CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy’s 2010 season came to an end somewhat surprisingly against FC Dallas. Playing for a spot in MLS Cup 2010, FC Dallas stunned the Supporters’ Shield winners with a 3-0 result at Home Depot Center.
Now the teams will meet on Sunday for the first time since the Western Conference Championship, but Galaxy players say they won’t be going in with revenge on their minds.
“It’s obvious that we were pretty hurt after that game,” Galaxy forward/midfielder Mike Magee told MLSsoccer.com. “You think about it all offseason. It’s a game we definitely could have won.
"There’s no revenge factor. We’ve got a lot of games, a lot of competitions this year that we’re kind of looking forward to and I don’t think we hold any grudges against them.”
Revenge or not, the Galaxy will try to make up for that loss with a victory at Pizza Hut Park on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; Galavisión).
The teams enter the match in similar style as both won last weekend. However, FC Dallas are only now starting to deal with the absence of one of their most important players as David Ferreira broke his ankle during FC Dallas’ 2-1 win at Vancouver on Sunday and could be out for three months.
Tough FC Dallas scored twice after Ferreira left the match against the Whitecaps – including on a corner kick seconds after he was taken off the field on a stretcher — how the Hoops will look without the 2010 MLS MVP is a mystery.
“We’ll see. It’s hard to know. Obviously formation-wise we don’t know what they’ll do. Stylistically, who knows how they play?” Galaxy captain Landon Donovan told MLSsoccer.com “When you have a player that’s that dynamic, that can pull of special plays, it influences the way you play and now without him we’ll be curious to see how they play.”
Eric Avila stepped in for Ferreira in Vancouver and netted the match-winner and figures to get a load of playing time in Ferreira’s absence.
Galaxy forward Juan Pablo Angel said FC Dallas will encounter what other teams encounter on a regular basis – replacing injured and missing players.
“First and foremost, it’s a shame that he had such an unfortunate incident. They’re going to feel it, but that’s part of being a team — you have to be prepared to lose players,” Ángel said. “Surely, the manager has some different ways to replace him. It’s probably not someone with the same characteristics as him, but someone who will help the team.”
As Ferreira was the spark plug for FC Dallas’ offense, what the team does without him and who they turn to remains to be seen, and thus the Galaxy have focused on something that’s a little less of an unknown.
“(FC Dallas’ appearance) is a little bit of a crapshoot,” Donovan said. “We don’t really know, so we spent this week focusing on ourselves, and we’ll go there with a good attitude.”
