The Los Angeles Galaxy suffered a stinging loss to a lower division team on Tuesday. Galaxy stars, Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle, who will play in tonight's 70,000 sellout MLS All-Star game against Manchester United in Houston, played 90 minutes in the game.
Los Angeles Galaxy's Edson Buddle (Photo: United Press International)
Former D.C. United forward Nicolas Addlery scored two goals to lead the Puerto Rico Islanders to a 4-1 victory over the Galaxy in the preliminary round of the CONCACAF Champions' League on Tuesday night.
"They looked more experienced,” said Donovan on the Galaxy website. “They looked like they knew what to do in situations. They looked like they’d been there before and we had a lot of young guys that played tonight that were clearly a little overwhelmed, especially after we went down.”
The Galaxy scored on an own goal by Puerto Rico defender Richard Martinez. The winner of the two-game series, determined by overall goals scored, will advance to the group stage. The second game will take place August 4 in San Juan with the Galaxy needing a 4-0 win to advance.
“At home, it is embarrassing,” said Buddle on the team website. “We’ve got to give credit to Puerto Rico. The game has a way of checking you sometimes and putting things in perspective. Now we have a bigger challenge in front of us: to win in their hometown [and] hopefully do the same thing to them at their place.”
After the loss, Galxay coach Bruce Arena and four L.A. players: Donovan, Buddle, Omar Gonzalez and Donovan Ricketts, all boarded a private plane bound to Houston for tonight's MLS All-Star Game against Manchester United. Arena will be coaching the MLS All-Stars.
How much will Donovan and Buddle have left in the tank for the MLS match?"We’ll see how my body feels and then go from there,” Donovan said.
Said Buddle: We’ll see. I’m just taking it minute by minute. Hopefully I can just do whatever Bruce wants me to do out there. We have plenty of guys out there who didn’t play [Tuesday] who can play.”
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