VIDEO: Los Angeles Galaxy Hit Their Stride In Rout Of New England

Jul 12, 2014; Carson, CA, USA; General view of the MLS match between Real Salt Lake and the Los Angeles Galaxy at StubHub Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

A good team in Major League Soccer always finds consistency. You see this with teams like Sigi Schmid’s Seattle Sounders and Peter Vermes’s Sporting Kansas City: two sides who, of course, are at the top of their respective conferences. The great teams transition that into playoff success. One of those teams that have done so in years past is Bruce Arena’s Los Angeles Galaxy.

Now with a string of unbeaten matches, the memory of their 5-0 defeat to Jay Heaps’s New England Revolution last year fueled the fire to deliver a similar result. Well, at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., they came close. The problem was that Ricardo Salazar was the man in the middle. A conceded penalty converted by Lee Nguyen prevented the same exact scoreline dealt on the Revolution, but otherwise, the 5-1 victory for the Galaxy mirrored that performance by the Revolution in last year’s meeting.

Arena addressed the media following one of the most convincing results of the season for Los Angeles.

Let’s now take a look at six things we learned, followed by player ratings, for the match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New England Revolution.

1. 10 vs. 10 Football – A Wide-Open Match

Both teams saw a player sent off, and it all happened in the first half. A.J. Soares was sent off for a dangerous challenge for New England, while Galaxy defender Dan Gargan walked to the showers per the DOGSO rule. The latter proved to do more harm than good for Los Angeles in the short-term, as Nguyen added to his season tally with what would end up as the only goal of the night for New England.

2. He’s Back – Robbie Keane Gets Back To Scoring

The chants of “KEANO! KEANO!” among the 17,000-plus in attendance were reverberating all around. Keane scored his first goals since May 25: a brace against a team that was a pain in the cat’s pajamas last year.

“Sometimes when you see opportunities, sometimes they’re half-opportunities,” Keane told MLSSoccer.com’s Scott French. “When you see opportunities tonight, most of them are really on-goal opportunities, where you have a chance to score. We’ve certainly created a few chances that we probably should have scored [in recent matches], but I think tonight was the old Galaxy, where we were creating clear-cut chances for people, and that was the difference.”

3. Thanks For The Oil Change, Gyasi Zardes

The answer to that question: the Galaxy Academy via Cal State Bakersfield. Zardes is making this year his year. He now has six goals this season and scored a brace against New England, which we will show you below.

Scenario: if Zardes scores a second half goal, all fans in attendance receive a free oil change from Tire Plus. Not like most of the fans will need it, but it’s nice to know that their car’s machinery will be taken care of without paying a dime. At the same time, there may be some catches with that, but I digress.

More from Los Angeles Galaxy

Now what makes Gyasi Zardes special is a certain intangible: he is no Freddy Adu. The difference between Zardes and Adu is that Zardes shows humility in his progression as a player for someone his age. Whereas for Adu, humility is not something he stomachs, sady. Sure, the accomplishments are great, but for Zardes, it’s the personal improvement that is really important. In fact, with Zardes being a constant scorer these days for LA, who really needs Adu suiting up for the Galaxy? Moving right along…

4. Stefan Ishizaki: the new Landon Donovan?

Historically, Landon Donovan has been the default set piece specialist for the Galaxy. Nowadays, other options are kicking their balls into the onion sack. One of those options is Stefan Ishizaki. Watch the trajectory of this set piece free kick. It bounces off a Revs defender but still has the English to go in. In the words of New England Sports Network’s very own Jack Edwards: “That’s Why He’s Here!”

5. Meanwhile, at New England…

The high tides seems to be turning violently this season against the sinking ship that is the New England Revolution. Boston Strong has turned into Boston Meek. The loss to LA now makes it six straight defeats. Matthew Doyle, MLSSoccer.com’s very own Armchair Analyst, dissected the sad situation back east.

"“The summer doesn’t get any easier,” wrote Doyle. “They’ll be on the road again, this time at FC Dallas, who are unbeaten in four and rounding into form after spending most of the spring and early summer nursing various injuries.”"

“At halftime it really felt like we were going to come out and make a difference,” said Heaps to Doyle. “We really had chances there, even before the half.

“That’s why I said that third goal, to me, was an awful goal to give up. That was the goal that we have to respond from but couldn’t. But credit LA. They brought their scoring shoes tonight, and they scored their chances.”

6. Los Angeles is third in the West for now

After the set of midweek games, the Los Angeles Galaxy find themselves in the middle of the MLS Western Conference race. They move up to third in the West and could move up to second with a win against Sporting Kansas City and a Real Salt Lake loss. Even with that happening, the Galaxy will need to cover a lot of ground to catch up with the Seattle Sounders, who are taking the week off so that the rest of the league can catch up.

Eastern Conference

#	Club	PTS	GP	PPG	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	HG	HGD	RG	RGD
1	Sporting Kansas City	32	19	1.68	9	5	5	27	17	10	13	6	14	4
2	D.C. United	31	18	1.72	9	5	4	26	19	7	13	5	13	2
3	Toronto FC	25	16	1.56	7	5	4	24	21	3	14	4	10	-1
4	New England Revolution	23	18	1.28	7	9	2	24	29	-5	12	5	12	-10
5	New York Red Bulls	23	19	1.21	5	6	8	31	30	1	19	6	12	-5
6	Philadelphia Union	22	20	1.1	5	8	7	32	34	-2	16	0	16	-2
7	Columbus Crew	20	19	1.05	4	7	8	21	25	-4	8	-1	13	-3
8	Chicago Fire	19	17	1.12	3	4	10	25	27	-2	12	-1	13	-1
9	Houston Dynamo	18	19	0.95	5	11	3	20	38	-18	13	-1	7	-17
10	Montreal Impact	14	17	0.82	3	9	5	17	29	-12	12	-2	5	-10

Western Conference

#	Club	PTS	GP	PPG	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	HG	HGD	RG	RGD
1	Seattle Sounders FC	38	18	2.11	12	4	2	35	24	11	18	11	17	0
2	Real Salt Lake	28	18	1.56	7	4	7	27	24	3	12	4	15	-1
3	LA Galaxy	27	16	1.69	7	3	6	25	14	11	16	9	9	2
4	Colorado Rapids	27	18	1.5	7	5	6	27	22	5	16	8	11	-3
5	FC Dallas	26	19	1.37	7	7	5	30	29	1	19	4	11	-3
6	Vancouver Whitecaps	26	18	1.44	6	4	8	28	26	2	16	3	12	-1
7	Chivas USA	23	18	1.28	6	7	5	20	27	-7	8	-9	12	2
8	Portland Timbers	21	19	1.11	4	6	9	30	32	-2	19	-1	11	-1
9	San Jose Earthquakes	16	16	1	4	8	4	16	18	-2	12	1	4	-3

Team Statistics

Los Angeles in yellow, New England in blue

11	Shots	11
9	Shots on Target	2
0	Shots off Target	4
2	Blocked Shots	5
2	Corners	7
5	Crosses	24
1	Offsides	2
10	Fouls	11
3	Yellow Cards	1
1	Red Cards	1
471	Total Passes	392
83 %	Passing Accuracy	80 %
53.9 %	Possession	46.1 %
42	Duels Won	36
13	Tackles Won	10
0	Saves	4
26	Clearances	9

Los Angeles Galaxy Player Ratings

Jaime Penedo 7, A.J. DeLaGarza 6.5, Dan Gargan 1, Leonardo 5.5, Tommy Meyer 7, Baggio Husidic 7, Juninho 6, Kenney Walker 5, Stefan Ishizaki 8, Gyasi Zardes 9, Robbie Keane 10, Landon Donovan 6, Marcelo Sarvas 4, Chandler Hoffman 3.5

New England Revolution Player Ratings

Bobby Shuttleworth 3, Andrew Farrell 4, Chris Tierney 3, Darrius Barnes 2, Jose Goncalves 3, A.J. Soares 1, Diego Fagundez 3, Kelyn Rowe 5, Lee Nguyen 6, Patrick Mullins 5, Teal Bunbury 4, Jerry Bengtson 2.5, Steve Neumann 3, Daigo Kobayashi 3

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