SANDY — Real Salt Lake’s early scoring Saturday night wasn’t enough to stop the Los Angeles Galaxy from taking three points away from them at home as they posted a 3-2 win over the Claret and Cobalt.

“I’m really, really pleased with how we started the match and then not pleased with a lot of things from there, but I will say that I’m pleased that the guys never gave up,” said RSL head coach Jason Kreis. “To me, they were going after it for 95 minutes, there was no die, no quit in them tonight.”

RSL got on the board early with a goal from midfielder and team captain Kyle Beckerman in the ninth minute and then again with a 24th minute goal by Costa Rican striker Alvaro Saborio.

But the Galaxy came to Rio Tinto Stadium hungry and running off of momentum from their weekend win over Portland and answered back just five minutes later with Los Angeles forward and captain Landon Donovan.

Game Summary

Donovan lifts Galaxy past Real Salt Lake 3-2

Landon Donovan saw no reason to panic after his team surrendered a pair of early goals to Real Salt Lake.

The Galaxy knew they would have to be prepared for a fight at Rio Tinto and they came prepared, despite injury and their 2012 record.

“They like to attack here,” said Landon Donovan. “It’s a big field, and they’re a very good passing team, but when they lose the ball and it breaks down there is a lot of space. And we’re a team that, although we have a lot of injuries right now and we’re pretty thin, we still have a lot of guys who are capable of making a special play.”

Los Angeles also took advantage of the mistakes RSL was making and kept the pressure up, and it ultimately won them the match.

“They made mistakes and I think when you pressurize a team like we do and like we did it makes them make mistakes,” said Los Angeles midfielder David Beckham.

The RSL side agreed that they had made mistakes and took responsibility for the loss.

“It’s pretty bewildering, I think, to be up two goals to nothing and lose a game 3-2,” said RSL defender Nat Borchers.

Borchers also said, “I think we made some mistakes, I think we all know we all made some bad mistakes in terms of our possession and they made us pay. Let's give them some credit, they were definitely ice cold when it came to finishing those chances, and they deserve that win.”

RSL will be back on the pitch Saturday as it hosts the San Jose Earthquakes in the third match in just one week, and Kreis is hopeful they’ll sort out what happened against Los Angeles before then.

“You can’t do much training between now and then. It’s mostly about getting the guys recuperated, and we’ll have a chat and determine where it went wrong for us tonight and what needs to be different come Saturday,” said Kreis.

Kira Terry is a sports writer covering Real Salt Lake for KSL.com. Follow her on Twitter, @kiraterry.

Related topics