CARSON, Calif. -- The LA Galaxy had three weeks to try and get things right. They will have considerably less time to try and keep it that way.
Fresh off their first victory in nearly two months, the Galaxy will face a difficult challenge when they visit Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday (9 pm ET, watch LIVE online).
Perhaps the timing is not ideal, but facing the Western Conference frontrunners is the challenge that now stands in the club’s quest to continue steering the team in the right direction.
“It’s certainly not an easy task to play three days later against, in my opinion, the best team in the league, but if we want to get back to where we were last year, these are the challenges we need to overcome,” Galaxy captain Landon Donovan told MLSsoccer.com. “Last year we didn’t make any excuses about anything, we just went about our business and we want to get back to that.”
Sunday’s match followed the same formula for success as many of their victories from 2011 did: a stingy defense, clutch saves and a timely goal.
With three points in their pockets, Galaxy players continued to change the atmosphere within the squad.
“We look [like] a much different team from when I left for sure,” Donovan said. “The break did us a lot of good like it probably did for a lot of teams. The intensity is better. There’s more competition and I think you could see in Sunday’s game that there’s a little fire back, which is good.”
The swagger from last season may not quite be all the way back but the team will need to be a bit more brash and bold than they were even just a few days ago.
“Confidence needs to be up a little bit from the weekend,” midfielder David Beckham said. “Getting a win is always good for anyone’s confidence but we need to push on from the win. We know we’ve got a tough game in Salt Lake, we know they’re a good team, we know they’ve done really well this season. We have to step it up again.”
