The Official Site of Landon Donovan

Thu, Aug 20th 2009, 11:28

Landon scores as the Galaxy win at Chicago

Mike Magee and Landon Donovan scored to lead the visiting Los Angeles Galaxy to a 2-0 win against the Chicago Fire on Wednesday at a sold-out Toyota Park.

Magee scored in the 23rd minute and Donovan in the 54th as the Galaxy held the Fire without a single shot on goal.

Chicago native Magee didn’t take too long to get started. The Galaxy forward made some noise in the seventh minute, forcing Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch out of his area to clear. Five minutes later, Magee sent the ball toward goal and Busch again made the save.

Jovan Kirovski sent the ball into the box to Magee left of the goal near the top of the box. With just Fire defender Dasan Robinson in front of him, Magee faked left, took Robinson off balance, then went right and had a clear shot at the goal. His shot went into the right corner past Busch in the 23rd minute.

The Galaxy defense didn’t allow Chicago many opportunities in the first half. The Fire did have one almost valid opportunity. Patrick Nyarko sent the ball into the box in the 28th minute and Cuauhtemoc Blanco sent it over the bar, without even a flinch from Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts.

Los Angeles took a 2-0 lead early in the second half. Magee took the ball and sent it in behind the Fire defense for Donovan to run onto all alone. Donovan won a foot race to the ball and out-paced Robinson down the right side into the area, firing a low angled shot under Busch for his 10th goal of the campaign.

Continue reading recap….

Landon’s post game thoughts:

On his goal:

“The ball was cleared and I jumped over Logan [Pause] and got a little touch to Jovan [ Kirovski] brought it down to Mike [Magee], I kept my run going and Mike played a great ball into me and I just wanted to get into a good spot, and hit it hard on goal.”

On scoring against the run of play

“At home the Fire does a good job of keeping possession, but they were never dangerous. They can have the ball if they want but if they are not threatening our goal, that’s fine.”

On his 200th game

“I’m very proud of it. At the end of day, it doesn’t mean a whole lot, I’d like to have 200 more but I am proud that I’ve been able to stick around that long.”

On bouncing back from the Seattle loss:

“We expect to win every time we play. We were fairly disappointed after the Seattle game so this was a big game for us and an important win for the team.”

On playing without Beckham:

“Not having David on the field hurts us for sure. The guys that played tonight did a great job, we kept them from having a shot on goal. It was a good day for us.”