Galaxy Lose in Pre-season Tournament
Feb. 22, 2008
David Beckham's first pre-season game of 2008 ended in disappointment with his Los Angeles Galaxy side losing 1-0 to Japan's Gamba Osaka in the first Pan-Pacific Championship semi-final on Wednesday.
The English midfielder played the entire game at Aloha Stadium but was unable to prevent his team losing to their J-League opponents. He was involved in an angry exchange with Brazilian Lucas after a heavy collision in the second half.
Brazilian striker Bare scored the winning goal in the third minute, firing a left-foot shot past goalkeeper Steve Cronin.
"It is always disappointing when you lose the game but when you don't start off properly that happens. For the first 15 minutes we were terrible," Beckham told reporters.
"It is nice to be back on the pitch and we are still trying to get our fitness back."
Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit added: "We thought David might only play 30 minutes because we were concerned about the artificial turf but he felt good out there so we kept him on."
Los Angeles will face Sydney FC in the third-place playoff on Saturday after the Australian side lost 3-0 to Houston Dynamo in the second semi-final.
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The Galaxy opened their stadium, the Home Depot Center on June 7. But in order for their home to be ready, the team had to play a record 8 games to start the season and failed to win a game. In fact, the Galaxy finish the season without a win away from home the whole season. After the season's final game, the Galaxy had the final playoff spot in the West. In their aggregate series with the Earthquakes, they seemed well on to vindication for the MLS Cup loss 2 years earlier as they held 4 goals to 0 lead midway through the 2 nd game. A thing happened as the Earthquakes scored four unanswered goals to force a tiebreaker. In that session, the Earthquakes' Rodrigo Farina score to send the Quakes onto the next round.
In 2004 Looking to return to the top, the Galaxy would go through a mediocre 1 st half of the season before 3 straight wins over the summer. But from July 14 on, the Galaxy won only 2 more games, one in September and one in October. The Galaxy had a record of 11-9-10, good enough for 2nd in the West and the playoff, remaining the only club in MLS to have a playoff spot in every year of league in the playoffs, the Galaxy withstood an early challenge from the Rapids to win the aggregate goal series, 2-1, scoring 2 times in Game 2. In the conference final, the Galaxy's season would come to an end in Kansas with a 2-0 loss to Arnaud and the Wizards.
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