of attacking their goal. We talked about that at halftime. We did a good job of trying to create something. In the second half, we took better shots than we did in the first half. Today, they took advantage of things when they needed to and got the result."
COLORADO RAPIDS MIDFIELDER COLIN CLARK
On the result:
"We struggled in the first half. We commit more than we have to sometimes. The second half we were better. We got a couple of goals, but in the end we couldn't find our equalizer, which is always frustrating."
