Los Angeles Galaxy vs. New England Revolution: Shipping Up to Boston

Bruce Arena's Los Angeles Galaxy will look to rectify a couple of wrongs when they take on the New England Revolution on Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

First, they'll be looking for payback after being embarassed by the New England Revolution on July 10 of last year at Gilette, when goals from Marko Perovic in the 67th minute and Sainey Nyassi in the 73rd minute shut out a rather dismal performance from Los Angeles.

Second, there is the 1-1 draw in the rain against New England at the Home Depot Center on March 20 of this year.

Thus, Los Angeles are currently running a two-game winless streak against the Revs and will look to get right on the East Coast.

“I don’t think you need to be a genius to figure this one out," Arena told reporters following the game against the Houston Dynamo.

"It’s real challenging. On top of it we go across the country, which we experienced a couple of weeks ago. I think this is not a good way to schedule, but it is what it is.

"It’s going to be a real battle and on top of it we will be on an artificial field. It’s going to be really challenging. I don’t know the answer to it at this point. We’ll try to figure it out in the next couple of days.”

Los Angeles (7-2-5, 26 points) are coming off a 1-0 victory over the Dynamo on Wednesday night at the Home Depot Center and are running a three-game winning streak on top of a five-game unbeaten streak.

As for Steve Nicol's Revolution (3-4-4, 13 points), they are coming off a 2-1 defeat to the San Jose Earthquakes in league play and an embarassing 5-0 whitewash to cellar dwellers Sporting Kansas City in U.S. Open Cup play.

(A little aside, here's a news flash for you: Sporting Kansas City knows how to win after all. It's a rarity nowadays, but it can be done.)

While Juninho equalized for LA in the 39th minute in March, they were unable to overturn the third-minute goal by Shalrie Joseph, a player the Galaxy will look to frustrate at the Razor.

After this match, team captain Landon Donovan and goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts will be competing in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June.

Joseph leads the team in goals scored with four, and also has an assist. This will be his last game with the Revs before he fulfills national team obligations to Grenada for the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Another player to watch out for offensively for New England offensively is Benny Feilhaber.

Feilhaber's experience playing in Europe makes him the best provider on the team, so look for a solid outing from New England's No. 22. And like the two Donovans on the Galaxy side and Joseph, Feilhaber will be taking off for national team duty after this match, so Saturday is also a bit of an audition of sorts for the Yank before country calls.

Defensively, Kevin Alston and A.J. Soares leads a Revolution back line that has to be reeling from a defeat to the league's worst side in U.S. Open Cup play.

The question for the unit will be whether or not they have the grit to regroup and pull off another impressive result.

Most of the hard work on March 20 came off of goalkeeper Matt Reis. Reis has a 3-2-3 record to go with 30 saves, 73.2 percent save percentage and a 1.00 goals against average.

Ricketts owns a 5-1-4 record, to go with an 81.3 percent save percentage, a 0.60 GAA and 26 saves on the year.

Beckham's return should lead to a number of chances off of set pieces for LA's No. 23. Beckham currently has six assists on the year to lead the club.

As for Donovan, he leads the team in goals with eight.

“We knew this was going to be a challenging week," Donovan said.

"Playing against Chivas is always an emotional game and a physically demanding game, and then Houston every time you play them, you feel it the next day. It’s a team that really battles and gets after you physically. We knew that was going to be challenging and then we have to turnaround and be on a flight, a long flight, tomorrow.

"The good thing about this team is, we could make 10 changes for Saturday and still feel fine about our chances. That’s the strength of this team. I’m sure there will be some changes, and we’ll see how many there are, but we are going to be confident that we can go in there and win.”

Los Angeles won their contest against Houston with defense, and the back line of Sean Franklin, A.J. DeLaGarza, Omar Gonzalez and Todd Dunivant will look to deal more of the same against the struggling Revs.

"I thought our backline played very well," Arena said on Wednesday.

"Ricketts wasn’t really tested, but obviously with the play with [Todd] Dunivant at the end of the game, he had to come off his line and block a shot. He did well. For the most part, we were really good in the defensive end of the field. In the attack, we just had to be a little bit sharper to try and get another goal. We didn’t get it done there.”

But this match could go down to one battle: the Galaxy forwards vs. Reis and the Revolution defense. Consistency has been hounding Juan Pablo Angel and Chad Barrett.

If neither one is able to product tonight, the winless streak for the Galaxy against the Revolution could bump up to three. Watch for others like Birchall and Juninho to join the firing squad against Reis.

Prediction:
Major League Soccer, with its parity and what-have-you, is a dog-eat-dog world. This is a tough contest awaiting the Galaxy, who will need Beckham's services—literally and figuratively.

If they can capitalize, and the defense neutralizes Joseph and Feilhaber, the Los Angeles Galaxy will be shipping out of Boston with a hard-fought win.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2, New England Revolution 1

Kickoff is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. PT/8:00 p.m. ET and will be televised by Fox Sports West and Galavision.